Spain
As a result of the general election held on 3 March 1996, José
María Aznar of the centre-right Partido Popular (PP, Popular Party)
replaced as prime minister Felipe González of the Partido Socialista
Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers' Party). González
had been in power as head of the Spanish government since 1982. The PP received
38.9 per cent of the vote against the PSOE's 37.5 per cent, with a turn-out
of 78 per cent. Out of a total of 350 seats in the Congreso de los Diputados
(congress of deputies), the PP secured 156-falling short of the absolute
majority it had expected-and the PSOE 141. Nine other parties sent representatives
to the Cortes (parliament), including: Izquierda Unida (IU, United Left),
a left-wing coalition headed by the Partido comunista de España (PCE,
Spanish Communist Party) (21 seats); the Catalan nationalist Convergència
i Uniò (CiU, Convergence and Union) (16 seats); the Partido Nacionalista
Vasco (PNV, Basque Nationalist Party) (5 seats); and the Coalición
Canaria (CC, Canarian Coalition), the nationalist party of the Canary Islands
(4 seats). Aznar managed to negotiate parliamentary agreements with the
nationalist parties, particularly the CiU and the PNV, in which he exchanged
the amending of his party's regional policy for their support for the establishment
of a PP government. A few far-right parties also participated in the general
election and received a total of 0.1 per cent of the vote (see PARTIES,
ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS).
The new Spanish penal code-in which racism, antisemitism and the denial
or justification of genocide were criminalized for the first time-became
effective on 25 May (see LEGAL MATTERS).
In July, six leading television journalists were dismissed by the state-owned
network RTVE, causing controversy between those who interpreted the dismissal
as a government purge of leading political journalists considered to be
unsympathetic to the ruling PP, and those who thought it consonant with
"normal" personnel changes.
In November, the consumer price index put the annual inflation rate at 3.2
per cent, slightly lower than the government's target, giving rise to cautious
yet general optimism. The Spanish economy, which had remained static during
the previous trimesters, showed signs of a slight recovery as the gross
domestic product increased to between 2.2 and 2.3 per cent during the third
trimester of 1996. The lowering of interest rates contributed to the slight
recovery.
However, unemployment continued to be the country's most pressing problem,
running at about 22 per cent of the working population-approximately double
the European average and representing some 3.5 million people. To break
the vicious circle caused by stagnation of the employment market, many experts
called for labour reforms to discourage the use of temporary contracts:
96 per cent of all job contracts signed in 1996 were temporary, and their
average duration was three months. Temporary employment represents 35 per
cent of all placements, while part-time jobs represent a mere 7.5 per cent
of the working population.
Following the Inquisition and the Edict of Expulsion of 1492, Spain remained
officially without Jews until 1869, when a new constitution, implicitly
revoking the Edict, allowed private religious practice. Prior to expulsion,
Spanish Jewry had enjoyed a "golden age" lasting several centuries
and had played a prominent role in Spanish society. In 1992, Spain commemorated
the quincentenary of the expulsion of those Jews who had refused to convert
to the Catholic faith. In 1995, Barcelona was named as the site of the rabbinic
high court, re-established after its dissolution in Spain 500 years earlier.
During the Civil War of 1936-9, the small Spanish Jewish community was sometimes
caught between the warring sides, but most Jews fled the country during
the conflict.
Under General Franco, Spain remained officially neutral during the Second
World War, but sympathized with the German-Italian Axis. Spain's problems
were often blamed on an "Anglo-Masonic-Jewish conspiracy". During
the Second World War, however, the Spanish government issued passports to
some 11,000 Sephardi Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. A further 35,000-40,000
Jews were permitted to pass through Spain en route to other destinations.
Franco also provided shelter to Nazis and Nazi collaborators after the war.
Those still alive include the Dutch collaborator Auke Pattist and Mauthausen
concentration camp doctor Aribert Heim. The Belgian Nazi collaborator Léon
Degrelle, who had for many years actively inspired and supported Spanish
neo-Nazi groups, died in March 1994. Other Nazis went to South America via
Spain with the assistance of local bureaucrats.
Between the 1950s and 1970s, following the independence of Morocco and adverse
political conditions in Argentina, Jews settled in Spain in larger numbers.
In 1967 after the Six-Day War in the Middle East, Jews in Egypt were issued
with Spanish passports and thus were able to leave for the country of their
choice.
In 1992, Judaism, together with Islam and Protestantism, was granted equal
legal status with Catholicism.
For the last five centuries, the Roma commun-ity-which now makes up 1.8
per cent of the population-has been the principal target of racism in Spain,
and Roma continue to suffer discrimination in housing, education and employment.
Since the 1980s, North African, Asian, Latin American and black immigrants
have also suffered discrimination. The popular Spanish imagination continues
to perceive Jews in a negative light.
Spain, once a nation of emigrants, has in only the past ten years became
a country of immigration, although the number of (legal) resident foreigners
in Spain is still very low, especially when compared to other European countries.
