The Catalan conflict is generating a constitutional crisis in Madrid with far-reaching implications for the future of the European Union. In a stunning and legally questionable move on January 3, Spain’s Central Electoral Commission voted to remove Catalan President Joaquim Torra from office immediately. In a speech the same evening, Torra rejected the legitimacy of the ruling, saying he responds only to the will of the Catalan people and the Catalan Parliament. The following day, the Catalan Parliament robustly backed him and his position on the matter. Meanwhile, during the investiture debate of Socialist Prime Minister candidate Pedro Sánchez taking place simultaneously in Madrid, the right wing parties Vox and PP called for Torra’s immediate imprisonment and the suspension of the Catalan statute of autonomy by way of Article 155 of the Constitution—as was done following Catalonia’s declaration of independence on October 27, 2017.

It his has been a turbulent ride for the 58-year-old Torra since he assumed the presidency in the spring of 2018. Until two years ago, Torra was a business executive and cultural activist who had never been involved in electoral politics. However, when the central government dissolved the Catalan Parliament after its vote to secede from Spain, and subsequently ordered new elections, Torra put his name forward as a parliamentary candidate from Together for Catalonia, the party led by exiled President Carles Puigdemont. To the surprise of many and the intense dismay of the Spanish government, the exiled president’s party won the most votes in the majority pro-independence bloc—and hence the right to form a new government.

Madrid was having none of this. In January 2018, when the Catalan Parliament was about to swear Puigdemont in by video connection from Belgium, the legislature’s president abruptly stopped the process in reaction to the threat of judicial sanctions he had received from the Spanish courts. After two other candidates were similarly scuttled, it then came down to the largely unknown Torra, who was eventually inaugurated as the head a pro-independence coalition government in May 2018. Since assuming office, he has repeatedly made clear that he believes that that his prime goal is to advance Catalonia toward independence in the most expeditious manner possible.

It has not been an easy ride. The Catalan independence movement, comprised of three main factions, Junts per Catalunya, Esquerra Republicana Catalana, and Candidatura d’Unitat Popular—which roughly correspond to the positions of center-right, center-left and far-left on the political spectrum—is wracked with internal divisions. In a seemingly strange inversion of roles, Torra has constantly seen his efforts to speed up the march toward self-determination checked by his center-left coalition partner, ERC, and embraced, though not without reservations, by the far-left CUP. He has also been repeatedly criticized by members of his own group’s traditional base for trying to move things forward too fast.

Torra does not seem to care. The only thing that appears to concern him is acting on what he sees as the Catalan people’s desire, as expressed in the October 1, 2017, referendum, to exercise what he sees as their legitimate right to self-determination.

My interview with Torra, conducted in Catalan late last year, took place in the Palace of the Generalitat (the Catalan Government) in Barcelona. The city was then 16 days into widespread and still ongoing acts of civil disobedience unleashed in reaction to the Spanish Supreme Court’s harsh sentencing of the politicians and civil society leaders responsible for promoting the 2017 independence referendum, 11 days before Spain’s fourth general election in as many years, and 19 days before Torra’s own trial, at which he would unapologetically plead guilty to disobeying Spanish government order to remove a banner hanging on the front of the Generalitat that made reference to Catalan “exiles” and “political prisoners.”

TH: How would you explain what is going on in Catalonia today to an Anglo-American reader who has little or no detailed understanding of the country’s history?

QT: A quick response would be to compare it with a case with which most English- language readers are familiar, which is Scotland. But beyond this loose comparison, I would speak of an ancient nation in Southern Europe that has always demonstrated a firm dedication to the pursuit of liberty, and that, after suffering a number of setbacks the last three hundred years—years during which it worked to fit into the Spanish state and gain its trust—has, over the last decade or so, chosen to initiate a democratic process aimed at gaining independence.

After thinking it over a great deal, people have decided that this, rather than a continuation of the current regime of autonomy, is probably the most viable way achieve an improved quality of life. This not about flags and borders. It is about better education, better health care, an improved infrastructure and, of course, greater protections for the country’s language and culture. But above all, it is about being able to face the challenges of the 21st century with all of the tools that any modern country can expect to have at its disposal.

