GAL: Spanish State terrorism
The recent arrest and extradition of former
Guardia Civil General Director Luis Roldan, who fled the country in June 1993 has re-opened the scandal of state sponsorship of the right-wing paramilitary organisation GAL, responsible for murder, intimidation and information gathering in the Basque Country (divided between North
Easter Spain and South Western France). And while the thugs themselves may be fascists, the orders came from the ruling Socialist Party
(PSOE) of Filipe Gonzales, who is expected to loose the general election in the Spanish state the cost." Ex-ministers Barrionuevo and Corcuera have been exposed as the peak of a pyramid of corruption, syphoning off the secret funds into their own pockets. Some modern wars are dirty,
— but all of them are big business for the lucky bourgeois who administer them ! No wonder these kind of operations are so widespread and so long-lasting *.
International Viewpoint #265 April 1995 by José "Bikila" Iriarte later this year.
WHEN THE SPANISH SOCIALIST PARTY (PSOE) came to power on 23 February 1982 it inherited a range of right-wing paramilitary organisations supported by the previous transitional government (ATE, AAA, GANE, Guerillas of Christ the King, Basquo-Spanish Battalion), responsible between them for at least 37 murders and 166 injuries and mutilations.
Dependent on a post-Franco army, civil service and capitalist class, the PSOE accepted a centrist policy on the national question, limiting the new autonomy of the Basque and Catalan regions, and authorising special powers for the security services in the Basque Country. Despite the "vigorous" application of anti-terrorist legislation, the Basque armed liberation organisation ETA was not defeated. The government resolved to deny Basque nationalists their "sanctuary" in the French Basque country - and asked the French (Socialist Party) government to repress more vigorously both refugee activists and French-born Basques. The second element of this request was the formation of GAL (Anti-Terrorist Liberation Group) — a new, harder
Iparralde (the French Basque country) was almost totally destroyed.
All this was particularly heartening for Guardia Civil Director Luis "Algarobo" Roldan. A last-minute convert to the PSOE on the eve of its election victory, Roldan rose from City Counsellor in Zaragossa to become the Delegate of the Central Government in Navarra, one of the regions of the Basque country. Here he built up a network of "comrades' at the top of the PSOE and among local businessmen. This enabled him to become the first civilian director of the Guardia Civil, a national police body, physically isolated from the population in militarystyle barracks, and universally hated. Roldan modernised the force and improved its image, attracting a more modern and sophisticated layer of police administrators. He also specialised the Guardia in anti-terrorist activities, investing heavily in armaments, armourplated vehicles, and computer networks.
But Roldan's other speciality was buying equipment for the Guardia Civil at Corruption double the market price, in exchange for generous "cash-back" payments to himself and those of his officers he needed to involve in his plans. He even syphoned off part of the money destined for orphans of policemen killed in the anti-ETA war. From rags to riches: by the time the magazine Cambio 16 exposed his corruption, Roldan had accumulated a personal fortune estimated at 4,000 million pesetas in his ten years of public activity.
Roldan fled the country in June 1993 He reemerged 10 months later, with authorities claiming to have extradited him from Laos, which Laotian authorities deny. The scandal of his return has overshadowed the scandal of his paymaster's crime. Who let him escape? Who brought him back ? Who will he drag into the mud with him ? How can the left exploit this unprecedented crisis in an election year? Watch this space. *
The author is a member of Zutik, an organisation born from the fusion of the Basque section of the Revolutionary Communist League of the Spanish State (4th International) with the 'post-Maoist' Communist Movement. * paramilitary formation.
As usual in such scandals, a low-ranking figure or two must be sacrificed to protect the big fish and
Spanish police, the French authorities the politicians. So Police Inspectors Jose Amedo and Michel Dominguez ended up in an open prison. But regular anonymous payments to their families recently dried up, and so Jose Amadeo is and the residue of France's paramilitary now threatening to name names. He claims that he only agreed to carry the can in exchange for extreme right co-operated to recruit lifelong financial support, a quick pardon, and a new identity with police protection. He denies that professional criminals, offering them both cash and "material and technical support
It is still not clear how large GAL was, and whether if functioned as a loose network or a tightly from the Spanish side". In just three years structured organisation. What is clear, however, is that different sections of the state were feeding from 1983-1986, GAL committed at least funds to the paramilitarys and ensuring them political protection.
28 murders, 2 "disappearances", 30
These funds did not just serve to repress the Basque armed liberation organisation ETA "whatever injuries and mutilations, and several kidnappings. All this on French soil, and without the apparent concern of the
French authorities. The ETA network in
14 he and Dominguez acted alone, and is some are even cold