https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-47366501/

​Carles Puigdemont, the ex-president of the Spanish region of Catalonia, spoke to the BBC's Europe reporter Gavin Lee about life in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

The interview took place as 12 pre-independence politicians face trials in Madrid and some could face up to 25 years in prison, if found guilty.

Mr Puigdemont has been on the run since his then-government led a failed attempt to secede from Spain after a controversial self-determination referendum.

​The video can be viewed on the BBC link

​

 by Thomas Harrington,  
 February 25, 2019
The Globe Post
theglobepost.com/2019/02/25/catalan-trial-spain-democracy/?fbclid=IwAR2y7tYC3AozoHxAqy2EoJuh-F9D4lh52Chkp3N5YDKWvvOJh9Rp_-Byvo0
Watching the trials of the Catalan independentists now taking place at Spain’s highest court in Madrid, I have been reminded again and again of a scene from director Hal Ashby’s marvelous 1979 movie Being There.

The protagonist of that film, played by Peter Sellers, is a fiftyish man who has never ventured outside the confines of his birth home. His entire understanding of society has been exclusively shaped by television viewing.

When, upon the death of his father, this man-child is finally expelled from the dwelling, he roams the streets of Washington D.C. with his TV remote control unit in his hand. When he comes across sights that disturb him, he points the device at the offending scene the hopes of “changing the channel” of the reality before him. Needless to say, his efforts at discharging his anxiety through this mechanism are fruitless.to edit.
Handicap of Catalan Trials
Each of the ten Catalan politicians and two civil society leaders currently sitting in the dock in the Spanish capital are there for allegedly having committed some combination of rebellion, sedition, and misuse of public funds. The Spanish prosecutors have been relentless in their attempts to underscore a narrative of events that will support the state’s allegations against these promoters of the October 2017 referendum on self-determination and the Catalan declaration of independence issued 26 days later.

However, they are doing so under a very severe handicap.

The empirical facts don’t remotely support their contentions.

And the Catalan defendants, most of whom have been held without bail for upwards of a year in violation of all existing judicial norms, are in no mood to play along with the game. Rather, they have convincingly refuted the serial exaggerations and mischaracterizations of their inquisitors point by point, often stopping along the way to give them eloquent lessons on the basic principles of participatory democracy such as the freedom of expression and the right to peaceably assemble.
Former government spokesman Jordi Turull even mockingly helped one black-robed eminence who – as a high-level prosecutor in an officially multi-lingual state – was struggling mightily to understand and pronounce extremely basic words from a document written in Catalan, a language quite close to Spanish in vocabulary and structure. Imagine the stupor it would cause if an Anglophone prosecutor at Canada’s Supreme court in Ottawa were unable to understand the words “cited” or “taken” in French. But in central Spain, the prosecutor’s patent ethnocentric ignorance did not provoke the slightest bit of embarrassment.

No Basis for Allegations of Rebellion or Sedition
est it seem that I am presenting things in an extraordinary slanted way, consider the following. The Spanish judiciary has twice issued European Arrest Warrants for former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont on the same charges now being levied against his former cabinet members and the two civil society leaders. And on both occasions – in Belgium in December 2017 and Germany in April 2018 – the European courts made clear through back channels to Madrid that they saw absolutely no basis for the allegations of rebellion or sedition. So, on both occasions, Spain hastily withdrew the requests in advance of the official announcements to save face before the rest of the E.U.

Although the German court did not rule out the possibility that Puigdemont could be extradited for misuse of public funds, Spain eventually dropped its extradition request on that charge as well.
Perhaps the decision had something to do with the fact that former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his finance minister Cristobal Montoro – who had imposed a draconian auditing regime upon the Catalan Autonomous Government in the months leading to the 2017 referendum – both said publicly in its aftermath that the Catalan government had not spent a single cent on the vote.

In short, we have people being tried in Madrid for crimes that the Spanish government has been either unable or unwilling to pursue against the official most responsible for promoting the historic events in the Fall of 2017.