You just spoke about the pursuit of liberty or freedom. Do you think Catalans have a special obsession with freedom when compared, say, with other cultures of the Mediterranean basin? Or other European cultures in general?

There are historians, such as Rovira i Virgili, who define the history of Catalonia precisely in terms of this special relationship to freedom. Others, such as Vicens Vives, link it more to a “will to exist.” Josep Benet, in turn, has summed it up in a marvelous phrase as centering on a “combat in the service of hope.” Others, of perhaps a more fatalistic cast, like Ferrater Mora, say that a people cannot live life always on the defensive, that it must arrive, or seek to arrive, to a state of vital fullness.

You are someone who has spent most of his working life outside of politics, getting involved in it only a very short time ago. How is it that someone with this profile came to be president of the Generalitat in the Spring of 2018? Did you have doubts about accepting the
challenge of becoming president in such turbulent times? Why, in the end, did you decide to do so? What did you see as being your key goals for your time in office?

As you say, I spent most of my life as a lawyer in private business, the last two years of that in Switzerland, an experience that allowed me get to know a country, the Helvetian Confederation, that I admire a lot. Returning to Catalonia, I founded a publishing house and got involved—and I say this with all due modesty—in historical research and writing. I’d always had strong cultural, civic, and political interests thanks to my work with voluntary organizations of the type that are, in my view, fundamental to gaining an understanding of the country. These entities are the basis of its strongly “associative” social fabric, and what provides it with very strong social cohesion from below.

I had the good fortune of working side by side with the late Muriel Casals at Omnium Cultural [Along with the Catalan National Congress, the country’s most important pro-independence civic organization], an experience that allowed me to participate, as it were, from the “second row,” in the last 10 years of the country’s fast-moving history. During the latter part of this time, the country’s government was forcibly dismissed by the Spanish state [in October 2017] while our elected leaders were either imprisoned or forced into exile. In the lead up to the December 2017 elections imposed by Spain, I received a call from President Puigdemont, during which he asked me to run as a candidate on his parliamentary list [Together for Catalonia]. When the President of the country asks that you get involved and serve in a key moment of its history, it is very hard to refuse. And as it turned out, our list was the winning list….

President Puigdemont entrusted me with the task of leading the government of the country. I accepted the challenge because I believed that in historical moments such as the ones we are living you cannot run away from the responsibilities that fate brings you. As a good liberal, I believe that any person, no matter what political position they might initially occupy, should be able to respond with responsibility and honesty to the challenges posed to his country in decisive moments of its history. And so, at the time, I honestly felt I could not say “no.” And I said “yes” in the conviction that we must continue the project designed to bring us to independence, that we must see ourselves as the heirs of what I view as the legitimate independence vote taken on October 1, 2017.

In practical terms, this means seeking the restitution of all the powers taken from us under Spain’s imposition of Article 155 of the Constitution, the effects of which are still very present, and putting the Catalan Constitution into effect. I say this fully cognizant of the fact that, owing to the recent handing down of the sentences against our imprisoned leaders, we are now entering into an entirely new set of realities.

In the year and a half since my swearing in, we have been immersed in a situation of political complexity that is probably as great any seen in the country’s history. We have people in prison and people in exile. And the repression has not stopped. Rather than engage in political discussions, the Spanish government has recurred again and again to the punitive use of criminal code, which of course only heightens the gravity of the situation and the sense of crisis surrounding it.

Have there been any positive surprises during your time in office?

Many. Above all, the contact I have had with the people of this extraordinary country, which I have visited from end to end. People always receive me with enormous warmth and with a sincere to desire to help and to keep things moving forward. There have been many difficult times, moments when you think that when you step out of the car you’ll be stoned. And it turns out that, on the contrary, that is the day they cheer you the most and encourage you in your work. The second thing has been getting to know truly extraordinary people—that is, people with exceptional cultural, artistic, professional, and human gifts. The country’s finest doctors and scientists, its best writers. The other day I was with Jaume Plensa, the famous Catalan sculptor, and Jordi Savall, the world-renowned Catalan musician. These are simply unforgettable experiences. I would probably have never met them otherwise.

