SPAIN: “Dirty War” Trial takes Summer Holidays

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Aug 2 1996 (IPS) - The Spanish government rejected legal requests to declassify documents which could link Spain’s Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez with the “dirty war” against the Basque separatists (ETA) Friday, in an attempt to stop the investigation and avoid a break with the Socialist Party.

The decision, which rejected demands from several judges to make secret documents incriminating Gonzalez and several of his collaborators available, was taken by the Council of Miinisters, under control of Jose Maria Aznar.

The “dirty war” occurred between 1983 and 1987, when there were 40 attacks in the south of France and the Spanish Basque country, which left 27 people dead.

Responsibility for these acts was claimed by the Antiterrorist Liberation Groups (GAL) and, according to the proceedings currently underway, these were organised by the Interior Ministry.

Another event which acted as a brake on the investigations was the decision by the National Hearing (the acting judicial body) to free General Enrique Gonzalez Galindo without bail, though he was forbidden from leaving the country and was ordered to report in to the court each week.

The General is being tried for ordering the illegal arrest, torture and murder of Jose Antonio Lasa and Jose Ignacio Zabala in 1983.

These two young men, suspected ETA members, were detained, tortured in an official building in the Basque city of San Sebastian, moved to Valencia (at the other end of the province), shot dead and buried in quicklime.

The public prosecutor on the case, Pedro Rovira, refused to carry out an order from the General State Attorney calling for Galindo’s liberty, as he understood it would be an injustice for other prisoners awaiting trial on lesser charges.

Rovira also had the support of the other public prosecutors, but the Hearing released the General irrespective of their desires.

At the time when the Hearing ordered Galindo to be left in liberty, amidst confused and controversial proceedings, the examining magistrate, Manuel Gomez de Liano, ordered the freezing of the goods, income and pensions of both this general and three other civil guards involved in the case, in what he saw as his civil responsibility.

Eduardo Serra, minister of defence and confidante of King Juan Carlos, used the argument of national security to explain why the documents had not been declassified.

A representative from the Spanish Socialist Worker Party (PSOE) said the Hearing and government decisions are both within the law, adding that the decision not to release the documents was a “reasonable measure.”

This position differs radically from the view of the other parites. Inaki Anasagasti, parliamentary spokesman for the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV, governing in the Basque country) classified Galindo’s release as “terrible news.”

He said this could be interpreted as an official statement that there is “good terrorism, like that which he (Galindo) did, compared with bad terrorism, by the ETA.”

Billy Meyer, representative of the United Left coalition (IU, third force in parliament) said this ammounted to an attack on the state of law. Galindo’s liberation “is scandalous and shows us a justice system which operates with double standards.”

The Basque president Carlos Garaikoetxea, of a social democratic nationalist tendency, said “something smells rotten,” saying Galindo had been freed to prevent him from compromising “the upper echelons of State terrorism.”

Pilar Urbano, writer on Spanish daily ‘El Mundo,’ always well informed on military issues, predicted Thursday that “Galindo had been sending increasingly urgent messages for some time, saying that his prison situation and that of his men had to be resolved or he would begin to talk.”

She said the release of Galindo was sure to cast doubt on the innocence of the higher levels.

The conservative daily ‘ABC’ wrote an editorial Friday saying the declassification of the documents would affect Gonzalez and some members of the Executive claimed this would mean declaring war on the PSOE.

Galindo’s liberation and the refusal to release the documents were both decided in the last meeting of the Ministers’ Council before the summer recess.

This means that from Friday on, there will only be skeleton cover in the courts, and hence a break in the investigation and trial, giving Galindo time to be with his family and Gonzalez a chance to rest, far from the ominous shadow of justice.