Francisco Franco and Spain’s Judiciary
So, why do these august jurists continue to click their remotes in the faces of the defendants?
Here’s why. Despite what you might have heard, and what many of us believed for a long time, the vaunted Spanish Transition to Democracy after dictator Francisco Franco’s death in 1975 was mostly a carefully managed piece of stagecraft. This was especially the case within the country’s judiciary.

For example, today’s National Court, where parallel trials against allegedly disloyal Catalan police officials will soon begin, started in 1941 as the Tribunal for the Repression of Masonry and Communism. In 1963, it was renamed the Tribunal of Public Order, and in 1977, in the midst of the Transition, it was given its present innocuous-sounding title. However, when that last change was made, its function and its personnel remained the essentially same.

For Franco, no political value superseded that of national unity. He thus created a judiciary that shared his belief that any and all means were justified in the fight to maintain it. And while the world became enthralled with the country’s enchanting “new” and seemingly democratic combination of modernity and high quality living in the 80s and 90s, the courts remained largely as they were during the dictatorship, with chances for ascent within the system carefully mediated by the need to sign off on the belief that national unity can and should trump the pursuit of impartial justice should the two values come into conflict.

Most knowledgeable observers believe that these sociological scions of Francoism will win the draconian convictions they seek against the Catalans. The question is whether the beleaguered democracies of Spain and the rest of the E.U. will be able to survive this great “victory” of deep state authoritarianism dressed up as the triumph of democratic constitutionalism.

​

​www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/19/podemos-spanish-politics

Internal strife and a narrowness of vision has halted the party’s rise – and left room for the far right to creep in
By Giles Tremlett, The Guardian, Tuesday 19 February 2019

It was only five years ago that Spain’s break-out party Podemos became a dazzling new lodestar for Europe’s lost and troubled left. But with a snap election just weeks away, it now risks a crash as spectacular as its rise. Has the leftwing populist model of ponytailed rebel Pablo Iglesias and his gang of talented young thinkers, so admired by many Jeremy Corbyn backers and others around Europe, proved a failure?

Polling suggests the party is in deep trouble. Podemos once led the polls and very nearly snatched leadership of Spain’s left from prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist party at the 2016 elections, but it is now only the voters’ fourth favourite party. The meltdown means it is slated to lose half its deputies, while Sánchez gallops ahead, taking well over twice as many votes as Podemos on 28 April.



The far-right populist party Vox is now also snapping at its heels, adding ideological insult to electoral injury. In April, Vox will target the same working-class city neighbourhoods as Podemos – claiming that immigrants and Catalan separatists, not austerity, are the problem. Mainstream parties will undoubtedly argue that this is merely one populism replacing another. That misses the point.

Although Spain has changed since Podemos picked up the banner of the indignado protesters and charged dramatically on to the scene in the 2014 European elections, the damage is largely self-inflicted. In the latest of a series of internal bust-ups, Iglesias’s former No 2, Iñigo Errejón, is leading an alternative coalition into elections for the powerful Madrid regional government in May.

The split matters partly because Errejón was, after Iglesias, the most visible and charismatic of the talented young leaders who created Podemos. Such was the passion they provoked that the two politicians could do stadium tours, filling seats with excited supporters chanting “Yes we can!” Those queuing to see them afterwards were just as keen to plant a kiss on the boyish-looking Errejón as they were to grab a selfie with Iglesias.

More importantly, Errejón was also a key theorist in a party that pledged to break moulds and shed the shackles that had kept the reforming left out of power. He was the most forthright proponent of a philosophy of popular “transversal” coalitions that knitted together a wide variety of groups opposed to the status quo in one of Europe’s most corrupt and unequal societies. This allowed Podemos to channel the rage of the spontaneous indignado protests, which had occupied city squares in 2011. It also prevented it repeating the doomed coalitions routinely put together under the dead hand of Spain’s communist party. Everybody was welcome, the message became, under Podemos’s bright, purple-coloured umbrella.