Perhaps a third thing are the journeys I have taken outside the country, being able to talk, for example, with the Scottish prime minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and several U.S. congresspeople at the Martin Luther King Institute at Stanford University, and with Borut Pahor, the president of Slovenia. These and other high-level contacts are things that I’ll remember forever.

You’ve made reference to Catalonia’s distinctive “associative” cultural fabric. People who know and understand Catalan culture tend to speak a great deal about this particular social characteristic. How might you explain this strong tendency to what, in Catalan, is called “associationism” to someone who is unfamiliar with the culture?

I believe this is the most essential trait of Catalan culture and a key reason we have been able to remain a distinct people over the years. The country has always had a very strong sense of collective belonging and collective action honed over the years on objectives that go from being very strongly involved in saving immigrant lives in the Mediterranean to involvement in one’s neighborhood council or the enormous and highly organized collective effort that goes into castellers, where people come together festively to build human towers of several stories that extend 15 meters or more into the sky. We could also talk about the enormous importance of esplais(neighborhood civic groups) and hiking clubs among our youth. And all this, of course, in addition to our very strong trade union tradition and the pro-sovereignty groups like Omnium Cultural and the Catalan National Congress, referenced earlier.

From a very early age, Catalans are exposed to, and engage in, voluntary collective activities that are not rooted in either the family or the school. And this generates a widespread sense of fraternity and solidarity in the culture—bonds that make possible things like the citizen-led and organized referendum on independence that took place here in October 2017.

I think this tightly-woven social fabric, where people are very much in touch with others and where they debate and argue and at times get angry— but nearly as often end the disagreement with an embrace—generates a remarkable sense of collaboration. It is, I believe, what has allowed us, with all our turbulent history, to continue to be a country of peace with a long and proud history of receiving immigrants. It is what allows us to exist as a united people with very widely and deeply shared values regarding the importance of democracy and human rights. And in recent years we have seen a new consensus forged in this atmosphere. For example, somewhere around 80 percent to 90 percent of Catalans now look upon the Spanish monarchy as an institution with little or no relevance in their lives. There is a similarly high rejection of Spain’s judicialization of basic political questions and processes.

One last but very important by-product of this highly associative social fabric is our predilection toward criticism. Ours is a culture that expects and demands that one accept the criticisms of others. We are very given to protesting and criticizing. Maybe this is a more generally Mediterranean tendency. I don’t know. But I can assure you it is very prominent among our people.

Spain’s acting president Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said that the conflict in Catalonia is actually a conflict among Catalans, in which a minority, those in favor of independence, are seeking to impose their will upon a majority that wishes to have Catalonia remain part of Spain. Is this the reality of things?

No, it is a problem of democracy stemming from the fact that the people are not allowed to express their political desires democratically. If one thing has become clear over the last few years, it is our society’s capacity to engage in debate—often times under very difficult circumstances—while continuing to perform economically and culturally at perhaps its highest level ever. In other words, we have taken the debate to where it needs to be while preserving the traits, which I spoke about a few moments ago, that define us as a people. The question, I repeat, is whether the Catalans will be allowed to express their will democratically and decide on their future. And until Spain faces this question and recognizes Catalonia as a political subject worthy of face-to-face negotiations—and let’s not forget about the existence our exiles and political prisoners—it is impossible to speak about political normality in Catalonia.

Another often-heard interpretation of the Catalan crisis is that it is part and parcel of a more generalized crisis the Spanish constitutional order established in 1978. Other critics describe it as a symptom of a broader European, and perhaps even world-wide crisis of long-established ways of governing. How do you see it?

I think it is a mixture of all of these things. I believe the Catalan independence movement has laid bare the reality of the Spanish transaction—not the transition— that resulted in the adoption of the Spanish Constitution of 1978. This was made quite clear to me when I visited Portugal and held conversations with members of the National Assembly from across the political spectrum. From left to right, all have accepted a total break with [António] Salazar’s dictatorial regime [1932–1968]. The Spanish state’s problem is that this break did not take place. It carried out a reform that kept intact several important bastions of Francoism and an authoritarian way of approaching public life and politics, something we can see quite clearly in the comportment of the state judicial and police sectors. We can also see it in the very figure of the king, who is the inheritor of prerogatives derived directly from the Franco regime and whose presence has deprives all Spaniards of the right to decide whether they wish to live in a monarchy or a republic. All of this has become more evident as a result of the rise of the Catalan independence movement, which has brought this not always visible Francoism, which is profoundly rooted within the organs of the state, to the surface.