There are around 462,000 foreigners (approximately 1.2 per cent of the population),
out of which approximately 221,000 are citizens of the European Union and
20,000 citizens of North America. They are therefore not susceptible to
the stereotypes generally ascribed to immigrants, i.e. social marginality
and poverty. The other 221,000 come from developing and under-developed
countries, and almost all work in occupations that are shunned by Spaniards-domestic
service, care, construction work, agriculture, livestock rearing and, to
a lesser degree, employment within the service sector. Nonetheless, the
growing awareness among Spaniards of a crisis-generally characterized by
the perception of employment as increasingly scarce-has contributed to an
increase in suspicion of immigrants.
In July, in a survey of persons under the age of twenty-nine by the youth
department of the ministry of labour and social security, 91 per cent of
respondents said that they would like to see immigration restricted further
and 60 per cent said they believed that immigration was causing them employment
problems. Only 20 per cent thought that there were advantages to be gained
from the presence of foreigners. The survey also revealed a greater acceptance
of people living below the poverty line than of foreigners, and that tolerance
decreases with age.
According to a survey of 2,486 people conducted by the Centro de Investigaciones
Sociológicas (CIS, Centre for Sociological Research) in late January,
almost seven out of ten Spaniards regard their society as modern (71 per
cent), free (69.4 per cent), industrious (66.4 per cent) and democratic
(63.8 per cent). However, they also characterize it as racist (54.2 per
cent), unsafe and economically under-developed (60.8 per cent). They also
consider Spanish society to be mainly tolerant, conservative, responsible,
conflictual and riddled with social inequality.
At the same time as new regulations of the Law for Foreigners were approved
by government, the interior ministry implemented a new scheme to regulate
the situation of the 50,000-70,000 "illegal" immigrants who were
given until 23 August to apply for legal residence. Applicants were required
to have been resident in Spain since before January 1996, and to have at
any time possessed a work permit. While the scheme benefited principally
Moroccan and Latin American immigrants and their families (the previous
1991 scheme benefited some 130,000 foreigners), it was of little use to
the large and important sector of extra-legal foreigners-particularly those
who had never had legal employment, such as street vendors.
News of the scheme, together with signs of economic recovery, provoked an
unprecedented wave of immigrants coming across the Strait of Gibraltar from
North Africa in an attempt to gain legal status in Spain. An estim-ated
1,600 illegal immigrants were detained throughout the summer, and some 460
people without documents were arrested in the weeks leading up to the 23
August deadline. Over 8,000 illegal immigrants had been caught as of October,
most of them in Andalusia.
Furthermore, Ceuta and Melilla, the two autonomous Spanish cities on the
north coast of Africa, have recently become the back door into Spain for
sub-Saharan immigrants who manage illegally to cross the Moroccan frontiers
of the cities. They arrive with no documentation and the Moroccan authorities
refuse to accept them back, on the grounds that the Spanish authorities
cannot prove that they are of Moroccan origin as they possess no legal documents.
In June, several riots broke out in the city of Melilla as police confronted
groups of African refugees-mainly from Ghana, Liberia, Mauritania and Sudan-who
were demanding travel permits to the mainland. In July, amid the most stringent
secrecy, the authorities sedated and forcibly expelled 103 immigrants to
Senegal, Mali, Cameroon and Guinea-Bissau, without any regard for their
identity or nationality. Financial agreements had apparently been reached
between Spain and the other countries-so that they would admit the immigrants.
Criticism from opposition parties, human rights organizations and trade
unions increased as more information became available on treatment of the
immigrants during their journey as well as the handing-over process. Given
the ugly turn these events were taking, the government had no option but
to offer an explanation to parliament. The minister admitted that the whole
operation was "not a model to be followed", and the opposition
accused him of a possible violation of the law, given that the immigrants
had been expelled before their claims for asylum had been considered. Opposition
spokespersons were of the opinion that, with this episode, the government
may have encouraged certain racist and xenophobic tendencies in Spanish
society.
On Sunday, 10 March, a group of some 300 legionnaires (professional soldiers,
usually in the colonies) in civilian dress besieged the centre of Melilla
and surrounding Muslim areas, assaulting Muslims and destroying shop windows
and Muslim-owned businesses. They had been provoked by the death of a comrade
in a fight the previous week. The situation could have become much more
serious if, as some legionnaires intended, the soldiers had managed to gain
entrance to the neighbourhood mosque, where evening prayers were in progress.
The Muslims of Melilla accused the Legion's leaders of having encouraged
the attacks, and representatives of the government of Melilla admitted the
possibility and that one middle-ranking leader may even have taken part
in the riots. The officials in charge of the city and of the Legion's regiment
were arrested for having proved themselves unable to halt the mutiny of
300 soldiers. The number of legionnaires arrested for damages reached 180.
The incident, with decidedly racial undertones, will be resolved by the
military courts.
Race-related acts of violence against minorities, homosexuals, homeless
people and left-wing activists by quasi-organized right-wing youth groups
and skinheads increased in 1996. In September, a black man from Portugal
was stabbed in Alcobendas (Madrid) by skinheads belonging to the Bases Autónomas
groupings known as Lupas and Las Cepas (see PARTIES, ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS).
The police arrested and charged a nineteen-year-old soldier who was caught
carrying the murder weapon. The group had apparently decided spontaneously
to "go out and attack a black man". The assault caused great alarm
among immigrant groups.
