Evacuation by the Civil Guard of the Familia Arcoiris hippie group in Benaocaz (Cádiz). EL PAÍS
On May 20, the small town of Benaocaz in Cádiz suddenly saw its neighborhood grow by almost a sixth. The 680 residents who live year-round in this white town in the Sierra de Cádiz were joined by another 100 temporary residents, the Arcoíris family. The hippie group, which organizes regular nature gatherings each year, announced they would stay until the next new moon, June 18. But the law was stricter. More than a hundred Civil Guards began evictions this Thursday after the Ubrique court issued an order to seize private property with their settlement, located next to a protected area in the Sierra de Cádiz Natural Park.
“You have a good attitude. They collect calmly and for the moment it remains peaceful. Of course it will take a long time,” they explained to EL PAÍS of the Cadiz Civil Guard. The agents showed up this morning with a significant deployment made up of various units that even included a drone to traverse the settlement area. The Civil Guard has cordoned off all possible access to the area to prevent the return of campers, including an unspecified number of minors and babies. The group had settled in a protected and rugged natural area called Fuente Las 9 Pilas, which lies between Ubrique and Benaocaz, a three-kilometer walk from the latter municipality.
It is this very place that played against the Rainbow Family itself. The group selected private land without the owner’s permission, the owner Rodrigo Mangana denounced. “From the first moment I told them that they would not camp there. I didn’t ask them for money, they offered it to me. I reported them to the Guardia Civil,” the person concerned told La 1’s Hablando Claro program a few days after they began settling in an area that Mangana normally uses to graze their livestock. This complaint, along with others subsequently filed for illegal camping and setting fires in a protected area, is the one that motivated the court order issued by the only court in Ubrique, the same Civil Guard sources explain.
The Rainbow Family, at a meeting organized in La Rioja in 2021
The Rainbow Family, which had already set up similar camps in other parts of Spain in previous years, such as in La Rioja in 2021, was soon creating conversation in a small and quiet town like Benaocaz. “We were already used to it. There were those who were in favor and those who were against, but we were fine,” explains Mayor Olivia Venegas (Cs). In fact, in the city they were already exposed to the presence of outsiders, including many foreigners who often came to the center to shop or consume in the catering establishments. “They went down and joined in and greeted the neighbors,” says Venegas.
Last Sunday they even went a step further and held a joint meeting in the Plaza de las Libertades. The video of them holding hands and singing in a circle to the earth soon went viral on social media. However, from the start the group has been reluctant to speak out to the media – especially television – and even tries to deny them access to the campsite. There the believers set up stalls and camping tents and lit bonfires. They were also accompanied by minors, although technicians could barely see two of them during a visit made to the area by the city’s social services department days ago.
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Upon eviction, the Guardia Civil identifies them with the idea of proposing them for sanctions. In addition, they are forced to remove and take away any belongings they brought with them. The group’s idea was to stay in the area until June 18th, the day of the new moon. Indeed, shortly after their arrival, the group itself made it clear that it intended to complete the 28-day lunar cycle, in a settlement where the cult of nature, coexistence, and rejection of the use of technology or mobile devices were the maxims . Much of these principles and norms stem from the first settlement established in 1972 in Colorado (USA). Since then, the family – already replicated in other countries – has conceived annual gatherings like this one. But in the Benaocaz event, in the end, it was a judge and not the moon that brought the whole thing to an end.
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