That said, there is an aspect of the independence protest that is related to the current global wave of political dissatisfaction. Here we are in the 21^st century in a globalized world where we no longer live in isolated outposts of the planet, but rather where we have global flows of information, and the people want to live in places where there is freedom and where they can be part of a social project defined by adhesion rather than repression. We must be very attentive to the will of the people. As I said, people want to participate in public life. But right now, there is widespread distrust of the political class in general, and the Spanish and Catalan political classes in particular. And this helps explain the large protests we are seeing in the streets of Catalonia today.

How would you describe the performance of the Spanish judicial system in the recently concluded trial of the Catalan politicians and civil society leaders in Madrid?

I would begin by reminding that person of the words of the president of the General Council of the Spanish Judiciary, Carlos Lesmes, when he said that the Spanish Constitution is based in the sacred and indivisible unity of the fatherland and that the judicial powers have the obligation of preserving this unity above all other things. Nothing about preserving the people’s will. We have, rather, the idea that Spain is based on an a priori notion—the unified fatherland—and not the desires of its citizenry. I think it sums things up perfectly. I think the Spanish Judiciary has appointed itself as the royal guardian of the indivisible unity of Spain, and for this reason gives itself the right to use any and all means achieve this end, including twisting decisions and opinions as they see fit.

Under these parameters, anything can be portrayed as suspicious and therefore all things are seen as potentially prosecutable. And when the police can’t achieve the desired end, the prosecutors are sent in. And when the prosecutors fall short, they revert to the full force of the courts. And when we talk about the objectives of their prosecution we are talking not only about expressions of democratic will like the vote on October 1, 2017, but also about ideas and even banners bearing messages they do not like. For example, they have prohibited, under threat of prosecution, any discussion about the right of self- determination from taking place in the halls of my government or in the Catalan Parliament.

Since the Supreme Court handed down the sentence in the case of the seven former Catalan government ministers and two civil society leaders on October 14^th the streets of Catalonia have been consistently filled with protestors. How would you describe what is going on?

It speaks of a sense of enormous anger about the fact that honorable politicians who were following a democratic mandate—the entire process that led toward October 1 was approved by an absolute majority of the Catalan Parliament—will each be spending 9 to 13 years in prison. It has unleashed an enormous wave of indignation in Catalan society. And this is what we are seeing in the streets. I will say it again, there is a very widespread consensus in Catalan society regarding the need to place democratic values, and with them civil and human rights, above all other concerns. Therefore, these sentences from the Spanish courts clash frontally with most Catalans’ way of being and thinking. This is why we are seeing these massive demonstrations and these marches for freedom all around the country.

Pedro Sánchez, the head of the interim Spanish government, suggested a few days ago that these protests are of an fundamentally violent character, and his interior minister, Fernando Grande–Marlaska, recently said, and I quote, “The violence in Catalonia has been of greater impact than that which took place in the Basque Country.” How do you respond to these comments? Are you, as Spanish government sources and certain members of the press have recently suggested, an apologist for this supposed violence?

This is the type of question that as president I—and I use the expression quite advisedly—have had to “put up with” constantly. Violence has never been representative of the independence movement. We have always condemned any and all acts of violence that have occurred. Always. I think it is important to call attention to the serious level of banalization at play here. And it is not only I who sees it. Spanish associations of terrorist victims have spoken out against these unfortunate statements and others like them. For me, to compare occurrences that have taken place in a given moment in Catalonia with deaths and assassinations in the Basque Country over years, is absolutely appalling. And this is why the Spanish associations of victims have called on the government to stop its banalization of their tragedy.