The night before the traditional annual rallies to commemorate 20 November
(20-N, see PARTIES, ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS), a black student was attacked
and beaten without provocation in the centre of Madrid by four foreign neo-Nazis-three
Germans and one Briton. The assailants, carrying bladed weapons, were arrested
and, during the interrogation, admitted that they had travelled to Madrid
to take part in the 20-N commemoration.
The Spanish far right is fragmented and isola-ted, and has never recovered
from the electoral disaster it suffered in 1982 following its failed attempt
at a coup d'état on 23 February 1981. It has been without
parliamentary representation ever since.
The pivotal grouping on the far right at present, the Alianza para la Unidad
Nacional (AUN, Alliance for National Unity), is an umbrella organization
that was set up to field electoral candidates. The AUN participated in a
general election, for the first time, in March, despite earlier claims that
it would wait for the next general elections. According to its head, Ricardo
Sáenz de Ynestrillas: "We are not worried about the number of
votes we get in the elections. Our aim is to gain visibility so that when
PP voters become disappointed with José María Aznar's work,
they will turn to us next time." Apart from the various Falangist groups,
which have taken part in all Spanish general elections, the far right did
not participate in the 1986 or the 1989 campaigns, and in 1993 the symbolic
participation of the Movi-miento Católico Español was a complete
failure. In March, the AUN received a mere 3,663 votes nationally (0.01
per cent); 1,992 of these votes were cast in Madrid, where Ynestrillas had
led various demonstrations in the run-up to the election in an attempt to
capitalize on murders committed in early February by the Basque separatist
organization Euzkadi ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Nation and Liberty). The
Falange Española Auténtica received 12,041 votes (0.1 per
cent) and the Falange Española Independiente 1,780 votes (0.01 per
cent).
The Spaniards, unlike the French, are not presently inclined to support
far-right candidates, nor do such parties wield the same kind of political
strength in Spain as Le Pen's Front national does in France (see France).
However, this does not mean that the far right has disappeared in Spain,
as Prime Minister Aznar has claimed in a show of exaggerated optimism. Many
of its followers almost certainly voted for the centre-right PP in order
to oust the socialists from power.
There are at present about 100 far-right groups and parties in Spain, most
of which are hardly operative, ranging from the relatively moderate to the
most extreme, and spanning the spectrum from "traditional" Falangists
to neo-Nazi skinheads.
The most moderate of all the Spanish nationalist organizations is Derecha
Española (Spanish Right), which supports democratic principles and
procedures. Its leading member is Miguel Bernard, who worked under the tutelage
of the veteran fascist Blas Piñar until 1994, when Piñar's
party, Frente Nacional (FN, National Front), was dissolved for being too
nostalgic for the Franco era. Bernard defines his party as democratically
right-wing, to the right of the PP, conservative and nationalist, and similar
to Philippe de Villiers's populist and anti-establishment Mouvement pour
la France. Bernard acknowledges the positive aspects of Spanish fascism
("[W]e respect that history: we condemn Nazism, but not Francoism")
and regards his party as an upholder of Christian tradition and family values.
DE failed its first electoral test in the local elections of May 1995 and
did not take part in the March general elections.
Also prominent at the "moderate" end of the spectrum is Democracia
Española (DE, Spanish Democracy), which might be described as a radical
party of "renewal", and which is apparently attempting to emulate
the political strategy of Gianfranco Fini's Alleanza Nazionale (see page
187). DE was founded in 1995 as the successor to the Alternativa Democrátia
Nacional (ADN, National Democratic Alternative) by Juan Peligro-formerly
leader of the virulently xenophobic Juntas Españolas (JJEE, Spanish
Juntas), which had been established in order to field candidates in the
June 1994 European elections (in which it failed to secure any seats). DE
has headquarters in Barcelona and Madrid, and runs a research centre in
Madrid under the name of Proyecto IES (Instituto de Estudios Sociales, Institute
of Social Studies) to promote the organization's "respectable"
policies.
Democracia Nacional (DN, National Democracy) is another developing group
that is primarily nationalist in character. Its general secretary, Francisco
Pérez Corrales, calls for the "restoration" of Spanish
nationhood, withdrawal from the European monetary system (EMS), the lowering
of interest rates and bank charges, and protectionist policies for Spanish
industry.
Ynestrillas's AUN is composed of six organizations: the Movimiento Social
Español (MSE, Spanish Social Movement); Movimiento Católico
Español (MCE, Spanish Catholic Movement); Frente de Alternativa Nacional
(FAN, National Alternative Front); Nácion Joven (NJ, Young Nation);
Fuerza Nacional del Trabajo (FNT, National Labour Force); and Asociación
Universitaria Dios y Patria (DISPAR, God and Fatherland University Association).
All of these groups at one time followed to some degree in the ideological
footsteps of Gianfranco Fini and his Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) (see
Italy), and all denounced Fini as a traitor for dissolving the MSI and distancing
himself from fascism. They are all united in calling for the criminalization
of separatist organizations and for the death penalty for ETA terrorists.
