Presidency of Catalonia 2004-2006
The very same day Messrs. Cameron and Salmond sealed the institutional
pact for the Scottish referendum, Spain was condemned by the European
Court of Human Rights (this time for not looking into evidence of
torture of Basque journalist Martxelo Otamendi, arrested and
imprisoned under anti-terrorist legislation, and later cleared of all
charges), and in Catalonia the execution of the President of the
Catalan government in 1940 was commemorated one more year.
On October 15, 1940, after a summary court martial typical of the
Spanish Civil War, Lluís Companys, the last president of the
Republican Generalitat, the democratic government of Catalonia,
arrested by the Gestapo in France and delivered to the Franco regime,
was put before a firing squad in Barcelona and shot. Companys is the
only democratically elected leader to have been executed in Europe in
the twentieth century and is the prime symbol of the persecution by
the Franco dictatorship of the Catalan republicans. Until now, the
Spanish state -whose subsidies still maintain a foundation established
in remembrance of Franco and his ideology- has repeatedly refused to
declare the trial null and void, and has refused to vindicate the
historical memory of all the victims of those years.
On the very same day Messrs. Cameron and Salmond initialled the
agreement, Spain was again convicted in a human rights case and the
Catalans memorialised the execution of our President, a whole
constellation of government appointees in Madrid threatened to use the
force of law against any attempt by Catalonia to hold a consultation
on the will of its people to constitute a new European state.
On September 11 -Catalonia's National Day- almost one and a half
million people packed the centre of Barcelona demanding just that,
that Catalonia become a new state in Europe. Since then, a lot has
happened: the calling of early elections to the Parliament of
Catalonia, the assumption by the ruling party of the popular demand
-already taken on board by other parliamentary forces-, the
coincidence of all opinion poll findings that a majority of people
want a referendum and that the parties include it in their programs
-parties which, in addition, go from center-right to left...
Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy's government response was unchanged: the
refusal to discuss the issue, and menacing any process of
decision-making by the people. And the stoking of fear: from insisting
that an independent Catalonia would be excluded from the European
Union -denied or redressed by Brussels- to nonsense such as the
incomprehensible claim that all college degrees would no longer be
valid. And other deeds that continue to show, for many Catalans, that
sovereignty is the best way: the Spanish budget failing once again to
include the degree of investment in Catalonia that would correspond to
Catalonia's tax contribution and its share in overall GDP, the
education minister saying that his goal is to "hispanicise" Catalan
students (i.e. disparaging their own language, history and culture) …
But above all, the current dialectic focuses on whether or not the
citizens of Catalonia can express themselves freely and democratically
on their future. Wielding the Spanish Constitution -which does not
deny referendums, but says they can only be called by the state- and
all its legality, Mr. Rajoy's party has even said that calling the
Catalan consultation would be criminal and that the authorities doing
so would have to be prosecuted and imprisoned.
That very same day …
For the whole of Europe, this is the litmus test for the Catalan
proposition: Can a politically defined and recognised collective of
citizens be prevented from expressing their will at the ballot box
today, well into the 21st century? Can anyone prevent a democratically
elected Parliament and Government from doing their duty of consulting
their people upon a crucial issue for the future of their society, a
consultation the people claim peacefully? Can anyone outlaw the
exercise of democracy? Can the European Union afford it?
http://www.helpcatalonia.cat/2012/10/no-law-against-democracy.html
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