Throughout the 40 years of the present Constitutional system in Spain, there have been not infrequent tensions between the heads of the country’s 17 autonomous governments, especially those of the Basque country and Catalonia, and the executive of the central government in Madrid. Despite these tensions, communications have always been maintained at a certain level of fluidity. This, however, does not appear to be the case presently between you and the Spanish interim Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez. Why?

What you say is true. We (Together for Catalonia) voted without conditions with Sánchez in the no-confidence vote—against the Rajoy government that suspended our autonomy through application of Article 155 in late October 2017 and was probably the most corrupt government in the history of Spain—that delivered him to his present position. We thought this might provide us with an opportunity to begin a serious dialogue with the Spanish state. We had staged the referendum and issued our declaration of independence and had people in prison and in exile. We said, “Lets sit down and talk… seriously.”

Sánchez and I had our first meeting at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, and we seemed to agree on the fact that a political problem requires a political solution. And then we had another meeting at the Pedralbes Palace here in Barcelona, and we continued to make progress on the dialogue. But our side insisted that that if the dialogue was indeed to be serious it would have to be formalized in one form or another, that is, that the proposals of both the government of Catalonia and the government of Spain make their proposals known.

Toward that end, we proposed having an international rapporteur there to summarize the positions of both sides. We clearly stated our position, which is to have a referendum staged through an agreement with the state, which we see as a viable solution. However, since I have been in office, the government of Spain has not put forth any proposal whatsoever, and the mere mention of an international rapporteur generated a crisis within Sánchez’s government, when the old guard of his party, the Spanish Socialist Party, rebelled forcefully against the idea and forced the end to all negotiations. We continue to await his arrival at the negotiating table. We Catalans are there and will always be there.

Earlier, we were talking about some of the defining characteristics of the Catalans. One of them is “pactism” a vocation for the making and signing of pacts, something that is deeply rooted in our history, going all the way back to the power-limiting agreements between the people and the kings in medieval times. What we need is “a sit down and talk” [here Torra spoke in English]. But a serious and rigorous one, marked by a real desire to reach an agreement. And the dramatic reality here is that the Spanish Government has not put forth any proposal at all. Nothing at all. I’d accept anything as a starting point. It’s even worse. Yesterday, or the day before, we read that the Socialist Party had stricken any trace of federalist proposals from their official election platform for the upcoming [November 10] elections. So, it seems that, if anything, we are going backwards from the already very minimal concessions to the plural nature of Spain made in the past by that party. This drift toward centralism and authoritarianism in the Socialist Party is extremely worrying for us. As I have said, we believe the solution lies in sitting down and talking. But it has to be a dialogue between governments in which Catalonia is recognized as a political subject with the right to decide its future.

To what extent must the ongoing protests and disturbances in the streets of Catalonia be seen as a demonstration of the failure of the Catalan political class and/or the political class of the Spanish state? Can we speak of any large errors committed by one or both parts of this equation?

These critiques no doubt have some basis in truth. But the roots of the conflict can been found in in our not having had the opportunity, as should have been the case from the very beginning, to decide things in a frank and honest fashion, allowing those in favor of remaining in the kingdom of Spain and those in favor of independence to place their arguments on the table and to let the citizens of Catalonia would decide which solution is best. In this scenario, each would have their say and both options would be considered respectable. The citizens must decide.

I can assure you that if we were to have such a referendum and it were to show that a majority of Catalans would prefer to continue as part of Spain, I would resign immediately as the President of the Generalitat. This is the basis of the conflict. And there really is no other. The two million Catalans in favor of independence are not going to disappear. In the last four elections, counting local, Catalan, Spanish, and European elections, pro-independence forces have won. In short, Spain must realize that the institutional instability from which it is currently suffering will continue as long as it refuses to listen to the voices emanating from Catalonia.

But don’t we also have to talk about the instability present in your own governing coalition? Isn’t that also an important factor in all this?

Without a doubt. Governing in a coalition is obviously make things more complicated. But I think it is important to remember that we Catalans have been up to the challenges posed by these complications. We have been able to forge governing pacts between groups of widely differing ideological stripes. In contrast, [there has never been a coalition government in Spain. Yes? Never a successful or effective coalition?]] Surprising, no? Of course, to govern by coalition, you first have to sit down and come up with agreements and put them into action. Obviously, in a legislature like present one in Catalonia, shadowed by the reality of political prisoners and exiles, disagreements and controversies arise. But despite this my government engaged in, and survived, a no confidence vote about a month ago. And here we stand.