 
 ‘Pablo Iglesias’s former No 2, Iñigo Errejón, is leading an alternative coalition into elections for the powerful Madrid regional government in May.’ Photograph: Juan Medina/Reuters
That message is no longer so clear. Indeed, the party appears to have forgotten that its success has always depended on the fact that it is part of a much broader movement of leftwing regeneration.

Nowhere is this more visible than in Spain’s two greatest cities, Madrid and Barcelona. These are where Podemos holds greatest sway, having helped to form the local coalitions that brought Madrid mayor, Manuela Carmena, and her Barcelona counterpart, Ada Colau, to power. The two cities, home to 10% of the country’s population, are the main laboratories for Podemos-style policies in Spain. They are also, traditionally, a launch-pad for political change.

Both mayors have performed remarkably well as they seek to make cities more liveable, rather than merely richer. Carmena has even pulled off the apparently impossible trick of reducing the debt inherited from big-spending rightwing mayors without instituting austerity. Charges that the new left is radical, dangerous and irresponsible now ring hollow.

Neither mayor allows herself to be bossed by Podemos, a party that is only half-joking when it repeatedly references the power battles waged in Game of Thrones. Colau remains on friendly terms, but the relationship with Carmena has soured as Podemos has shed allies.

Errejón has joined Carmena and her alternative umbrella group, Más Madrid. This will compete with Podemos (and the communists who are now its most important coalition allies) for votes in the regional elections in May. To confuse things further, Errejón still claims to be a loyal Podemos member.

Monica Oltra, the deputy premier of Valencia’s regional government, has already said that her Compromís party, a key local ally, will not repeat an electoral coalition with Podemos in the April general election. En Marea, a similar ally in Galicia, has also walked away. As a result, Podemos’s broad coalition looks increasingly skinny and self-centred.

Podemos should also ask itself why the three most powerful women on Spain’s new left – the two mayors and Oltra – all operate outside the party. Even within Podemos, and despite gender-balanced quota systems, women complain that the party suffers from an overload of testosterone.

The only really visible woman in Podemos is now Irene Montero, the party’s spokeswoman in parliament. She and Iglesias are a couple. A recent decision to raise their children in a generously-sized country house with a swimming pool has helped take the shine off a party that claims to represent ordinary Spaniards. Podemos members, when consulted, voted to keep them in their positions. Ordinary voters, unused to such luxury, will not be so understanding.

The Podemos story remains remarkable and the party has a history of proving naysayers wrong. A year after its foundation, it packed Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square with supporters as Iglesias told the crowd to challenge the monsters of “financial totalitarianism” and “take their dreams seriously”.

That was four years ago, when the damage caused by the global financial crash and a burst construction bubble at home was rawer than it is now. In December, a Podemos-led coalition lost a third of its votes in regional elections in southern Andalucia. Instead of asking Podemos to take over the traditionally leftwing regional government, voters in one of Spain’s poorest regions ushered in a rightwing government backed by Vox. When that happens, something has gone badly wrong with the “Podemos revolution”.

• Giles Tremlett is a journalist and author based in Madrid

Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister, should realise that this is not the best way to defeat demands for Catalan independence
​
www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/spain-catalan-independence-trial-madrid-mistake-a8775591.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&fbclid=IwAR0YW-xD-L-3PAGKEJMAjCO4XCmIqvwZyltXb90UBDWSe-POcnqk2dt0cHM#Echobox=1550002149


The Spanish government’s handling of the Catalonian independence movement is worse than a human rights outrage; it is a mistake. 

The trial of a dozen separatist leaders on charges including “rebellion” and “sedition”, charges carrying sentences of up to 25 years in prison, ought to be unthinkable in country that is an established member of the European Union and a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

From the beginning, from the confrontational way in which the Spanish police handled peaceful demonstrations in Catalonia, the authorities in Madrid have got this wrong. They responded to the attempts by the devolved parliament in Barcelona to seek independence with a heavy-handed refusal to respect free expression and democratic, non-violent demands.

