By Muriel Pilkington, The Local Voice
Following up the dire warning by European Commission president José Manuel Barroso that the economic crisis could mean the death of democracy in Spain, Portugal and Greece, it must be remembered that the death of democracy is never sudden. There is always a build-up with plenty of clues to warn people of its coming – if you are on the look-out for them.
Today, many Spaniards are under the impression that the was nothing more than a flash in the pan but tensions within the military had been building for some months before the bunch of Guardia Civil stormed into Parliament. And the cause of their discontent was to be found in the Basque Country, where ETA had re-emerged with a vengeance in the second half of 1980, declaring it would unleash total war on Spain if the province of Navarra was not included in its dream of an independent Basque homeland. As usual, they blithely ignored the fact that most Navarrese wanted to stay as part of Spain. In an effort to browbeat them into submission, ETA started targeting tourist resorts and Guardia Civil barracks in the province.
The claim to Navarra infuriated senior Army officers because the region, apart from being an inalienable part of Spain, was a symbol of patriotic values for them. Navarra had provided Franco with the Requetes, the ferocious militia that had played a crucial role in his war effort. And the draft military amnesty law presented to Parliament in June 1980, which opened up the way for the reintegration into the ranks of the officers who had fought for the Republic during the Civil War, outraged the military even more than the legalisation of the Communist Party. To make matters worse, both ETA and GRAPO (The First of October Anti-fascist Resistance Group) had carried out a series of assassination attempts on senior generals during the spring and summer of 1980. So the military were not at all happy and conspiracy was rife.
The situation on the political front didn't help matters either. The first freely-elected post-Franco government was beginning to run out of steam. Between them, King Juan Carlos and the then Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez had steered the country through the most dangerous period – from November 1975 to June 1977. Suarez’ centre-right Union Centro Democratico won the general election in June 1977 and during the next three years, with the king keeping watch in the background, he brokered the 1978 Constitution and the autonomous statutes for the country’s 17 regions, working closely with the opposition parties, especially the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers Party).
But Suarez had become increasingly isolated from the cabinet, his party and the press. Socialist leader Felipe Gonzalez withdrew his support, claiming that Suarez no longer had a meaningful contribution to make. Unemployment had risen to one and a half million. And the government was dragging its feet as regards the transfer of powers to the regional governments, especially those of the Basque Country and Catalonia.
And the conspirators were quite open. By October 1980, the press was mentioning the so-called “Operación De Gaulle”, a reference to General Alfonso Armada, a great admirer of the French general, who was floating the idea of a coalition military-civilian government to solve the country’s problems.
Meanwhile, several senior generals visited King Juan Carlos to complain bitterly about the situation. The King listened to them and tried to make them see reason, making it clear that “in no circumstances should they rely on me to cover the slightest act against a constitutional government like ours. Such actions, if they took place, I told them, would be considered by the King as a direct attack on the crown.”
Fearing that the military were finally running out of patience, Adolfo Suarez resigned on January 29th, 1981, because he believed his effective removal from power would placate them. But while Parliament was meeting to confirm the appointment of Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo as his successor on February 23rd, just after 6 pm groups of Guardia Civil stormed into the chamber through its several entrances, fired shots into the ceiling, where the bullet holes can still be seen, and declared the military had taken over. In fact, only Valencia had been taken by General Milans de Bosch, while the King was in the Zarzuela Palace ringing , all the military posts in the rest of the country to demand their allegiance to himself and Parliament.
The rebels imposed a news blackout – but overlooked one RTVE camera sent to record the acceptance of Calvo Sotelo as Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the news team at RTVE’s television studios had defied the military by 10 pm on the 23rd and gone on the air, knowing that another RTVE news team was on its way to the Zarzuela Palace to film the King’s condemnation of the coup, which effectively ended the uprising. Those film clips are shown frequently on TV today, a constant reminder of what might have been if the coup had succeeded.
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