You have spoken about the presence of agents provocateurs from the Spanish police among the pro-independence groups engaged in and ongoing protest against the harsh sentences against the Catalan politicians and civil society leaders handed down from the Spanish Supreme Court on October 14. And recently videos emerged that appeared to confirm this general thesis. Have you seen these videos? Do you have any comment on them, or what they appear to demonstrate?

I hope there is a thorough investigation of the matter. I hope the Spanish police and the interior minister do what we have pledged to do here in Catalonia, which is an examination of all those practices, as well as all the visual images that point toward a failure to adhere to the protocols that must regulate a democratic police force.

You have been indicted by the Spanish state for actions you have taken during your presidential mandate. What is the crime that you are alleged to have committed?

My crime is that of defending the freedom of expression by refusing a Spanish government order to remove a banner placed on the balcony of the Palace of the Generalitat that spoke of “political prisoners” and that expressed a desire for the return of the “exiles.” And since I believe that there is no such thing as a small battle, I felt a need to press this struggle for the freedom of expression to its logical conclusion. So I disobeyed the stipulations that they had sent me. And I am now involved in a trial that, if I lose it, will result in my being barred from occupying public office for a specified amount of time.

I have read all sort of characterizations of you in the press, a number of them in publications opposed to independence, being quite negative. How would you define yourself as a political actor?

Ideologically, I define myself as a republican in the modern sense of the term, employed, for example, by Princeton scholar Philip Pettit. I see myself as a person with a humanistic bent interested in working for others, a person with a radical belief in democracy who is only capable of conceptualizing democracy as the practice of listening to the voice of the citizenry and respecting their decisions. I have always said that the only political obligation I have is to respect the decisions of the Catalan Parliament, the sole basis of the sovereignty for the people of my country.

Are you satisfied with the independence movement’s efforts to explain itself to the outside world? Are there filters that impede your ability to get the message out?

We need to work constantly to get better at this. We need to continue insist and persist in explaining the profoundly democratic values that are deeply rooted Catalonia’s long history and to underscore, again and again, that the Catalans are engaged in struggle for their civil rights. In other countries and other times, this struggle revolved around somewhat different issues. For example, there was the fight of the English suffragettes at the beginning of the last century, or the struggles of Afro-Americans to achieve their full civil rights a bit later on.

The Catalans are fighting for perhaps the most important civil right that a collective of people can seek, the right to self-determination. And they wish to do it in a democratic and peaceful fashion, a method, that a part of the population has now decided must also include civil disobedience, which, of course, is also a right that must be respected. This is where we are. And this is the message we seek to send to the world.

We are moving forward under the banner of dialogue and the banner of democracy in our effort to achieve the basic right to determine our future as a people. We realize that, since we are not a state in a world that functions as a “club of states,” it is quite difficult for us to get a hearing for our position in supra-national organizations. But what we can do, and do well, is explain our outlook on the citizen-to-citizen level, showing off our large and peaceful demonstrations, and now our large protests against the recently handed-down sentences of our leaders. We think this fraternal and solidarity-based message resonates quite strongly across the world.

Ours is a country on the move that is very conscious of the historic moment it is living. We must be on the side of the people and attentive to their desire for freedom.

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Puigdemont, who had been living in exile in Belgium since being deposed by Spain’s right-wing Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in October 2017, was arrested on March 25 by police in Schleswig-Holstein. Puigdemont’s detention by German police was based on a European arrest warrant issued by Spain, a warrant that had been conveniently ignored by authorities in Finland, where Puigdemont had spoken after traveling to Helsinki from Brussels by automobile; Denmark, where Puigdemont was transiting en route to Belgium; Sweden, via which, Puigdemont transited by ferry to and from Finland; and Belgium. The Spanish arrest warrant was similarly ignored by Denmark, during a previous trip by Puigdemont to Copenhagen, and by Swiss authorities when Puigdemont traveled there to address a conference. The Spanish extradition request for Puigdemont was based on Spanish government draconian charges of “rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds in relation to Catalonia’s declaration of independence from Spain following a plebiscite in the region that favored separation from Spain.

