Friday, January 27, 2006

Letter of Tejero, the author of the coup d´etat in spain publishes: Until when... zapatero?


(Letter of Tejero, the author of the coup d'etat in Spain the 23 of February of the 1981, publishes letter in the newspaper "Melilla Today". 26/I/2006)
Until when... Zapatero?
Antonio Tejero Molina Lieutenant Colonel of the Civil Guard, expelled from the Army by the 23 F Before the news of the secret meetings of Zapatero and their relatives by marriage, as well as of his consequences, is no an answer more: Who have thought that they are that people to play with the integrity of Spain? Who are for distributing our money lavishly to Catalan parties that the only thing that they want is to command to Spain to take wind? Perhaps create to us still more lambs of which we are? It is that they are not going to stop to throw wasps to us so that the noses are swollen to us and we throw by the street of in the middle? Thank heavens that I believe that they do not have counted with the King, who just as spoke that 23 F because a revolt exploded, also will speak now, because the truth is that they are trying to break Corona of Spain of which is deposit taker. Because if not what is that of which Catalonia is a nation? It is it neither in the introduction nor in the guts of no document; in addition it it has not been never. Very cowardly we would be if we allowed that this became a vile reality. Why it is not asked the Spaniards before for countersignature if they want asi to it '.
Prayer to God, since I believe publicly in him, so that it makes reign the sanity so that it illuminates the King of Spain and so that it confuses to which they perhaps give to the mother country by 30 votes and by something still more shameful.
Madrid, 25 of January of the 2006
This is a world-wide scandal. In the middle of Europe, a state, the Spanish allows that an author of an insolvent coup d'etat threatens which the military go out if she throws ahead the statute and she is recognized what Ctalunya is, a nation. Habra that to make echo the international press of the threat that above has 7 million of Catalan, by the Spanish state which it has them threatened, as the case of Tejero, author of an insolvent coup d'etat. Scandalous.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Army troglodytes in Spain


Army Troglodytes in Spain
It is a basic principle of democracy that army officers do not publicly challenge the legitimacy of elected governments or talk about marching their troops into the capital to overturn decisions of Parliament. Yet that is just what has happened twice this month in Spain, a country whose 20th-century history compels it to take such threats seriously, even when the chances of insubordinate words' leading to insubordinate actions seems quite unlikely.
The response of the center-left government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has been appropriately firm, including the dismissal and arrest of one of the culprits, a senior army general. Regrettably, the center-right Popular Party, the main opposition group, seems more interested in making excuses for the officers than in defending the democratic order in which it has a vital stake.
Spain's swift and smooth passage to modern democracy after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975 makes it easy to forget the horrors of the civil war and the brutal dictatorship that preceded it. Those nightmares began when right-wing army officers rebelled against an elected left-wing government they considered to be illegitimate and too deferential to regional separatists.
Spanish society, Spanish politicians and, for the most part, Spanish military officers have come a long way from that era, moderating their views and deepening their commitment to democratic give-and-take. But the Popular Party has had a hard time getting over its electoral defeat nearly two years ago, days after the terrorist bombings of commuter trains in Madrid. It has never really accepted the democratic legitimacy of that vote. It is time for the Popular Party to move ahead. Spanish democracy needs and deserves vigorous bipartisan support.
The new york times: http://www.nytimes.com/

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Hostage to Catalonia


Hostage to Catalonia
Published: January 10 2006 02:00 Last updated: January 10 2006 02:00
Most future historians will note with satisfaction that when Spain, three decades after the death of Franco and the supplanting of his dictatorship by democracy, was told by the commander of the Spanish army that the military might intervene if Catalonia was to get more self-governing powers, Spain was mildly shaken but far from stirred. General Jose Mena Aguado will go down in history as an anachronism.
The days of the military pronunciamiento are over. Spain is a confident and prosperous democracy inside the European Union, a cultural and economic powerhouse and an international citizen of standing. Its federal political system - despite tensions with the Basques and Catalans - must be accounted a success.
Yet in a speech last Friday Gen Mena referred to the Catalan regional government's plans to expand its powers as a repetition of pre-civil war history (he referred to the May 1932 debates on the Catalan autonomy statute). This is reactionary blackmail. Unhappily, the general is not entirely wrong when he claims Article 8 of the constitution empowers the army with defending the "territorial integrity" of Spain. Spain's democratic charter, passed in December 1978, contains flaws, recognised by many at the time. Article 8 was used by Francoist officers to justify their failed putsch of February 1981.
That era is over. But perhaps Spain's government(s) and people could usefully remind themselves of this. The government in Madrid, currently under Socialist management, is right to arrest Gen Mena. It intends to fire him, with the full support of the army chief of staff, and should make clear the same fate awaits any of his emulators.
The Catalan government - also currently led by Socialists - should tread with caution. It is within its rights to demand, for instance, tax-raising powers the Basques already have. Its demand that Catalonia be considered a "nation" reflects a cultural desire supported democratically by its people. This is not, per se, separatism; Article 2 of the constitution already recognises "nationalities" within Spain. Nor should its demand for greater judicial autonomy cause alarm so long as the supremacy of Spain's higher courts remains paramount.
But the Catalans, who pride themselves on being more European than the rest of Spain, should remember the principles of European Union solidarity. These include fiscal transfers from richer to less well-off regions. Why should that be right within Europe but wrong within Spain?
Spain's constitution should also be amended to spell out the supremacy of civil over military power. Unfortunately, the opposition Popular Party, still unreconciled to its ejection from power after the Madrid bombings of March 2004, seems to think Gen Mena has a point. That could represent a greater threat to Spanish unity than Catalonia's autonomy ambitions.
The newspaper information is in adress: http://news.ft.com/home/europe

