The Storms in Spain
ALAN, RAY
Euro Vista BY RAY ALAN The Storms in Spain What with thunder, torrential rain, floods, shootings, explosions, and drumhead tribunals, Spain is moving into a stormy autumn. Season of mists and...
...Their main interests are their professional careers and the position and unity of the Armed Forces...
...President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger cannot be unaware that Franco's Spain is no great catch...
...A 13-year-old boy joyriding in a stolen car, Juan Roman Heredia, has just been shot dead by traffic cops...
...Bunker Politics The present wave of repression is not, of course, the first to which the Franco regime has subjected Spain, and the Caudillo did not really need his new antiterrorist decree...
...I have written about the Union in these columns before and do not like flogging nauseous dead horses...
...The fall is only just beginning and, beyond it, winter lies in wait...
...Spanish officials have spoken boldly of their intention to obtain a stronger defense commitment plus $2 billion worth of military aid from Washington-and, in general, to "squeeze everything we can out of the Americans"-as the price of a new agreement...
...According to an opinion poll, Spaniards who want the Americans to leave outnumber by 3-1 those who want them to stay, and some observers fear that agitation against the U.S...
...They will, I think, go along with gradual liberalization under someone like Don Juan Carlos, although they could become caught up in a Right-wing backlash if the extreme Left took advantage of a political thaw to organize militant demonstrations and strikes a la portu-guesa...
...But diplomatic circles in Madrid expect the next few months to produce a compromise that will enable the world's greatest democracy and Western Europe's only dictatorship to delight the Communists by renewing their cynical, paradoxical alliance...
...One has to stress the word alleged because the trials were mere charades: The accused were denied adequate defense facilities and were convicted on the strength of statements they made under torture...
...They dislike the idea of the Army being used for policing or political purposes, yet insist on the need for public order...
...Will the Prime Minister, Arias Navarro, step-or be kicked-aside, in favor of a more conservative man, now that his tentative liberalization program has been turned upside down...
...His crime...
...He blames the crisis on the efforts of a privileged minority, including the dictator's entourage, to hold back the clock...
...I remember an open-faced, decent-looking Vice President Ford blinking incredulously at the Falangists who were giving Fascist salutes and chanting slogans at Admiral Carrero Blanco's funeral a little under two years ago...
...Will the Caudillo retire in December, when he will be 83, in favor of his designated successor, Prince Juan Carlos...
...But it may be worthwhile to recall that only a minority of the so-called parliaments represented in the Union have their origins in free electoral processes...
...The Union describes itself as democratic and patriotic, opposed to political extremism, and hostile to Franco's policies because they have "so lowered Spanish prestige in the world that Spain is now scorned by Western Europe and other democracies...
...While trying to stop the clock, though, some members of the Establishment have taken the precaution of transferring substantial assets to Switzerland and France...
...Major issues cannot be debated openly, and the aging dictator, Generalisimo Francisco Franco, is not inclined to confide in the public-or even in his tame politicians, generals, editors, and bureaucrats...
...An important purpose of the decree was to boost the morale of Right-wing Army and police officers who view with distaste the possibility of political liberalization after Franco...
...The regime's own Right wing has urged the government to break off negotiations and insist on a Yanqui withdrawal from the naval base and three airbases the U.S...
...But the vast majority of officers are conservatives who have done well out of the regime and are not greatly attracted to politics: They want neither Portugalization nor a revival of their Army's tradition of pronunciamientos...
...So political discussion here is mainly a string of questions and guesses...
...How nice if General Franco were still around and could preside over it...
...The news that does not get into the papers-concerning, for example, the torture of political detainees, the banning of local and foreign publications, and the ferocious pressure on political journalists-is equally disturbing...
...During a recent fiesta, a workman named Diego Navarro was shot as he picnicked with his family and friends...
...Since it will remain in force for two years, it will favor the hardliners during what promises to be a crucial period...
...Senior police officers, mindful of what happened to their friends in Portugal's former secret police organization, the pide, are said to have prepared new homes and identities outside Spain...
...The existing U.S.-Spanish military pact expired, in theory, on September 26...
...And who is doing what to whom in the secret defense negotiations between Spain and the United States...
...Will the Army resist liberalization after Franco's departure...
...It is rather early, however, to talk of liberalization or any kind of thaw...
...Spain's various police services, meanwhile, announce additional political arrests every other day, and they are becoming increasingly trigger-happy...
...and nothing could be more autumnal, in the Spanish sense, than the political set-up...
...Since then, death sentences have been carried out for five alleged terrorists...
...Who is going to do what about the economic crisis (roaring inflation, record unemployment and a yawning trade deficit...
...Hypocrisy Festival The Interparliamentary Union has held another Festival of Hypocrisy-this year, as if to insult the mother of modern parliaments, in London...
...The regime could crack quite suddenly-if the Army lets it...
...bases could become ugly when Franco goes...
...Currently, the news columns of the Spanish press are a catalogue of political upheavals, alleged conspiracies, political arrests, and political trials...
...The Army is not a monolith...
...then, with a bullet in his body, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement, where he died...
...At the end of August, Franco's government issued a decree extending its powers to deal with political violence...
...several hundred others are expected to be given prison sentences and/or heavy fines for what would not be considered offenses in the free world...
...There are in its upper ranks a few Socialists and rather more Right-wingers...
...In his view, the regime is seeking refuge from reality in a political bunker...
...uses in Spain...
...other alleged activists have been jailed for long periods...
...His police were already the toughest and his tribunals the most contemptuous of trivialities like habeas corpus and human rights in all of Western Europe...
...How seriously should one take Don Juan (the Prince's father) who recently criticized Franco's succession plan...
...He argued with the police patrol that broke up the picnic...
...Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness in England and France, the fall is a time of violence and sudden decay in this Mediterranean country...
...The average thoughtful Spaniard is dismayed to see fresh moral and political barriers raised between his country and free Europe...
...Left-of-center officers have recently given discreet support to a campaign for political amnesty, and have circulated the statements of an illegal "Democratic Military Union...
...About 30 political dissidents are still awaiting trial on capital charges...
...Characteristically, the Union is planning to expel Israel, the only democracy in the Near East, and to hold its next Festival of Hypocrisy in Madrid...
Vol. 58 • October 1975 • No. 20
