There are other types of victims (tortured, unjustly imprisoned or otherwise repressed, injured, etc.) but mortal ones are more easily accountable. While the total number of killed by ETA's actions since 1968 is well known: 812, the number of those killed by state or paramilitary repression was not... till now.
The foundation Euskal Memoria (Basque Memory) has now addressed this matter with scientific method. The result is 474 killed since 1960, only 12 before 1968, year in which ETA killed the first two policemen (ETA made some actions earlier but not one with mortal victims).
The work is part of a book titled No les bastó Gernika (Gernika was not enough) that will be launched in the upcoming Durango Fair (Basque Book and Record Fair, which happens every autumn) but has been advanced in contents to the media.
Between 1960 and 1968, before ETA began killing, 12 people of Basque ethnicity were killed by the Spanish state: seven by gunfire, two by tortures, one by sequels of tortures, one by illness while in prison and two by beatings in prison.
Research center Aztiker processed the data and concluded that only half of the victims (50.2%, 238 individuals) were actually political activists of any sort (either members of political parties or armed organizations). The other half (49.8%, 236) were workers, students, friends and relatives of prisoners and random people.
Less than 1/3 of all victims (130) were active guerrillas killed in confrontations. Other 39 were exiles (former guerrillas). The other 305 victims therefore were not members of any armed group: neither ETA nor GRAPO nor the Autonomous Anti-Capitalist Commandos nor Iparetarrak.
Some outstanding figures are:
- 21 killed in police checkpoints (1961-2006)
- 36 killed in demonstrations
- 6 minors
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| Site of the Pasaia ambush |
A third of all these victims (33.8%, 160 people) were murdered under the government of Felipe González ("socialist"), between 1982 and 1996, which actively promoted death squads made of policemen and mercenaries (notably known is the GAL acronym). Besides the death squads, there were many ambushes and shootings (Pasaia, Morlans, Llica d'Amunt, Irun, Irunberri) and death of prisoners' relatives caused mostly by lenghty weekly journeys to visit, resulting in car accidents.
González' period makes good the late period of fascism in this aspect at least: in a comparably period (1960-75) "only" 86 mortal victims are accounted among Basques because of repression.
But the most violent period was without doubt the one in between: the so-called transition, with 88 killed in the late 70s and 62 more until 1982. 150 in just seven years.
With the conservative governments, which dismantled the death squads, replacing them by large scale political repression, there were 56 violent deaths, under Rodríguez Zapatero 22 so far, mostly exiles.
The authors of these killings were:
- Guardia Civil: 119
- National Police: 82
- Batallón Vasco-Español (death squad): 34
- GAL (death squad): 27
- Basque autonomous police (Ertzaintza): 14
- Army: 9
- Triple A (death squad): 9
- Fascist groups: 4
These account for 298 of the 474 (63%) In other cases the authors or causants are less well defined or involve a lot of single case authors, including external armed organizations (Uruguayan, Italian, French and Chilean police, Salvadoran Army, Nicaraguan and Colombian paramilitary groups and also private security guards). Also 38 have died in exile, 25 in jail, 17 in road accidents caused by dispersion of prisoners and eight are apparent suicides.
Source: Gara[es]
Most of the entities are fairly easy to understand, but what kind of institution is the "Guardia Civil"?
ReplyDeleteThe Guardia Civil, meaning "civil guard" is in fact a military corps in charge of police roles. There are similar institutions in other countries of Europe: French Gendarmerie, Italian Carabinieri, etc. In the case of Spain, it was created as a police corps specialized for rural areas, while National Police later took on mainly on the task of urban policing, in addition to municipal police.
ReplyDeleteBecause of their military nature, they cannot unionize and are subject to all aspects of military discipline, which is not the case of National Police. They dress in green, traditionally also with black patent leather (Sp. "charol") complements that have fallen obsolete largely as time passed, notably the "tricornio" a black hat with two lateral peaks (tricornio means actually "three horns" and is related to 19th century hats of that kind), now replaced by a green cap, that used to be an iconic symbol of this corps.
They are much feared even before fascism. They carried out the massacre of Casas Viejas in the 1930s and famous poet García Lorca wrote an also famous poem denouncing them as "souless". A fragment
(...)
They have, that's why the don't cry,
of lead the skulls.
With the soul of patent leather
they come by the road.
Hunchbacked and nocturnal
by where they animate they command
silences of dark rubber
and fears of thin sand.
They pass, if they want to pass,
and they hide in the head
a vague astronomy
or imprecise guns.
(...)
The town, free of fear,
multiplied its gates.
Forty Guardia Civiles
came in abruptly through them.
The clocks suddenly stopped,
and the brandy of the bottles
dressed up as November
not to provoke suspicion.
(...)
"November" is because of the day of All Saints (Halloween-related), when the death are particularly mourned. It means mourning. The reference to patent leather and such talk of the iconic classical uniform of the military police corps.
They made up a substantial part of the rebels in the fascist coup of 1936 and were the dark backbone of the fascist regime. They are generally the most feared Spanish police corps.
I am in fact descendant of one of them, but he was a liberal one (liberal in the European sense anyhow, i.e. center-right). He was from La Rioja and died rather young of some illness.
My aunt (in-law), who came to the Basque Country as teacher from a remote village of Salamanca (in the times when Basque language was largely forbidden), tells of how, under fascism, one of her teen-age pupils, happened to dare yell "txakurrak" (dogs) while passing before their station at Ondarroa. He was immediately arrested and only came out dead. I do not know the exact date (probably the 1960s) nor the name of the boy but he's probably one of the victims accounted for in this report.
PS- "Hunchbacked" in the poem is a reference to the weapons they carried under the black capes.
ReplyDeleteThanks. This is very helpful.
ReplyDeleteWe don't really have an equivalent institution in the United States. Military forces other than the Coast Guard are prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act from acting in a domestic law enforcement role, except in the case of the National Guard acting under the authority of the Governor.
But, the National Guard, in the U.S. (organized on a state by state basis), is a part-time back up military force that is secondary to the active duty military and to the military reserves, is most often called up by a Governor to respond to national disasters, although they sometimes handle riots that the police can't handle (they used to put down strikes a couple of generations ago, but that is ancient history), or a called up to serve in foreign wars as soldiers.
In recent times, the National Guard in the U.S. has something of a modern reputation for being more amateurish than menacing. They were the heavies who put down defiant defenders of racism despite court orders in Little Rock Arkansas (although they also killed protesters at Kent State, in Ohio). As part-timers, they are less insulated from ordinary daily civilian life than either active duty soldiers or full time law enforcement officers (although many do have public safety jobs as their main occupations).
Our rural law enforcement is vested in locally elected civilian sheriffs and (usually) locally elected district attorneys (the brother-in-law of my sister-in-law was just elected to be one in rural Vermont). In urban areas, police generally report to the elected Mayor and city council. The state police mostly work as traffic cops.
The USA has a very "civil" system of police (and other stuff). There's a lot of US political system that I consider positive, like that ability to call referendums, the importance of local administration, the widespread public education system, the popular court system, etc.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not what happens elsewhere. Specially the French Jacobin model is different and followed in many other countries: it is centralist, concentrating all in the central state, using the inquisitorial (inquiring) system of justice, etc. Comparing with US or even British systems, it's hyper-centralized and not too trusting of citizens.
It's not only followed in Latin Europe but also with variants in countries like Austria, Turkey, North Africa, Latin America (Chile at least), etc.