Catalonia is still in turmoil concerning independence
Toni Strubell is a former MP in the Catalan Parliament, journalist, and author of What Catalans Want
Núria Bassa Camps is a Catalan writer and photographer
Llegeix en català AQUI
Last August 8th was to be D-Day for the long-awaited return of former president Carles Puigdemont to Catalonia after almost seven years of exile in the wake of the 2017 Referendum. The fact that it was largely aborted and did not result in his final return has created all kinds of reactions, some ridiculizing him and speaking of “antics” (The Guardian’s Maria Ramírez excelling herself), others pointing to his ongoing capacity for drawing the masses and leading the Catalan “cause”. Yet if we are to delve into the real reasons that today place this man back at his Casa de la República base in Waterloo (Belgium), perhaps we can get a clearer picture of what really happened that may make some of those speaking of pantomime or publicity stunts have a more complete second opinion.
Puigdemont’s return -it must be remembered- was to be conducted in the wider setting of the Amnesty Law passed in June as a concession to the Catalan parties in return for voting president Sánchez’s investiture after the May elections. The law was to ensure that charges were to be dropped against over a thousand pro-independence citizens accused of participating in “unlawful” protests or aiding in the organization of the October 2017 independence Referendum itself. It also included amnesty for Police accused of “unnecessary” violence deployed against voters at the Referendum or protests against the ensuing wave of repression. Puigdemont had planned to make the investiture ceremony of new Catalan president Salvador Illa (8th August) a suitable date to come home from exile and make a symbolic return to the Parliament where it was rumoured that a speech as de facto leader of the opposition had been agreed upon (a step not that unfeasible considering the current Catalan Parliament’s speaker is fellow party-member Josep Rull). The day’s events were to be opened by a first public appearance by Puigdemont at what was to be a massively-attended venue close to the Parliament, from where his approach to the Parliament Building was to be made. And although he did appear there in triumph before his followers to make a short speech, it immediately became clear that the plan to access the Parliament building and speak there had been thwarted. Far from what had apparently been agreed upon, Puigdemont’s team were to discover that a huge Catalan Police operation -ominously known as “Operation Cage”- had been rigged not only to prevent his access to Parliament, but to capture him and hand him over to the Spanish Supreme Court judges as if he were a criminal.
This development led Puigdemont to opt for a different plan: that of thwarting a massive Police operation to capture him and returning to Belgium. Although he had originally contemplated an operation that involved handing himself over and effectively placing the Spanish authorities in the hot seat of having to justify his ostensibly illegal imprisonment (contrary to the Amensty Law), the fact is that a major portion of the initiative’s symbolic and politically effective impact had evaporated. This led him to opt for a prompt return to exile, partly in answer to a plea made to him by many of his followers to avoid a photograph of his imprisonment that the Spanish political class and public opinion have so lusted after in the past seven years. Little would it have mattered that this imprisonment had been opposed by recurrent United Nations and Council of Europe resolutions or that it would have indeed given rise to a severe case of judicial prevarication by the Supreme Court in effectively refusing to obey the Amnesty Law recently implemented by the Spanish Parliament. As becomes clear from Puigdemont’s case, Spanish judges such as Llarena and Aguirre -who in normal democratic countries would probably have been dismissed for activities contrary to the division of powers and respect for the law- are free to do as they please with a political and media backdrop of rabid anti-Puigdemont feeling and Sánchez’s legendary dishonesty regarding agreements made with Catalan parties.
But it is perhaps the disproportionate response of the subservient Catalan government to Llarena’s call to arrest Puigdemont -albeit it illegally- that most probably led Puigdemont to opt for Plan B and bee-line back to Belgium. He just could not risk a scenario involving arrest in the street by a Catalan police force cynically made to act as a judicial Police -a favourite strategy designed by the Spanish courts- rather than one in which he could reach the Parliament under this own steam, deliver his message and then accept whatever consequences there might have been. But the closure of the Parliament perimeter and information that massive Police road blocks had been ordered by Catalan minister Elena and Police chief Sallent -incredibly enough, with surveillance even at the cemetery where Puigdemont’s parents now rest- made him decide to skedaddle and await a more favourable moment for permanent return. Hence the brief address he made at the meeting welcoming him home offering little more than token hopes for the future, a will to continue the struggle for independence and a ration of desobedience bravado against a Spanish State whose only answer to Catalan demands so far seems to be a fake amnesty -more than half of those “pardoned” are Police who beat up 1.10.2017 voters- more repression and a stubborn ill-memory regarding promises made in the past. What Sánchez and new Catalan president Illa had hoped would be the day to mark “the end of the Catalan conflict”, was effectively converted by Puigdemont into a reminder that under no circumstances can the bid for Catalan independence be considered a thing of the past, as dreamed by president Illa.
A final word on this relative anti-climax regarding Puigdemont’s return.Though some media have considered it a “charade” and an operation merely designed to downstage Illa’s investiture, others such as the Washington Post dedicated a full page to the event with a clear message that the Catalan independence issue was anything but over. As President Puigdemont said in his speech, “that issue will only be over when independence is attained”. But for that to be possible -we insist- there is no doubt that much ground has to be covered to recover the unity of the independence movement, to overcome the recent tendency of indy voters to abstain at elections -this made Illa president- and, above all, to create and fund mass media to counter the current glut of unionist funds pouring into the Catalan media to sell a cooked up idea of Spain to Catalans again. Whatever the case, Puigdemont’s false return had more of an epic ring to it than many of his detractors would care to admit.
Thanks for printing this.For those of us who did know a little about the independence movement it was extremely worrying to read The Guardian article.This has put ‘the record straight’.