Obituary: Antonio Cubillo

Cubillo after the assassination attempt

The leader of the historical Movement for the Independence and Self-Determination of the Canarian Archipelago (MPAIAC), Antonio Cubillo, died today at the venerable age of 82 years. 

Cubillo and his movement, founded in 1968, were even recognized once by the Organization of the African Union, however the popularity of the struggle for independence in Canary Islands never got too much popular support. 

The MPAIAC was mostly active as means of a Algiers-based radio station, although it also had an armed branch, the Guanche Armed Forces, which made several attacks in the late 1970s. A police officer who attempted to deactivate a bomb in 1978 is their only fatal victim.

In 1978 Cubillo was attacked with a knife by a thug allegedly at the service of the Spanish Government leaving him severely handicapped for the rest of his life. The culprit was sentenced to death so he could not speak. Since then the Spanish authorities have blamed the CIA (???).

Naiz Info includes today a brief obituary but, maybe more interestingly for those fluent in Spanish language, a video debate between Cubillo and some other characters of that period, of doubtless historical interest.