The independence movement has not always handled its campaign in the most effective way. The unofficial referendum held in October 2017 was not a good mandate, and the parliament’s declaration of its independence a few weeks later was unwise.

But the central government’s response has been disgraceful. The charges brought against the leaders of the independence movement are plainly political and the long detention of those accused is unjustifiable. It ought to prick the conscience of all Spaniards and indeed all good Europeans that Carles Puigdemont, president of the putative breakaway republic, felt he had to flee the country. 
For a non-violent political dissident to have to seek exile in another EU country – Belgium – is a stain on Spain’s membership of a union supposedly committed to the protection and furtherance of human rights. 

What makes Tuesday’s court proceedings in Madrid so controversial is that, if the defendants are found guilty, they are bound to appeal, eventually to the European Court of Human Rights, where their right to peaceful expression of their views is almost certain to be recognised. 

However, even if the Spanish national authorities refuse to accept that they are on the wrong side of human rights law, Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister, should realise that this is not the best way to defeat demands for Catalan independence.
 We British should resist the temptation to lecture other nations on how to manage national and regional differences within states, but there is something to be learned from the way David Cameron dealt with demands for Scottish independence. He accepted the right of a people to govern themselves, and sought to persuade them in a democratic campaign that they should remain part of the larger union. The idea of making Alex Salmond, first minister of Scotland, a martyr by jailing him was never a remote possibility. 

If Spain’s prime minister cannot see that what his government is doing in Catalonia is wrong, he should realise that it is counterproductive and risks storing up much greater trouble for the future.

​Most of the former government, two activists and the former parliament speaker will face the Supreme Court11 February 2019 12:14 PM by ACN | Madrid

​The trial against Catalan independence leaders, set to have a major political impact on Spain, is starting on February 12. Twelve people are accused of calling a referendum and declaring independence in 2017 despite Spain’s opposition, including grassroots activists and some of Catalonia’s top political leaders. Some have been in pre-trial jail for more than a year. Starting on February 12, the trial is expected to last months and will attract great international attention. Yet the foremost Catalan political authority in 2017, Carles Puigdemont, will not appear in court. He and other prosecuted leaders are in exile in Belgium, Scotland, and Switzerland.

So, who are the leaders accused in the upcoming trial?



​
Oriol Junqueras,
Former Catalan vice president and ERC leader

Oriol Junqueras is the most senior political figure to face trial in the Supreme Court. He was the Catalan vice president and the finance minister at the time of the referendum, as well as the main independence leader along with then-president Puigdemont.

While Puigdemont left the country following Madrid’s takeover of Catalan institutions, Junqueras stayed and was subsequently incarcerated on November 2, 2017. While in prison, he ran as ERC’s candidate for president in the December 21 election.

Pro-independence parties had held on to a parliamentary majority but lost it last spring when the Supreme Court suspended Junqueras and other MPs charged in the Catalan trial, and they rejected being replaced. Junqueras will have spent 467 days in precautionary detention by the time the trial starts.

Prosecutor’s request: 25 years in prison for rebellion and misuse of public funds

Jordi Turull, 
Former presidency minister

As the presidency minister and cabinet spokesperson, Jordi Turull was one of the highest-ranking government officials during the independence referendum. He entered prison on November 2, 2017, only to be released a month later on a €100,000 bail.

Elected as an MP for Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) party, led by Puigdemont, he was proposed by the former president as his successor, when Spanish courts prevented Puigdemont from retaking the post at a distance. He entered prison again on March 23, a day before he was to be elected as Catalan president in parliament.

He was subsequently suspended as MP, and prevented from retaking his post as presidency minister while in prison. Turull will have spent 359 days in precautionary detention when the trial starts.