At a celebration of the Spanish flag on the national holiday of 12 October,
when some 1,000 AUN supporters gathered in Barcelona, Ynestrillas criticized
King Juan Carlos for having "abandoned us in favour of democracy"
and called for a "national republic as opposed to a foreign hereditary
monarchy".
The MSE was founded in 1993 by Ynestrillas himself, and was modelled on
the Italian MSI. Ynestrillas is the son of a military man assassinated by
ETA, and was himself implicated in the assassination of Josu Muguruza, a
member of Herri Batasuna (HB), ETA's political wing. He was absolved of
any involvement in 1993 after spending thirty-one months in prison, thereby
acquiring the status of martyr for many on the far right. The MSE defines
itself as a "radical, nationalist Spanish movement". At its launch,
Ynestrillas said: "We must halt dangerous immigration, which leads
to poverty and delinquency, limits employment opportunities and produces
ghettos in every country, endangering national identity."
The MCE is headed by José Luis Corral and espouses a Catholic-nationalist
ideology that is much more influential than its small membership suggests.
The MCE is active in ten different provinces. It organizes night vigils
and other religious events, and has been regularly flyposting its bulletin
for over ten years. In 1992, one issue criticized the king's visit to a
Madrid synagogue. The bulletin, formerly called La Voz de España
(The Voice of Spain), is now published under the name of La Voz de
AUN (The Voice of AUN), and can readily be seen posted on walls in Madrid.
FAN was founded in 1994 under the leadership of Rafael Arroyo and Koldo
Múgica to replace Blas Piñar's FN. Arroyo brought the younger
members of the FN with him into FAN.
NJ, headed by Eduardo Arias, was founded in 1990 by Carlos Alberto Vásquez
as a splinter group of the FN. It defines itself as a "nationalist"
grouping, calls for the expulsion of all immigrants and is openly antisemitic,
although Arias appears to have become increasingly aware of a need to soften
the party's message. NJ's publication is entitled Lucha (Struggle).
The FNT, led by Jaime Alonso, is heir to the Francoist trade union movement.
It has very few members and very little influence among trade unionists.
It shares premises with the AUN.
DISPAR includes among its members José María González,
a supporter of the AUN campaign to ban all regional separatist organizations
and to introduce the death penalty for convicted ETA members.
Three traditional Falangist (Spanish fascist) groupings-Falange Española
y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalistas (FE y de las JONS, Spanish
Falange of the Juntas of the Nationalist Trade Union Offensive), Falange
Española Auténtica (FEA, Spanish Authentic Falange) and the
Falange Española Independiente (FEI, Spanish Independent Falange)-are
all tiny far-right parties concerned mainly with their own survival. After
several splits, the FE y de las JONS, led by Miguel Hedilla, has now reinstituted
the line of its founder, José Antonio Primo de Rivera (the most prominent
Spanish fascist of the 1930s). The FEA and the FEI fielded candidates at
the March general elections. On 20 November, the falangistas organized their
annual march to the Valley of the Fallen to commemorate the anniversary
of the death, in 1936, of their founder.
The Comunión Tradicionalista Carlista (CTC, Carlist Traditional Communion)
is heir to the militias who fought Carlist wars in the nineteenth century
and supported Franco during the Civil War. While the CTC has, in previous
years, become virtually defunct, the recent appearance of its posters perhaps
signals an attempt to orchestrate a revival. The CTC supports the right
of Don Carlos Borbón and his heirs to the Spanish crown, and was
formerly strongest in the Basque/Navarre region, Catalonia and the Levant.
Confederación de Ex-Combatientes (Federation of Ex-Combatants) unites
all the old associations of pro-Franco Civil War veterans, such as the División
Azul (Blue Division), which fought alongside the Nazis in the Second World
War. They are the oldest and most nostalgic of Spain's right-wingers, and
are always ready to finance sympathetic groups in need, although at present
they are themselves experiencing hard times. They almost certainly help
to finance the Falangist weekly La Nación (The Nation, see
PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA). Nowadays, members largely restrict themselves to
the organization of fraternal gatherings and the annual 20 November (20-N)
commemorations that mark the anniversary of the deaths both of Franco and,
by firing squad, of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the
Falange (on 20 November 1975 and 1936 respectively).
In 1996, for the first time, there were two separate 20-N commemorations
in Madrid, held on the same day and at the same hour. The AUN managed to
gather slightly over 2,000 followers on the Plaza de San Juan de la Cruz,
the site of the only remaining equestrian statue of Franco in the city.
Another 2,000 or so gathered at the Plaza de Oriente for the rally organized
by the Federation of Ex-Combatants. (In 1995, the president of the Ex-Combatants
had to interrupt Ynestrillas's speech to remind him of their previous agreement
not to mention the crown.) At the AUN event, Ynestrillas roundly attacked
all other political parties, the PP government, the monarchy, Catalan and
Basque nationalists, the Basque church, the judiciary, democracy and freedom
of speech. He also characterized the alternative rally at the Plaza de Oriente
as a "folkloric gathering", where "nostalgia, laments and
whimpers" were the only items on the agenda. The generation gap on
the far right has apparently finally become unbridgeable.
