Puertito de Adeje: One detainee and several injured in a protest for the works of the tourist macroproject in Puertito de Adeje

The events began this Monday, around 07:00 in the morning, when it was still night. A group of people, some wearing vests that identified them as security guards for the Cuna del Alma construction site, showed up at the camp where several activists have been protesting for months against this tourism project and defending exemplary plant species with their bodies. protected species present in the area. To do this, at the beginning of the summer they chained themselves to one of the bulldozers on the construction sites. The group that arrived shortly before dawn, using powerful lights that dazzled the activists as they themselves have explained on social networks, managed to remove the chains from the mechanical shovel and take it away. What happened has been recorded on video by the campers, who have also reported having suffered attacks by these people in different publications made on their social networks. This newspaper has had access to the injury report obtained by one of the activists at the Hospital del Sur de Tenerife, in which it is stated that she has bruises and a hematoma on her head, and anxiety.

With the part in hand, several activists went to the Civil Guard to file a complaint.

An activist, allegedly assaulted by the project director

Once the shovel was removed from the camp, some of the campers went to the promoters’ offices located about 800 meters away, on the site where the works are taking place. The director of the project, Andrés Muñoz, was there, who in turn recorded several videos of the activists arriving at the facilities.

In three videos to which this newspaper has had access, it is seen how the group, visibly angry, insults Muñoz calling him a thief and corrupt, and accuses him of having attacked one of the activists on the head that same morning. Some of the protesters reach the windows of the office and bang on the windows with their bare hands. Agents of the Civil Guard and security personnel of the company try to prevent them from passing.

Alleged assault inside the office

In some images recorded by an activist, it is seen how she and another colleague manage to enter the office through an open door. They are in a room and close the door, but it opens and a man enters. He’s Andrés Muñoz, the director of the project, which holds one of them by the arm from the back and causes it to end up falling to the ground. Meanwhile, the other records and flees to the door screaming. In the complaint filed with the Civil Guard of the Adeje post, the young woman assures that, once on the ground, Muñoz kicked her several times, that she suffered dizziness and could not stand up, for which she had to be treated at the scene. for an ambulance. In addition, it is known that she has made available to the Civil Guard the videos recorded in her room by her and her partner.

Consulted by this newspaper, Muñoz has reported that he was the one attacked, since the activists “threw stones” and rebuked them. In addition, he explains that what happened in the morning was “the release of a shovel that had been kidnapped for months.” He acknowledges that there was a struggle because the campers tried to stop it. Regarding the images in which he is seen struggling in the office, he affirms that he only tried to kick them out of there. “One recorded me while the other pushed me,” he says, adding: “I manage to get one out and the other, when the Civil Guard arrives, runs away.”

The young woman whom Muñoz held shared minutes later a video in which she denies having attacked him or having thrown stones.

Neither in the videos released by the company nor in those released by the activists is it observed that Muñoz is thrown stones or pushed. There were also no attacks with tools towards the activists, but there is a report of injuries. In addition, the Civil Guard arrested one of the spokesmen for the Salvar El Puertito movement for an alleged assault committed against one of the agents.

The director of the project assures that the matter is already in the hands of lawyers to file the complaints that are necessary due to the events of this Monday. And he insists that the camp has not been evicted, but that it will be when the court decides.

Muñoz has been escorted by the Civil Guard in the middle of a concentration of rejection of the works that has been increasing throughout the day. In addition, some activists have chained themselves again, this time, to the company’s own offices where part of the events of this Monday have occurred.

In the next video Both the images recorded by the activists and those recorded from inside the Cuna del Alma office can be seen.

Rejection of Podemos, Nueva Canarias and Canarian Coalition

After the dissemination of the images of what happened on social networks, the spokesman for Sí Podemos Canarias, Manuel Marrero, has asked the Government Delegation to open an investigation to clarify these incidents. Nueva Canarias has also considered what happened as “intolerable” and has stated that violence “will never be the way to solve things.”

For its part, the Canarian Coalition of Tenerife has roundly condemned “the violent acts that occurred early in the morning in Puertito de Adeje”. In addition, it requires the administrations involved in the project to clarify what happened to purge the appropriate responsibilities. “We condemn all violent action and we demand, above all, dialogue since violence is never the way,” says the party.

The president of the Canary Islands asks for dialogue

The President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, condemned this morning’s incidents on Monday. “Unfortunate events that occurred in the Puertito de Adeje, in Tenerife. Dialogue is always the right way to solve problems. Never violence. Let everything that happened be clarified ”, he has written on his Twitter profile.

escalation of tension

This is not the first time that activists have denounced on social networks that they have suffered attacks by the employees of the promoter that carries out this project. Just a week ago they were able to record one of the workers kicking it with a plant of a protected species. As Muñoz has declared to this newspaper, he is not aware that any protected species has been uprooted and adds that the activists “systematically lie” and that this particular worker “had been harassed throughout the day until he lost his nerve.”

On another occasion, at the end of July, when several activists chained themselves to the bulldozers To protect some centennial specimens of cardons, a worker started up a mechanical shovel and hit one of the youths, who was pushed towards the chains of the moving vehicle, putting his life in danger. These are just some examples of the different incidents that have been occurring in the works of the macroproject until the tension reached its peak this Monday.

Cuna del alma, which intends to urbanize with hotels and 420 luxury villas (among other infrastructures) more than 400,000 square meters in a ravine and beach in the south of Tenerife, has two negative reports (from 2014 and 2017) and a sanction proposal by the General Directorate of Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands, which confirmed, after a report from the Island Council, that it had been destroyed irreversibly and without taking any protective measures an important archaeological site. The company has confirmed to this newspaper that it has appealed this sanction proposal.

In addition, in the environmental impact reports presented, up to seven protected plant species that are found in the area that is already being urbanized do not appear.