| March 20, 2004
March 11th,
2004, Madrid: Shades of Guernica
By Luis
Tijerina/HispanicVista.com
In 1937, when the
Basque campaign by Generalisimo Franco
began in earnest, little would historians
and scholars of Spanish history realize
how his campaign of terror against the
Basque people would come full circle on
March 11, 2004, with the killing of over
200 Spanish citizens. But beyond
the human carnage, beyond the sorrow of
relatives and friends of these citizens
who died in this act of political terror,
was the ‘double game’ or
domestic political duplicity that would
affect the national elections taking take
place on Sunday, March 14th,
2004. For only hours after the
killings of these people in Madrid, Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar was blaming ETA
(Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) for the human
slaughter. ETA is a resilient
Marxist Basque organization bent on
winning a separate Basque homeland in
northwestern Spain, and possibly
southwestern France. Soon after
Aznar’s histrionic blame on ETA, it
was learned through Spain’s interior
minister, Angel Acebes, that Al Qaeda had
taken responsibility for the attack in
the capital of Madrid. It is at this
pivotal moment with the accusation
against ETA by Aznar, that I will try to
show the connection between the reign of
Franco and the Popular Party’s
interest to deceive the Spanish public
about the horrific events of March 11th,
2004 in Madrid.
As the English
historian, Gerald Brenan, admitted in the
first preface to his classical account on
the origins of the Spanish Civil War, The
Spanish Labyrinth, one must
realize that, “The standard
histories of the Peninsula give a false
impression of the events they describe.”
Therefore, in my attempt to compare this
profound tragedy and turning point in
contemporary Spanish history with the
events of Guernica, I will limit my
account to the factual knowledge of the
incidents during the time of the two
wars. On March 1, 1937, a Colonel
Juan Vigon Suerodiaz, chief of Mola’s
General staff of the Nationalist forces,
attempted through those close to Franco
to seize the Basque provinces, where
there were substantial amounts of iron,
coal and steel reserves. At first
Franco was not interested in the Basque
country, because he was still vain enough
to have his eyes on the capture of
Madrid. However, when his Italian
allies began to flounder on the
battlefield near and around Siguenza, he
decided the time was ripe to allow the
Condor Legion to attack Bilbao, the
capital of the Basque regions.
But the Basque
fighters could not be beaten so quickly.
Their resistance was so stubborn, that
Franco decided to allow Sperrle, the
commander of the Condor Legion, which was
a specialized unit of German bombers,
fighter aircraft, artillery and other
armored units, to destroy the Basque town
of Durango. With the Spanish town
in flames, later to be followed by a
bitter attack upon Ochandiano, all that
remained was to stop the Basque army
retreat towards the roads and bridge
leading to Guernica. Guernica had
no anti-aircraft defenses. On April
26th, the slaughter by Nazi
air forces upon the citizens of Guernica
commenced. After the strafing of
Basque citizens attempting to flee the
town, after fiery bombing of the
buildings and homes of those who lived in
the ancient capital of the Basque
country, the Nationalist forces attempted
to conceal the actual perpetrators of the
terrorist attack on the Basque town in
their press releases. From the
moment of the destruction of Guernica by
explosive ‘splinter’ and
incendiary bombs that left over a
thousand and half Basque dead, the
duplicity of modern Spain’s
treatment of its own people was born.
The historian, Paul
Preston, in his famous biography on
Franco, stated, “Franco’s
foreign press service, under the
direction of Luis Bolin, immediately
denied that the bombing had taken place.
Radio National broadcasting from
Salamanca claimed that there were no
German or other foreign aircraft in
Nationalist Spain… When it quickly
became obvious that outright denial was
no longer tenable, the Nationalist
claimed that Guernica had been dynamited
by the Basque themselves. That
story was maintained by some even up to
the 1990s.” Aznar, and the
other leaders of the Popular Party,
attempted to make the case that in fact
it was the Basque organization, ETA, who
killed innocent Spanish civilians. We
know now otherwise. Since the tragedy of
Guernica, the people of Spain have been
in an ongoing struggle to identify their
actual position in the international
arena of world politics. As the
Spanish people submitted to the heavy
repression of Franco, they also have
shown courage to identify with other
complex forces outside their immediate
sphere of influence. Before the
beginning of the invasion of Iraq, it was
noted throughout the world’s new
media that ninety percent of Spaniards
opposed the war. But Aznar and the
Popular Party would not listen to the
people.
Amid the explosions
and death, not far from the Prado Museum
in Madrid, the attackers had exploited
the background of conflict between the
Spanish state and the Basque separatists,
and they exploited the history of Spain’s
political violence and the context of
Spain’s internal strife. Atrocities
have continued on both sides since the
days of the Republic, and I am reminded
of what Thucydides wrote during his world
war, namely The Peloponnesian War, that,
“…. there was a struggle
everywhere between the leaders of the
democratic and oligarchic parties…many
calamities, such as exist and always will
exist till human nature changes, varying
in intensity and character with changing
circumstances.”
In the intensity of
what befell the people in Madrid on March
11th, 2004, the more
conservative and reactionary political
circles in Spain turned to create the
trope of terrorism. The ultra
conservatives of Spain, including the
center- right party of former Prime
Minister Aznar desired to maintain their
control over the Spanish people by
maintaining that it was ETA who was the
ultimate threat to Spain’s stability
in the world. In modern politics,
timing is everything. Thus, the
‘caprice of the hour’ to
overcome a political enemy is now
satisfied by controlling the masses
through the more deadlier caprice of war.
There are 1,300 Spanish troops in Iraq.
These Spanish soldiers have suffered grim
casualties brought about by Iraqi
patriots or what the United States
government calls insurgents.
The Spanish people
have spoken in the general elections in
Spain, but that does not mean the
internal war is over. According to
historian John Sullivan, author of ETA
and Basque Nationalism: The Fight for
Euskadi, 1890-1986, “The likely
outlook for the Basque country, there, is
that ETA-M [ETA-Militar] continues to
exist and sustain an armed struggle,
… The loss of its base in the French
Basque country, although important, need
not be fatal. The constant
proclamations by Spanish governments that
the problem of ETA is about to resolved
are likely to be continually
disappointed.” With this
point of view of the Basque region in
mind, the Socialists of Spain should
consider more the mercurial and unstable
history of the Spanish army. Will
the Spanish officers and their troops
have the discipline to maintain
themselves in their barracks during this
momentum in their country’s history?
Should not the new prime minister of
Spain, Jose Luis Rodriques Zapatero,
refrain from calling ETA “those scum”
and concentrate instead on bringing Spain
forward regarding the democratic rights
of all the people of Spain? It is
for the Spanish people to decide who is
to blame for the atrocities in la
Patria.
I
observe that in these times that we live
in, as Thucydides wrote, “Each party
in its day of power despairing of
security was more concerned to save
itself from ruin than to trust others.”
The youth, elderly, and middle aged
Spaniards, who were riding in those four
commuter trains that early Thursday
morning in March have joined in history
their fellow Spanish and Basque compatriotas
who fell in Guernica that summer day
during the Spanish Civil War.
________________________________________
Luis L. Tijerina has a Masters of Arts
Degree in history from Vermont College of
Norwich University. He lives in
Burlington, Vermont. Contact at andropov@verizon.net
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