Since its founding in 1965, Círculo Español de Amigos de Europa
(CEDADE, Spanish Circle of Friends of Europe) has been one of the oldest
and most active neo-Nazi groups in Europe. This so-called "cultural
association", based in Barcelona, was led until January 1993 by the
convicted neo-Nazi Pedro Varela. After Varela's successors decided to dissolve
the group's "organizational structure" at a special general meeting
in Madrid on 12 October 1993, many CEDADE members joined up either with
Juan Peligro's DE or with Ynestrillas's AUN. Some of its more militant supporters
have joined ranks with Autonomous Bases (see below). Nevertheless, Varela
has continued to control CEDADE's extensive international publishing network
as well as its Barcelona bookshop, Europa. On 11 December, however, in a
carefully planned and unprecedented operation, the autonomous Catalonian
police force raided the bookshop's premises, seizing some 12,700 books and
arresting Varela (see PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA).
Since 1992, Gerd Honsik, a neo-Nazi fugitive from Austrian justice, has
been resident in Spain, where he works from Barcelona under Varela's protection.
According to the monthly Austrian tabloid News, Honsik has been directly
involved in violent right-wing attacks in Austria. In November 1995, the
Spanish high court rejected an appeal for Honsik's extradition.
Founded in 1987, Las Bases Autónomas (BB.AA., Autonomous Bases) is
a small but highly dangerous organization whose ideo-logy has been characterized
as "anarcho-Nazi" and whose logo is the Celtic Cross. The group
is organized into autonomous, clandestine, leaderless "cells",
according to the strategy of "leaderless resistance" (see UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA). BB.AA. is best known for its widespread anti-immigration
graffiti. Its rank-and-file membership-based mostly in large cities, principally
Madrid-consists largely of skinheads and football hooligans, many of whom
belong to the Ultra Sur (Ultra-South) fan club, supporters of Real Madrid,
and the Frente Atlético (Athletic Front), supporters of Atlético
de Madrid (see CULTURAL AND SPORTING LIFE). The movement is allegedly responsible
for inspiring many violent incidents, including the stabbing of a black
man in Madrid in 1996 by skinheads related to the BB.AA. groupings known
as Lupas and Las Cepas (see racism and xenophobia). Members of Lupas al-legedly
produce the "skinzines" entitled ¡A por ellos! and
Cirrosis , both of which publish the names and addresses of potential
targets of neo-Nazi assaults (see PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA).
Since 1995, BB.AA. has lost three of its main leaders. The group's principal
ideologue and promoter, thirty-one-year-old lawyer Carlos Rodrigo Ruiz de
Castro, committed suicide in January 1995. Fernando Fernández Perdices,
editor-in-chief of the now-defunct newspaper El Porvenir de la nación
española (The Future of the Spanish Nation), retired in the face
of damaging accusations made against him by a defecting member. Finally,
Ignacio Alonso García, the most aggressive of the BB.AA. leaders
and supposedly its secret head, is being tried for his participation in
the brutal beating of some left-wing students at Madrid's Complutensis University
in May 1994. In June 1996, the university filed charges demanding nine years'
imprisonment for Alonso García, while the victims' lawyers demanded
eighteen years. Alonso García's trial had to be suspen-ded on several
occasions due to confrontations in the court between far-right activists
and anti-fascists. Finally, in October, Alonso García was given an
on-the-spot sentence of one year and eleven months' imprisonment. According
to police sources, the removal from the scene of these three leaders has
contributed to the BB.AA.'s decline. Nevertheless, the group was responsible
for the perpetration of numerous assaults throughout 1996.
In October, the arrest and investigation of four skinheads, who beat a young
anti-racist demonstrator in Seville brought to light plans to attack four
newspapers in the capital of Andalusia. Among the belongings of one of the
suspects, the police found blueprints and chemicals used in the manufacture
of explosives, as well as leaflets containing slogans such as "Journalists/Terrorists"
and "Journalists/Jews". The four men arrested belong to the so-called
Legión Giralda (Giralda Legion) or Agrupación Tablada (Tablada
Organization), both of which are apparently subsidiaries of BB.AA. Documents
seized by the police suggest links with fascist groups in the United States,
Germany, Italy and France. According to well-informed sources, the group
was probably preparing a "leap towards armed struggle".
In March, police in Barcelona detained thirty-four alleged members of the
Centurions, an organized movement of "violent youths and Nazi symbols"
that has connections with neo-Nazi groups in Scandinavia and the United
States. The Centurions were officially in line to become a chapter of the
Hell's Angels, the motorcycle gang that originated in 1948 in Los Angeles,
California. The arrested neo-Nazis are apparently implicated in crimes ranging
from drug trafficking, extortion, threats, car theft, selling cars with
false documents, assault and possession of illegal weapons. Detectives seized
arms, radio transmission equipment, drugs, propaganda, Nazi badges and symbols,
and confiscated cars and motorcycles. The police investigation revealed
that the gang was preparing to travel to Madrid, Valencia, Alicante and
Málaga.