Spain´s old guard defiant as general sacked


Spain's old guard defiant as general sacked
· Army 'hero' had warned of intervention in Catalonia · Row over autonomy hit ruling party's poll rating
Saturday January 14, 2006
At his Madrid home a few yards from Spain's defence ministry office, retired colonel José Conde bristled with pride as he declared that the country's army had found a new hero. "General Mena will be famous for the rest of his life," he said. "It is absolutely right to say that he has behaved heroically."
The only trouble with the new hero of Col Conde and of the 500 serving officers belonging to his conservative Association of Spanish Military Officers is that the hero in question - Lieutenant-General José Mena Aguado - was sacked yesterday.
The Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero formally declared Gen Mena's 40-year military career as a distinguished cavalry officer to have ended in disgrace.
Gen Mena's crime was to warn Spaniards of what he claimed was growing military anger over moves to give greater autonomy to the wealthy eastern region of Catalonia. He also reminded everyone that when Spain wrote a democratic constitution for itself in 1978 after nearly 40 years of military dictatorship under General Francisco Franco the army won the mission of "guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Spain".
His speech last week recalled for many the last time Spain's army got involved in politics - with a failed 1981 coup that saw a civil guard colonel, Antonio Tejero, storm parliament and take its deputies hostage.
The defence minister, José Bono, wrote Gen Mena off as a loose cannon among Spain's top brass. "It is an isolated case, and it has been dealt with," he said."A general has to be politically neutral."
But Gen Mena may not be alone. "He has, without doubt, expressed the opinion of the majority of officers," said Col Conde. "The situation is degrading. They want to pull Spain apart, limb from limb." Spanish newspapers have been inundated with letters from army officers - mainly retired ones who served under Franco - backing Gen Mena. One of the few who broke ranks was Colonel Fernando Abalo, a Nato staff officer in Brussels, who wrote to the conservative ABC newspaper calling Gen Mena "shameful and antediluvian".
Nobody in Spain, however, really believes that tanks are about to roll through the Catalan capital, Barcelona. "Nothing of that sort could happen now," said Col Conde.
In the 15th century palace which is home to the regional Catalan government the chief minister, Josep Bargalló, agreed. "This is 21st century Europe. We do not have military uprisings," said Mr Bargalló, a leader of the separatist Catalan Republican Left in coalition with the majority Socialists.
Mr Bargalló said that what concerned him was the criticism that has greeted the autonomy bill. Some criticisms, he claimed, were proof that Franco's ghost had not yet gone from Spain.
The bill, which has the backing of 90% of the Catalan parliament, calls for Catalonia to be formally recognised as a nation within Spain, collect its own taxes and to have its own supreme court.
The row has proved a problem for Mr Zapatero, whose party's poll ratings have slid behind those of the opposition conservative People's party. As a result he has backtracked on a pledge to approve whatever fresh autonomy demands the Catalan parliament made, as long as they were constitutional.
The anger emanating from Madrid has, however, had one result, according to Mr Bargalló. It has pushed more Catalans into the arms of the independence movement.
The effect is mutual, according to the Barcelona-based intellectual Félix de Azúa, who opposes the autonomy bill. "Spanish nationalism [of the Francoist kind] had been defeated and had disappeared. Now it is coming back."
Some see Gen Mena's move as a deliberate attempt to force the same kind of slowdown in devolving power to Spain's 17 semi-autonomous regions that followed the 1981 coup attempt.
"You don't actually have to bring the tanks out to make that happen," said Pere Aragonès, a separatist youth who demonstrated outside the military governor's office earlier this week.
BackstoryCatalonia became part of Spain in 1469, but kept its own government, the generalitat, until 1714. This was revived in the 1930s, then abolished by the dictator Francisco Franco. It reappeared with Spanish democracy in the 1970s. The 1978 constitution does not recognise Catalonia as a nation, though it ambiguously refers to "nationalities" within Spain. The 6.8 million Catalans account for 15% of Spaniards and produce 18% of GDP.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
The newspaper information estract in: http://digital.guardian.co.uk/demo/

