Restiveness on the Right

A Franco rally and an abortive plot stir concern for democracy

The renaissance of the life and spirit of Spain, much like a fresh spring that follows a long and miserable winter, began on Nov. 20, 1975. On that day, Francisco Franco died, and on that day began the flowering of Spanish democracy.

That this fragile shoot requires watchful nurturing was dramatized last week when 150,000 shouting Spaniards flooded Madrid's Plaza de Oriente to pay tribute to the late dictator Franco on the third anniversary of his death. Blue-shirted members of the Fuerza Nueva (New Force), an extreme right-wing group, marched to the site in military formation and mingled with grizzled Civil War veterans and youths with Nazi swastika armbands. Others who crowded into the square were simply ordinary conservatives, nostalgic for days long gone when life seemed more disciplined and predictable.

FRANCO GAVE US PEACE, JUSTICE AND WORK, proclaimed one of the many signs held aloft by demonstrators. Waiting for the ceremonies to begin, the crowd began to chant, "You notice it! You can feel it! Franco is here!" Then the Spanish national anthem boomed over the loudspeakers, and the Franquistas snapped to attention and put their palms forward in the straight-arm Fascist salute. Bias Pinar, 60, a former Franco appointee to the Cortes and now the leading activist of Spain's diehard rightists, stepped forward from his place beside the dictator's 52-year-old daughter Carmen.

"When the leaders of a people commit treason," shouted Pinar, "the people with the force of right and the right of force should prevent themselves from continually being gagged, blamed, spat on, impoverished and murdered!" Lest anyone fail to get the message, Pinar told a news conference, "The situation in Spain justifies a national insurrection." The rally ended peacefully enough, but to supporters of Spain's fledgling democracy, the calls for an uprising reverberated frighteningly.

At that very moment, as it happened, Spanish officials were investigating an abortive plot to overthrow the democratic government of Premier Adolfo Suarez and bring back authoritarian rule. The conspiracy, code-named Operation Galaxia after the cafe in which it was hatched, involved five officers in the paramilitary Civil Guard, the National Police and the army. Although details were sketchy, the plans apparently called for sympathetic members of the police to besiege Moncloa Palace, the seat of government, hold Suarez hostage and install their own people in power. The target date: Nov. 17, the day King Juan Carlos was scheduled to leave for a two-week tour of Latin America.

The plot was thwarted when loyal officers got wind of it and warned Suarez. By nightfall on Nov. 16, a 100-man special operations force had moved into position to protect the palace, and Suarez had called in all his top military and police commanders and Defense Ministry officials. Meanwhile, two of the suspected plotters and a dissident general were arrested.

Spanish officials tended to dismiss the importance of the plot, but there was no question that the government was concerned about the restiveness of the right--as well as by terrorist activity by Basque separatists. Over the past two months, Basque gunmen have killed 23 people, including onetime Franco Judge Jose Francisco Mateu, 58, who was shot down on a Madrid street. Last week three carloads of terrorists roared up to a police barracks outside Bilbao and machine-gunned 30 men who were playing soccer. Two were killed and eleven wounded.

Much of the new wave of extremist activity is aimed at defeating Spain's proposed new constitution, which will be voted on in a nationwide referendum on Dec. 6. The constitution, providing for a parliamentary monarchy, has been hailed as one of the most progressive in the world. It guarantees a free press, free enterprise and collective bargaining, and prohibits torture and the death penalty. Basque separatists reject the document because it commits Spain's provinces to the authority of a central government, even though it grants them more autonomy than they have had. The Franquistas do not accept the new constitution; they merely yearn for winter.

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