According to an internal police report on neo-Nazi violence in Madrid written
in July, neo-Nazi skinheads have adopted a new strategy to cope with police
harassment. They have been gradually abandoning traditional skinhead paraphernalia-the
Celtic Cross, the leather jacket and the shaved head-in favour of that of
bakaladeros, followers of techno and Bakalao music whose attire-jeans, military-style
boots, short hair and nylon jackets-provokes a less negative public response
than skinhead gear, allowing them to evade social and police control. This
metamorphosis has generated a new "urban tribe", the "nationalist
bakaladeros ", and resulted in a decrease in the number of recorded
assaults perpetrated by skinheads (from 66 in the first few months of 1995
to 54 in the same months of 1996). However, the number attributed to other
"urban tribes", especially to followers of Bakalao music, has
increased dramatically (up from 7 to 37 in the same period). The assaults
include spine-chilling incidents, such as the still-unsolved murder in January
of David González, who was stabbed to death in Madrid by a group
of "nationalist bakaladeros ". Police investigations have
shown that, in many cases, apparently "gratuitous violence" is
in fact linked to far-right elements of traditional or clandestine organizations,
and, more ominously, to the recruitment of youths who are encouraged to
"earn points" in order to earn acceptance into the group.
Between January and September, juvenile gangs were responsible for 130 physical
assaults in the Madrid region (the equivalent of one every other day), a
number not dissimilar to the 1995 figure. Police data, however, indicate
a radical change in the phenomenon of youth violence. The number of attacks
attributed to skinheads may have decreased by 30 per cent during the first
nine months of the year (as compared to 1995), but assaults by other "tribes",
such as bakaladeros , have increased by 95 per cent. These statistics
seem to confirm the police hypothesis that the more violent elements of
the neo-Nazi movement are beginning to infiltrate other "tribes".
There were no significant antisemitic incidents recorded in 1996. Among those reported to the police were a false bomb threat to a Jewish school in Madrid, antisemitic graffiti on the walls of a Jewish organization and synagogue, both in Madrid, and the mailing of antisemitic and Holocaust-denial propaganda to Jewish associations. In October, two young non-Jewish people sporting Jewish symbols were assaulted in Málaga by four skinheads. A certain degree of grassroots antisemitism is still evident in many Spanish towns and villages that hold traditional fiestas or rituals, often passed down from generation to generation, in which an effigy of a Jew is derided and beaten or even symbolically killed.
According to a police report issued in May, elements of the far right
are gaining a foothold among supporters of some of the liveliest Spanish
football fan clubs, both in the first and second division. Apparently, a
violent group of some twenty skinheads-some with criminal records-is intent
on taking over the leadership of Frente Atlético, the fan club of
Atlético de Madrid, which has approximately 5,000 members. Some of
the group's leaders and members have been threatened, insulted or physically
assaulted.
In September, the national commission against violence demanded that the
Real Madrid football club institute a ban on the display of swastikas and
other Nazi symbols in its stadium. Any such display could result in the
club being fined between Pta. 250,000 and Pta. 1 million on the grounds
that sporting laws prohibit the display of any kind of symbols that might
incite violence. However, a few days later-following the decision of a court
in Albacete to acquit the bearer of a swastika on the grounds that it is
"not a forbidden symbol"-members of a far-right section of the
Real Madrid fan club Ultra Sur (they spell it "Ultra SSur") known
to have links to BB.AA. (see PARTIES, ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS), displayed
some thirty flags bearing the swastika during a match in the Madrid stadium
on 22 September.
Ultra Sur militants use the Madrid stadium as a meeting place where they
plan their weekend attacks, distribute leaflets, give orders and collect
information on potential victims. They even have a small storeroom in the
stadium that doubles as an office where they keep their material. Lately,
in an attempt to be less noticeable, they seem to have dropped the swastikas
and taken up other, less well-known, emblems of the Third Reich instead,
such as the skull used by the Nazi élite corps, or the red and gold
flag used by Hitler's navy. They also routinely display the Celtic Cross,
the BB.AA. initials and the two-headed eagle, a typically Spanish symbol
first used by CEDADE and later taken up by BB.AA.
In a series of conferences on urban violence, Damián Sedano, a police
expert in sport security, supported the criminalization of neo-Nazi skinheads,
as in other European countries, although he conceded that the adoption of
such a measure in Spain is unlikely in the near future. He stressed the
"legal difference" between a Spanish neo-Nazi skinhead and, say,
a German one; that is, the former is legal and the latter is illegal. Sedano
also warned that, should all the Spanish skinhead football hooligans join
ranks, it would not merely provoke the continuation of familiar disturbances
following sports events, but could also "lead to a political formation
capable of generating unforeseeable consequences".
The voice of the far right is virtually absent in the mainstream Spanish
media. La Provincia, a newspaper from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in the
Canary Islands, published two antisemitic articles by Mario Hernández
Álvarez. In the first and more virulent of the two, entitled "The
Jewish Cancer" and published in October, Álvarez says: "During
my long years in Germany, I had the opportunity to talk to several prudent
Germans, not Nazis, about Hitler's genocide of the Jews. All of them, of
course, condemn this terrible massacre, but at the same time they say that,
during those years, Jews were strangling the German economy." The second,
follow-up article was published in December. The fortnightly journal Fuerza
Nueva continued to be produced in 1996. Originally running parallel
to a political party of the same name, the journal, which has been published
since the 1960s, no longer enjoys its former significance.