Prosecutor’s request: 16 years in prison for rebellion and misuse of public funds

Joaquim Forn,
Former interior minister

As the interior minister, Joaquim Forn was in charge of Catalonia’s own police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, during the independence referendum. Accused of not doing enough to stop the vote, Forn has denied any "political interference" with the Mossos’ work.
Along with Junqueras, Forn is the only minister who’s stayed behind bars consistently since November 2. He is to run for Barcelona mayor as JxCat’s candidate. Forn will have spent 467 days in precautionary detention when the trial starts.

Prosecutor’s request: 16 years for rebellion and misuse of public funds.

Raül Romeva,
Former foreign action minister

After a decade serving as a member of the European Parliament for the Greens-EFA, Romeva returned to Catalonia in 2015 to lead pro-independence parties in a unity list.

He served as foreign action minister until Spain triggered Article 155 of the constitution to suspend the Catalan government, following a declaration of independence. He spent a month in jail, was released on bail, and was later re-imprisoned in March 2018. Elected as an MP for ERC, the Supreme Court suspended him last July. Romeva will have spent 359 days in precautionary detention when the trial starts.

Prosecutor’s request: 16 years for rebellion and misuse of public funds

Dolors Bassa,
Former social affairs minister

Dolors Bassa was the minister who ordered Catalan schools be used as polling stations for the independence referendum. She was released on bail after spending a month in prison from November to December 2017.

A member of ERC, she left her seat in parliament before appearing before the Supreme Court in March last year but was imprisoned regardless. Bassa will have spent 359 days in precautionary detention when the trial starts.

Prosecutor’s request: 16 years for rebellion and misuse of public funds

Josep Rull, 
Former territory minister

A close ally of Puigdemont, Josep Rull has served as a member of the Catalan parliament for more than two decades. After spending one month in jail and being released on bail, he was imprisoned again last March.

Catalan president Quim Torra proposed that he retake his post as territory minister while in prison, but Spanish courts blocked his appointment and later suspended him as an MP. Rull will have spent 359 days in precautionary detention when the trial starts.

Prosecutor’s request: 16 years for rebellion and misuse of public funds

Meritxell Borràs,Former governance minister

Catalonia’s governance minister during the independence referendum, Meritxell Borràs quit politics after spending 33 days in prison, thus abandoning a career spanning more than 20 years. Summoned to court last March, she was allowed to walk free while most of her colleagues were again incarcerated.

Prosecutor’s request: 7 years in prison + €30,000 fine for misuse of public funds and disobedience

Carles Mundó, Former justice minister

Just like Borràs, Carles Mundó quit politics after spending 33 days in jail in late 2017 for his role in the independence bid. He was the justice minister during the referendum.

Prosecutor’s request: 7 years in prison + €30,000 fine for misuse of public funds and disobedience

Santi Vila,Former business minister

Santi Vila was always skeptical of unilateral moves to independence while a member of the Puigdemont cabinet. He was part of the government when the referendum was called, and the day before the declaration of independence, he stepped down from his post and from politics altogether soon afterward. This, after spending one day in prison. He was not MP in Parliament during that period, and said his department spent no money on referendum logistics.

Prosecutor’s request: 7 years in prison + €30,000 fine for misuse of public funds and disobedience.

Carme Forcadell, Former parliament speaker

Forcadell has been one of the main key players in the road to independence since its beginning in 2012. The first years, she was leader of a large grassroots pro-independence organization, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), and from 2015 as parliament speaker.

The Spanish Constitutional Court sent her several warnings and the Spanish prosecutor filed criminal lawsuits against her while in office, for allowing debates and votes on independence. Forcadell, however, repeatedly stated that she always respected freedom of speech and the rights of MPs. She will have been behind bars for 327 days when the trial starts.

Prosecutor’s request: 17 years in prison for rebellion.

