Demo: Against Fascist Spain Saturday 16th Nov 2002,
Against Fascist Spain

Demo outside the Spanish Embassy in London (39 Chesham Place, London SW1X 8SB)

Once again we’re coming up to another 20 November, the day the Spanish dictator Franco died. This is the day Spanish fascists especially remember, as it’s also the day they chose to kill Basques Santi Brouard and Josu Muguruza MP. This year, the Partido Popular (PP), the party in government and Franco’s descendants, have escalated their repression to reach Franco’s levels. That’s why feel we need to act to express our disgust - they will certainly be having their own events in Madrid and other places.


We’ve been hearing how fascist some of the parties and
governments in Europe are. The left has reacted against the rise of LePen and against the fascist Austria of Joerg Haider. But what about those fascists governing Spain? President Aznar’s PP is the continuation of Franco’s project, and six years after they came to power on, they’re definitely fulfilling the expectations. Last 18th October Aznar’s government backed and marched in a demo against ‘Basque nationalism’ and on behalf of the Spanish nationalism. This is how politicians and the media had used their anti-terrorism rhetoric to impose their españolismo. The day after falangists (Franco’s party) went to Basque Country to march in Bilbo for the indivisibility of Spain and for a fascist state. The fascists were allowed to march while Basques can’t even protest this raise of fascism. And they even enjoyed police protection!

The Basque magazine Kalegorria exposed in its August issue the plans to create a new paramilitary group joining police
intelligence and Falange’s activity. The GAL was the previous paramilitary state project and was responsible for the death of more than thirty people in the eighties. Some of the people involved were imprisoned and some of them are still in court.

Spain has joined the Western powers to rule the world (ie, Spanish multinationals) and Aznar is always amongst the first to offer unconditional support to George Bush Junior. And he’s ‘unconditional’ because since the ‘war on terrorism’ was declared by the Yankee clown after September 11, Aznar saw the ideal opportunity to join up to increase repression on his own soil. This repression was aimed at ETA and anything to do with Basque separatism, and recently Aznar passed a law to ban parties (Parties Law) which effectively shut down the long-persecuted Batasuna. This takes the whole situation back to the times of the dictator (there is not just one party, but you can question the
current state when the only alternative are either PP or PSOE and both are the same). And what about the media monopoly and manipulation? We have to remember that since PP was in power the repression has been endless, with an active ‘18-98 process’ which has closed many organisations and imprisoned a lot of people. This is Judge Garzón’s baby.

PP also launched a war against other groups, which the
government didn’t consider such a threat before -perhaps a
confirmation of the success groups like the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) and the squatters movement were achieving. Anarchists in the Spanish state got beaten-up, framed-up, locked-up as they had never been before. The same tactics used for so long in the Basque Country were now used against all these groups. In the summer of 2002 a huge operation resulted in the detention of GRAPO (armed communist group) members inside the Spanish and the French border. This was the result of an infiltration first in the ABC and afterwards in this group.

The Parties Law has continued the marginalisation and
persecution in the Basque Country, and ignores all protest at rise of repression. Offices are evicted (even those ones of the TAT – Anti-Torture Groups), demos are banned and when they happen are attacked. Even the right to disagree with these fascist laws are forbidden – that’s fascism! The repression against the massive 14 September demo in Bilbo was brutal; this was an authorised demo that the ertzantza (Basque police) decided to mash. People got together in the front, linking arms, and some even got naked to demonstrate they had no weapons and no intentions of using force (they declared themselves ‘no-nationalists’). Two of them got beaten with batons in the face and testicles and dragged to the floor. They were detained, had they had the ‘anti-terrorist’ law applied to them, and as a result they spent three weeks in prison! Three people who the police decided were the organisers were imprisoned. The new Spanish democracy…

But that’s nothing: since that demo 44 people have been detained for an average of five days each and there have been 55 raids. All those arrested on the raids were released again – something that happens constantly in the Basque Country: random mass arrests to cause terror to the population. From these people, 33 have reported torture - including rape - when taken to Madrid for questioning. All of this has, as usual, been ignored by the judges and forensic doctors who examined them.

To all this add the repression that people suffer outside the Spanish borders. This is something that Aznar is stressing as well, in order to get more support from other governments. Catalonian Laura Riera did a year in prison (Madrid) after being framed, linking her to ETA. She has had no trial. Juanra Rodríguez was arrested in January in Holland in the same circumstances – he is still waiting for a trial. Gabrielle Kanze was also arrested in June in Germany; she is the partner of a Catalonian who was also victim of a frame-up.

If the situation on the streets is like that, you can imagine how bad it is in prison. The Spanish state imprisons many political prisoners (about 600 Basque ones). The FIES or isolation or control unit is the most brutal systems a prisoner can suffer, and any so-called political and common prisoners are locked in there for days, weeks, months. Dispersion is the other extra punishment applied to prisoners, specially to those political ones.

Meanwhile the whole country went on strike on 20 June – isn’t that a fair indication of how bad the situation is? But the PP government is side by side with the big multinationals: while ATT (temping agencies) are muscling in on the labour market and ‘junk’ contracts are replacing workers rights, the PP government passed what is known as the ‘decretazo’. This new law gives employers more rights to sack workers and deprives the unemployed from getting any benefits. This is terrorism against the working class! Once
again the ones who’ll suffer will be those who already fuck all: women, part-timers like the Andalucian ‘jornaleros’, and the situation of the already enslaved immigrants will get worse.

Meanwhile Spain continues to act as a barrier to stop people who want to get into this ever-more rotten Europe to find some alternatives to the poverty they face in their countries of origin. Hundreds die on its coasts in the attempt. Spain continues its colonisation of Latin America, controlling banks and running destructive mega-projects. In these times of murdering capitalism (globalisation, neoliberalism…) Spanish firms step firmly: Repsol YPF, Gas Natural and Cepsa (gas and oil extraction), Telefónica,
Endesa and Fenosa (the first involved in the Bio-Bio dams in Chile and the second one in the Urrá one in Colombia), and banks like BBVA and BSCH involved in Argentina’s fraud, water companies like Aguas Barcelona.

Because of all this we have the obligation of opposing this fascist government.

¡Vosotros Fascistas sois los terroristas!
Zuek faxistak zarete terroristas!
Vosaltres feixistes sou els terroristes!
You fascists are the terrorists!

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