Some newspaper kiosks sell the Falangist weekly La Nación. Early
in 1996, a neo-Nazi journal entitled Resistencia (Resistance) went
on sale at universities and even at certain bookshops. It is rabidly antisemitic,
anti-Zionist and pro-Hamas. It also attacks democratic institutions and
the press, and contains slanderous comments about the king. In Catalonia,
there are over five different far-right newsletters, including Resistencia
Blanca (White Resistance) and Zyklon-B . Skinheads in Madrid
and other major cities publish "skinzines" such as ¡A
por ellos! (Go Out and Get Them!), Cirrosis (Cirrhosis), Los
Patriotas Blancos (The White Patriots), etc. These publications often
contain Spanish translations of articles and news taken from publications
of the Neb-raska-based NSDAP/AO (see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA). An anonymous
post box number distributes both a skinzine in Portuguese called Realidade
(Reality) as well as Portuguese translations of NSDAP/AO propaganda.
The flyposted bulletin, La Voz de AUN , visible on the streets of
Madrid, is the successor to the MCE's La Voz de España (see
PARTIES, ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS).
The most dramatic event of the year was the raiding of the Europa bookshop
in Barcelona by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalonia's autonomous police force)
on 11 December. Europa bookshop, the hub of the extensive CEDADE publishing
network , is considered to be the most important distributor of neo-Nazi
propaganda in the whole of Europe. In its 1994 report, the German Bundesamt
für Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution)
called Pedro Varela-the owner of Europa and the ex-leader of CEDADE-"Spain's
Nazi Führer" and named him as Barcelona's representative of the
European neo-Nazi movement as well as its treasurer.
The Mossos entered Europa at 6.45 p.m. and completed the operation in the
early hours of the following morning. They seized a total of 12,700 books
of Nazi and neo-Nazi propaganda and Holocaust-denial material written in
English, German and Spanish. Many were already packed, ready to be sent
abroad. In addition to books, the Mossos seized: 400 posters and leaflets;
15 flags bearing Spain's pre-constitutional emblem, the Nazi swastika and
the Celtic Cross; 80 videotapes of xenophobic content; several Holocaust-denial
catalogues; and brooches, badges and tie-pins sporting Nazi symbols. They
also found proofs of books, evidence for the theory that the Europa bookshop
not only distributes material printed in other countries but also produces
its own.
Around midnight, detectives arrested thirty-nine-year-old Varela at his
home. The following afternoon, Varela was granted provisional liberty by
the court provided that he report fortnightly to the court that is investigating
his case. (Varela had already had a brush with the law in 1992 in Austria,
where he served a four-month sentence for having publicly declared Hitler
a "hero of heroes".)
The police operation was planned over several months under the supervision
of José María Mena, chief prosecutor of Catalonia's supreme
court, and was the first in Spain to lead to an arrest on charges arising
from the new penal code (see LEGAL MATTERS). In fact, the police and the
judiciary waited for the new penal code to come into effect in order that
they could invoke the necessary legal instruments. Some of the books seized
may well fall foul of article 607 of the new code, which states in part
that "the diffusion, by any means, of ideas or doctrines that deny
or justify the crimes specified in the previous items [crimes of genocide],
or that attempt to re-establish regimes or institutions that condone practices
leading to such crimes, will be punished with a prison sentence of one to
two years". The court may also be able to prove that a violation of
intellectual property has been committed in this case, due to the allegedly
illegal reproduction of some of the confiscated material.
In July, Microsoft Iberia produced a corrected version of the dictionary
of synonyms in the Microsoft Word programme, one that is without terms of
abuse. The previous edition included terms that were considered "sexist,
racist and fascist" by various human rights organizations. Microsoft
apologized for the incident.
In October, the publishing house Espasa-Calpe expressed regret for the use
of antisemitic terms in the fourth edition of its Diccionario de sinónimos
(Dictionary of Synonyms), and announced that these terms would be eliminated
in the next edition.
A large number of Holocaust-denial publications were among the material seized in the 11 December raid of the Europa bookshop by Catalonian police (see PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA).
The new Spanish penal code became effective on 25 May. Incorporated into
the reformed code are articles that: prohibit overt expressions of antisemitism;
punish acts that incite hatred or violence, or that deny or justify genocidal
crimes; add "religion" (alongside race, ethnicity, sexual orientation,
etc.) as a punishable motive for discriminatory acts. Accordingly, the police
and the judiciary are finally able to invoke a legal instrument to interfere
with or put a halt to the activities of racist and antisemitic groups. Although
there have yet to be cases tried arising from these new provisions of the
penal code, the December raid on the Europa bookshop and the seizing of
material found therein was made possible by the provisions of the new code,
as was the arrest of Europa's owner.
In April, the high court increased the prison sentences of three young men,
who assaulted a black man in Barcelona in 1992. They had previously been
convicted on charges of assault and grievous bodily harm. The court took
into account the arguments put by the prosecution and the Catalan anti-racist
group SOS Racismo, and found them guilty of attempted murder. The victim,
attacked without provocation or warning, lost his right eye and eleven teeth,
and suffered numerous bone fractures.