Jordi Sànchez,Former grassroots leader

Jordi Sànchez took over ANC leadership in 2015 when Forcadell entered institutional politics. He led a protest outside the Catalan economy department on September 20, 2017, as a response to Spanish police raids against the referendum organization.
No-one was injured but the protest was considered a “tumultuous” one, and Sànchez was charged with sedition, and then rebellion. The grassroots leader maintains all pro-independence demonstrations in that period were peaceful. Yet he was incarcerated pending the trial, and when sessions start, he will have spent 484 days behind bars.

While in jail, he stepped down as ANC leader, was elected as MP for Puigdemont’s candidacy JxCat, attempted to be sworn in as Catalan president, and was then suspended as MP.

Prosecutor’s request: 17 years in prison for rebellion.

Jordi Cuixart,Grassroots leader

Jordi Cuixart is the only official to be judged who has never held any public post in politics. During the 2017 referendum, he was president of Òmnium Cultural, another large pro-independence organization, and is accused of the same events as Sànchez.

Both were the first leaders to be sent to precautionary jail in October 2017, and Cuixart will also have spent 484 days in prison when the trial starts.

Unlike Sànchez, he was not involved in the December 2017 election and remained Òmnium’s leader. This organization has dramatically increased its members since then, to 130,000.

Prosecutor’s request: 17 years in prison for rebellion.

Twelve leaders charged with calling a referendum and declaring independence in 2017

 09 February 2019 11:44 AM byGuifré Jordan | Barcelona
Events to be judged

In broad terms, what will be judged is the whole independence bid, which the public prosecutor claims all started in 2012 with a preconceived plan.

The sessions will revolve around some major events during that time, including the October 1, 2017 referendum and its organization.

This includes the mass protests against the Spanish police raids of some Catalan government buildings aimed at halting the vote on September 20, only 11 days before the referendum.

The declaration of independence, passed on October 27, 2017 by the parliament, will also be in the spotlight in the Spanish Supreme Court.

Individuals in the dock

All the Catalan government members during the referendum who did not go into exile will go before the judges. That is former vice president Oriol Junqueras, and former ministers Josep Rull, Jordi Turull, Dolors Bassa, Raül Romeva, Joaquim Forn, Meritxell Borràs, Carles Mundó and Santi Vila.
The parliament speaker during that period, Carme Forcadell, will also face trial, as will the two leaders of the main pro-independence civil organizations on September 20, 2017, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart.

They have all been in pre-trial prison at some point –most of them for a year or more.

Some other Catalan officials have also been charged, but are in exile so they will not face court: the former president Carles Puigdemont, former ministers Meritxell Serret, Toni Comín, Clara Ponsatí and Lluís Puig; and former senior MPs Marta Rovira and Anna Gabriel.

Crimes and sentences requested
The public prosecutor is requesting prison sentences of up to 25 years for each of them, with most accused of rebellion and misuse of public funds. The proposed joint prison sentences add up to a total of 177 years.

Spain's solicitor general, representing the government in the case, has not charged the leaders with rebellion, but with sedition and misuse of public funds, and demands prison sentences of between 7 and 12 years, totaling 119 years.

The far-right Vox party is the private prosecutor in the trial, and it requests prison sentences of up to 74 years –making a total of 702 years behind bars.

All the defenses deny all the charges and have called for the leaders to be acquitted.

Public prosecutor's arguments

The public prosecutor claims that the defendants orchestrated a "general uprising, leading to acts of force, aggression and violence," and that they were "aware" that violence could erupt.

It is also alleged there were "joint" efforts by the government, the parliament, and the main grassroots associations to get international recognition for Catalonia's independence and to "apply pressure so as to force the State to capitulate."
The prosecutor also says that organizing the independence bid led to the misuse of public funds to the tune of 3.1 million euros, which was used to carry out the vote.

The "intimidatory force represented by mass public demonstrations," and the "use of the Mossos d'Esquadra [Catalan police] as an armed police force" to hold the referendum are also among the prosecution's arguments.

Defendants' arguments

The defendants claim "judicial persecution" against them, and that they have suffered a violation of their fundamental rights during the inquiry.