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Manifestation 18 of february in Barcelona, under the lema "we are the nation and we must right to decide"


A manifestation in Barcelona will demand respect by the right to the Catalans to decide ' Som one was born i tenim dret of decidir' is the motto that heads the manifestation that the Platform pel dret to decide has summoned initially for day 18 of February to 17,30 of afternoon in Barcelona. És acte central of the campaign that impels the platform, endorsed by més d'un hundred d'entitats of the Catalan country, that they demand that the politica class is to the height of the necessities and the aspirations of the Catalan town. The platform has presented/displayed today the acts of the campaign, most important of which are the manifestation of Barcelona, initially anticipated for the 18 of February, although the date can vary based on decurso of the negotiations and the result of these. The writer Víctor Alexandre, the actress Car to me Sansa and Teatre de Guerrilla have participated in the presentation of the acts of the campaign and in the reading of manifest , that counts with more of a hundred of adhesions.
Organizing platform:
By telephone: +0034 93 444 38 00
Ja began to touch that the civil society mobilitzase itself, and more after the attacks the socólógico Francoism and of extreema right of the PP and its surroundings. that són azmereir of average world, like general lieutenant Mena, that ejemplarizan the democracy of low intensity, that is the powers of the Spanish State. Now, if that touches, to go out at the dificiles moments of the negotiation to so give to a social legitimacy to the acceptance of estatut com aprovó in the Parlament de Catalunya.
Let us support to individual and associative level, now more than ever, on the part of the Catalans, the many demóicratas Spaniards and nations without state and of the towns of Ibero-America, that still remember the genocido one of the Spanish empire. This also is his estatut!

Controversy by I articulate that it speaks of the military Spanish precoup participants who support to the dismissed Mena



She is a contributor of the Avui newspaper, published in Catalan, where in its section "PASALO", it does ironia of the politica and social reality, and in this ironiza case that the Spanish military harian who supported general lieutenant Mena, who defended to apply the scandalous one I articulate 8 of the Spanish constituión that atribuy ea the military in militarily occupying a nation like the Catalan, instead of countermanding, as it requests the international press, since they are not supeditan to the political power.I articulate of Iu Forn, that exception of phrase cleared of outside context in reference to the mothers of the military, to had rectification on the other hand, has many supports in Catalunya, dice impunity of brunete mediatic españolista (ABC, world, the REASON....) that they have atiado hatred towards the journalist, arriving to him even death threats and insults, such that lies and usually manipulates the Catalan reality. We reproduce the translation to you in Castilian so that you think:"Pásalo. Manual of the good coup participant ", by Iu FornThey underwent a pandemic of the military of a very high graduation (possibly absenta) to which does not like the Statute. That is, that as they are enfadaditos are dedicated to threaten removing the tanks to us to the street. Or, then, or they remove them from once or they shut up (also of once). And if in the end they think that there are to do what historically they have done in other cases, permítanme advice of friend:If they enter Barcelona by the Diagonal, leave the tanks and they take the street car, that we are speaking of a sustainable city. Once in the Diagonal they will see that by hand right it is the seat of the Caixa, already know, those of the OPA that he wants to kill of hunger to Ej-paña. It is evident that he deserves to be assaulted. But taken care of much! If in an office they are with a high and blond girl, déjenla peacefully. He could be a daughter of the King, who works in the company.If in the heat of sacking of the city decides to return to take papers, better than they hope that they return those that now are arriving from Salamanca. If together ones take to them all, will take advantage of the transport and will save a dinerito, that always comes well. Remember that the decree of civismo of Barcelona prohibits the supposed practice of the prostitution in according to what.
Therefore, better than they come without its mothers.Important warning: They know that the Financial Times, that newspaper that affirmed Tuesday that article 8 of the Constitution has "imperfections", that to request to be a nation is a democratic yearning and that the attitude of the PP in the Mena case "can represent one more a greater threat for the unit of Spain that the autonomistas ambitions of Catalonia"? Then that newspaper is not Catalan. In order to bomb it they would have to call to information of Great Britain and to request its direction to him.Ah, and a very important thing that it left me: mainly they pay attention to the gentleman to the Supreme Court and nothing else to get apúntense to dance sevillanas, not outside to be the case that ended up learning Catalan ".
The AVUI newspaper: http://www.avui.com