Also in April, the court of Barcelona acquitted two skinheads accused of
condoning genocide, on the grounds that the events took place in 1991 when
such a charge had not yet been incorporated into the penal code. The two
accused men had appeared in an October 1991 edition of Televisión
Española's Informe Semanal (Weekly Report), in which one of
them declared: "Skinheads are only defending their own, and to defend
their own means going against blacks, Jews, transvestites, reds, separatists,
punks and other social dross." The court also found that transvestites,
communists, separatists and punks were not among the groups protected by
law and, furthermore, that "going against blacks, Jews . . . and other
dross" did not constitute an incitement to commit a concrete crime
but was, rather, a gen-eric threat. Several organizations expressed their
indignation at the acquittal of the two skinheads, and the prosecution has
moved to appeal the sentence.
In October, Ignacio Alonso García, the most aggressive of the leaders
of BB.AA. and its supposed secret head-on trial for his participation in
the May 1994 brutal beating of some left-wing students at Madrid's Complutensis
University-was given an on-the-spot sentence of one year and eleven months'
imprisonment.
In February 1996, a federal court refused to extradite the eighty-three-year-old
ex-Nazi army officer Otto-Ernst Remer, a resident of Marbella since 1994.
Remer is charged under German law with inciting racism by denying the Jewish
genocide and the existence of gas chambers in the Nazi concentration camps.
In June 1995, the ex-Nazi general applied for political asylum, but this
was turned down by the ministry of justice and the interior. In July 1995,
Remer's extradition was approved by the Spanish government and he was immediately
arrested, although he was released under surveillance due to his delicate
state of health. Far from supporting the government's position, the court
turned down Bonn's request, claiming that it did not meet the "double
incrimination" requirement stipulated by Spanish legislation. The court
also argued that inciting the crime of genocide "typically implied
the direct provocation of the destruction or displacement of a national
ethnic, racial or religious group, while the facts in question refer to
the denial of a historical truth but do not amount to a direct encouragement
of the destruction of the Jewish race". This decision was reached before
the new law came into effect.
Madrid created a regional commission against racism and xenophobia whose
members include representatives of the Madrid regional government, parliamentary
groups, town councils, trade unions, neighbourhood associations, non-governmental
organizations and the Spanish B'nai B'rith.
In September, Barcelona inaugurated its anti-racist exhibition La Ciudad
de la Differencia (A City with a Difference), organized by the Baruch
Spinoza Foundation with a view to fighting racism, antisemitism and xenophobia
using scientific and rational arguments. The objective of the exhibition
is to create an awareness in the visitor that not only is diversity among
people not a problem, it is actually an advantage. The exhibition also aims
to dismantle arguments and prejudices that make multicultural co-existence
difficult. It makes use of diverse audio-visual and theatrical media to
convey its message.
October saw the fiftieth anniversary of Nuremberg war crimes trials, commemorated
in Madrid by the publication of a book entitled El juicio de Nuremberg,
cincuenta años después (The Nuremberg Trials, Fifty Years
On). The authors are Antonio Fernández García, a professor
of contemporary history, and J. L. Rodríguez Jiménez, a historian
who specializes in the extreme right in Spain and Europe, and Holocaust
denial.
On 9 November, several events took place to mark the anniversary of Kristallnacht
. In Barcelona an evening of films, testimonials and theatre was followed
by a candle-lit march through what was once the Jewish district of the old
city. The organization Youth Against Intolerance hosted a conference in
Madrid.
On 15 November, Violeta Friedman-the Auschwitz survivor who became famous
for her victory in the long trial of Léon Degrelle, the ex-head of
the Waffen-SS and a Holocaust-denier-inaugurated a campaign against violence,
racism and xenophobia, which Youth against Intolerance will be taking to
500 educational centres throughout the country.
On 28 November, the mayor of Madrid unveiled a plaque in honour of Angel
Sanz-Briz, the Spanish chargé d'affaires in Budapest in 1944,
who saved 5,200 Hungarian Jews from annihilation.
Neighbours of the Europa bookshop in Barcelona, together with several civic
associations of that city, organized the Plataforma Anna Frank (Anne Frank
Platform) to protest against the bookshop, which publishes, sells and displays
all manner of Nazi propaganda. The group has launched a campaign to change
the name of the section of the road in which the bookshop is located to
"Anne Frank". In this way, all of the shop's stationery and business
cards would carry the name of the young Jewish girl who died in the Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp in 1945. A total of 10,000 signatures have been collected
along with the support of 150 organizations and businesses, all in favour
of changing the street's name. The group expressed satisfaction over the
December raid on the bookshop, and voted in favour of its definitive closure.
No serious antisemitic incidents were reported in 1996. As in recent
years, the principal targets of social racism in Spain were the Roma community
and non-white immigrants. There is, however, a worrying degree of organization
and activity among certain sectors of the far right where antisemitic and
racist attitudes are rife. On the other hand, a firmer commitment to put
a stop to youth violence was evident in 1996. The capacity of the new penal
code to make a significant difference is yet to be tested, but the December
raid of the neo-Nazi Europa bookshop augurs well.
© JPR 1997