They also say that the independence movement has always been peaceful, including the events of September 20, 2017, and the referendum some days later.

Indeed, they maintain that the only violence came from the Spanish police on October 1, and deny giving any political orders to the Catalan police, or spending any public money on the vote –they say Spain had complete control of government expenses from July 2017.
According to the defendants, holding any debate or vote in parliament cannot be considered a crime, nor is organizing a referendum.

The figures for the trial

The 'special case 20907/2017,' the official name of the trial in the Supreme Court, will have seven judges, 12 prosecuted individuals, three prosecutors (the public one, the solicitor general and Vox) and eight defense teams.

The solicitor general requests up to 12 years in jail for each defendant, with the public prosecutor calling for up to 25, and Vox up to 74.

When the trial starts, Cuixart and Sànchez will have been in custody for 484 days, while Romeva and Junqueras will have spent 467 days behind bars. Bassa, Forcadell, Rull, Turull and Romeva will have spent some 350 days locked up.

Some 600 journalists have been registered to attend the trial in Madrid. They work for 150 media outlets, 50 of which are international.
Meanwhile, more than 500 witnesses have been called to testify before the judges.
www.catalannews.com/news/item/catalan-independence-trial-what-you-need-to-know?fbclid=IwAR0q_oeUr18iPp3FS4UmLd9t7Uo1vjU0Y660gUVBT0ZCAQbvDw3yRMrerT0

Half a million people fled Spain in 1939, only to be interned for years in harsh French camps. Survivors now tell of the misery of the Retirada, 80 years ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/09/franco-spain-refugees-haunted-by-the-past-retirada
From the Observer, Ros Coward, Saturday 9 February 2019
​
It is 80 years since one of Europe’s worst – and least known – refugee crises, but memories of the Retirada (or withdrawal) are still vivid for Madeleine Morena. Her family were among 500,000 Spaniards who fled across the eastern Pyrenees to France when Barcelona fell to Franco’s forces near the end of the Spanish civil war on 26 January 1939, triggering one of the greatest exoduses of modern times.

Photos and documentary footage show the incredible sight of half a million people pouring towards the border towns of Puigcerdà in Spain, and Prats-de-Mollo and Le Perthus in France – women and children, Republican fighters carrying weapons, members of the International brigades. The local French newspaper, L’Indépendant, described “a haunting cohort of civilians, armed soldiers, vehicles and animals”.
“I was six years old when Barcelona fell,” says Morena, speaking in the village of Vinça, nestling in the foothills of the Pyrenees. “My father and uncle were Republican fighters so we had to flee our village near the French border. I left with my mother, brother, aunt, and grandparents. My grandfather was furious, saying: ‘Why do we have to leave? I’ve done nothing wrong.’ Everyone was panicking and I was very scared. We knew we were in danger. We just took clothes and a few possessions. I had my doll.

“The roads gave out near France so we had to walk over the Col D’Ares pass. It was bitterly cold and there was snow. We had to abandon our belongings, we couldn’t carry them. We found a hut to sleep in. The man who owned it came. It turned out he was a distant relation and in the morning he took me on his shoulders and we walked into France.”

Numerous events will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Retirada, which came to an end on 13 February 1939 when Franco’s army reached the French border. There will be photo displays on Argelès beach, exhibitions in every village near former camps, lectures, performances, and a new website. But for many years there has been silence and denial. “The history of the Retirada is a work in progress,” says Agnès Sajaloli, director of a memorial at Rivesaltes, near Perpignan, which served as an internment camp from where thousands were sent to their deaths. “We still don’t know the details. Everyone involved had a different story.”

Once the refugees arrived in France the official reception was hostile. The French authorities opened the borders until Franco’s troops, in pursuit of the Republicans, reached Le Perthus. But they were completely unprepared for the numbers: there were no provisions, no sanitation, and no shelter from harsh mountain weather for exhausted and demoralised refugees. They were given one loaf between five people and a small cup of water at 3pm, nothing else.

