Spanish towns end experimental African hawker zones (News Feature)

Aug 26, 2010, 3:06 GMT

By Sinikka Tarvainen, dpa =

Madrid (dpa) - At eight in the evening, the 'top manta' market in El Vendrell in north-eastern Spain is throbbing with shoppers.

'Everything is fake here,' said Santi, one of the Spaniards who had come to browse over the counterfeit Montblanc watches, Lacoste shirts or Carolina Herrera bags displayed by African migrants on the street.

'But these sunglasses are real neat,' Santi told the Barcelona daily El Periodico.

Such sales are known in Spain as top manta, because the goods are displayed on blankets (manta in Spanish) at street corners or underground passages.

The sellers known as manteros are always on the look-out for police, prepared to wrap up their goods and to run if the law enforcement agents appear.

However, El Vendrell and another Catalan municipality, Calafell, decided to allow them to operate in specifically designated areas away from the places most frequented by tourists.

The measure sparked a nationwide debate about a complex problem with no easy solutions.

Manteros are nearly always Africans from countries such as Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone or Ghana.

They have no residence or work permits in Spain, and have few alternatives other than becoming hawkers, even if the profits are meagre.

Africans have more difficulties than other migrants in obtaining from their countries legal documents necessary for regularizing their situation in Spain, says Antumi Toasije, director of the Centre of Pan-Africanist Studies in Madrid.

'Black Africans also suffer from racism in Spain, which prefers to legalize lighter-skinned migrants from other regions,' he claimed in a telephone interview with the German Press Agency dpa.

Manteros sell pirated music and movies as well as falsified brand products such as bags, watches, sunglasses, shoes, scarves, belts or wallets.

Some of the products are made in Spain. The vast majority of them, however, are smuggled in from Asia and passed on to intermediaries who sell them to the manteros.

The quality of the pirated products has improved to the point that police officers who confiscate them sometimes have trouble distinguishing them from authentic ones.

'We do not steal or sell drugs ... Whom do we harm?' a mantero named Abdou asked.

Many Spaniards pity the manteros, whom they see as the last and weakest link in the piracy chain. Groups of Spaniards have even stoned police coming to interfere with the hawkers.

Catalan business owners, however, claim that illegal hawkers are doing them great damage at a time when Spain's economic crisis keeps many potential clients away.

'You cannot use (the argument of) solidarity with the hawkers and their dramatic situation to legalize fraud,' said Manuel Bustos from the Catalan Municipalities' Federation.

Toasije, however, sees the manteros as entrepreneurs rather than victims.

'There is a strong business tradition in many parts of West Africa, and manteros could contribute to the Spanish economy as a whole, if they were allowed to operate legally,' he said.

Manteros currently break the law mainly in two ways: they work without permits, and they sell counterfeit brand names.

Meanwhile, the concept of piracy itself is becoming increasingly controversial, with internet campaigners arguing that downloading or copying movies or music should be made legal.

In most Spanish municipalities, however, police pursue the manteros. They can no longer be jailed for years, after a legal reform lifted that threat in June. But they live in constant fear of losing their merchandise and of having to pay fines.

Some Catalan cities or towns such as Barcelona, Cambrils or Salou even fine people who are caught buying goods from the Africans.

Such hardline methods have been unable to eradicate the phenomenon, but the more permissive approach adopted by El Vendrell and Calafell sparked a storm of protests from local entrepreneurs and tourism professionals.

The two municipalities finally backed down this week, agreeing to resume police crackdowns on manteros from September onwards.