At Prats-de-Mollo, where Morena’s family arrived, many children died as a result of the cold. Soldiers were disarmed and the refugees were first corralled and then dispersed to camps. The French used Senegalese soldiers for the job. Morena’s family were taken to a nearby holding camp while fighters and boys over 14 were transported to hastily opened camps on the inhospitable plains around Perpignan. “They were treated worse than prisoners of war,” says Spanish civil war historian David Wingeate Pike. “They were treated like criminals.”The most notorious camps were on the beaches of Argelès, Saint-Cyprien and Le Barcarès – prone to strong winds, stinging sand storms and violent extremes of temperature. “These beach camps were terrible places,” says Helen Graham, professor of Spanish history at Royal Holloway, University of London. “They were just sand and barbed wire. They had no shelter except tents. There was a problem of fresh water, there were no washing and toilet facilities – the sea had to do for everything. The people who arrived here were already ill, so there was an immediate problem with dysentery and typhoid. Many died.”

None of the refugees were released unless they could get “sponsorship” from a legitimate person outside. But the rightwing press whipped up local hostility, claiming most internees were criminals or seditious communists, mocking them for complaining about rations.

The camps were still there when the second world war broke out in autumn 1939, still there when France fell in 1940, and then became part of the apparatus of Vichy’s collaborationist regime. This brought another 50,000 prisoners to the area, mainly Jews and other so-called undesirables: gypsies, gays and communists. To cope with this influx, the Spanish prisoners were used as labourers to convert 600 acres of military barracks at Rivesaltes into an internment camp. Sajaloli says: “Rivesaltes became a camp where different groups of ostracised people were held in harsh conditions. Over 2,000 Jews were sent to death camps from here.”

Antonio de la Fuente y Ferraz, 89, is another survivor whose memories are still raw. The son of a Republican fighter, he was nine when his family fled Puigcerdà into France in February 1939. For the next four years he was in seven different internment camps. Rivesaltes “was the worst of all”, he says: “My family spent nearly two years there in terrible conditions. My grandmother died there. The worst part was we didn’t know where my father and uncle were. We were cold and hungry, and above all we were scared. We saw they were deporting the Jews to Germany, but we didn’t know what was going on.”
Rivesaltes memorial camp only opened in 2015. “It was a 20-year fight to create it,” says Sajaloli. “The mayor wanted the barracks to be bulldozed.” But with pressure from historians and Filles et Fils de Républicains Espagnols et fils d’exodus d’Espagne, the derelict barracks were preserved and now provide a haunting setting for a museum which is the focus of a painful awakening of memory.

Nearly 200,000 refugees returned to Spain – after the French encouraged them to go and Franco shamefully lied that they would be well-received. Those who remained suffered greatly, moved between camps or used as forced labour. Republican fighters who escaped joined the resistance. Others, like Morena’s family, suffered great deprivations, but were eventually absorbed into the local region, shaping its history and identity ever since. But while Franco lived, they could never return home. It is a thought that still, 80 years on, makes her weep: “My parents never saw Spain again.”

26 January 1939

Barcelona, last stronghold of Spanish Republicans, falls to Franco’s fascist troops, triggering an exodus of Republican fighters and their families.

27-28 Jan

France opens its border to refugees – women, children and the injured.

30 Jan

France opens a camp for internees at Argelès beach.

5-9 Feb

France accepts the retreating army, confiscating weapons and vehicles.

9 Feb

Franco’s army, pursuing refugees, reaches the border.

11 Feb onwards Camps open across the Pyrénées-Orientales and neighbouring areas. By mid-March they will contain a quarter of a million refugees.

13 Feb

The last refugees get over the border, now finally closed, bringing to an end the Retirada.
www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/09/franco-spain-refugees-haunted-by-the-past-retirada

Spanish refugees at Le Perthus, France, in 1939.
Photograph: Keystone-France/Getty Images
​