“Rebellion” is not a crime under German law. If it were, Germany would have long ago extradited several of secessionists based in Germany wanted for “rebellious” activities in their home countries. These include Kurds, who are members of groups favoring independence from Turkey and Iraq and who are strong in Berlin and Frankfurt; Chinese Uighurs, whose secessionist World Uighur Congress is based in Munich; Tibetans, whose exile organization is based in Bonn; Chechen separatists, who are numerous in Berlin; members of the Baloch National Movement, numerous in Hamburg and Berlin; members of the Ambazonia Liberation Movement; and Oromo secessionists, mainly found in and around Frankfurt. Many of these secessionists are wanted by their homelands for sedition and rebellion in, respectively, Turkey, China, Russia, Pakistan, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. More recently, these separatists have been joined in a welcoming Germany by Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar, West Papuans, and a few Zanzibaris from Tanzania and Rehoboth Basters from Namibia.

What separates the diverse secessionists receiving asylum and support in Germany from Catalan leaders like Puigdemont is the fact that the US Central Intelligence Agency, for years, has relied on Germany to provide a base of operations to Uighur, Tibetan, Chechen, and others it sees as “freedom fighters.” Catalonian independence has never been on the “approved list” of independence movements at CIA headquarters in Langley or at the German Federal Intelligence Service or “Bundesnachrichtendienst” (BND).

Given the close cooperation that exists between the US National Security Agency, the BND, and the Spanish National Intelligence Centre (CNI), the geo-tracking of Puigdemont’s traveling companions’ mobile phones and the homing device attached to the Renault Espace, in which Puigdemont was traveling, put a very large “FIVE EYES” signals intelligence bullseye on the Catalan leader.

The UK “Guardian” reported that twelve CNI agents were involved in tracking Puigdemont and his party of from Belgium to Helsinki and on the return trip. The paper reported that the vehicular tracking device was placed on the Renault in Waterloo, Belgium, where Puigdemont had been living in exile. Arrested in Germany with Puigdemont were his confidante, Josep María Matamala Alsina, a Catalonian businessman; Josep Lluis Alay Rodríguez, a commissioner for international relations of the city government of Barcelona; and Xabier Goicoechea Fernández and Carlos de Pedro López, members of the Catalan “Mossos d’Esquadra” police force.

Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena, a modern-day version of the Spanish Inquisition’s infamous grand inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada, at least when it comes to prosecuting Catalonian freedom seekers, was considering charging Puigdemont’s four companions with rebellion and sedition and seeking their extradition by the Germans to Spain. Llarena has imprisoned five former members of the Catalonian government, including ex-Vice President Vice President Oriol Junqueras, for sedition and rebellion and he plans to charge as many as 25 Catalonian political leaders for what he considers crimes against the antiquated Bourbon monarchy and the Francoist prime minister, Rajoy, who governs Spain on behalf of King Felipe VI. The King, who ascended the throne after the 2014 abdication of his corrupt father, King Juan Carlos I, accused the Catalonians of violating the “rule of law and national sovereignty.”

Felipe was really accusing the Catalonians of violating “lèse-majesté,” the feudalistic legal concept that the Catalonians had committed an offense against the “dignity of a reigning sovereign.” The French revolutionaries set the stage for relegating “lèse-majesté” to the dustbin of history when, in 1793, they guillotined the French King Louis XVI, a distant ancestor of Felipe.

Germany placed Puigdemont in a 97-square feet jail cell in Neumünster prison in Schleswig-Holstein, a detention center once used by the Gestapo. Puigdemont’s cell had only a dingy cot; a toilet, shower, and sink; a television; a desk and chair; and a small wooden chest of drawers/wardrobe combination. Internet and outgoing phone calls are prohibited.

On April 6, a court in Schleswig-Holstein ruled that the Spanish charge of “rebellion” did not constitute grounds to either hold Puigdemont or extradite him to Spain. It should be noted that in ordering Puigdemont freed on a usurious $90,000 bail, the German court stipulated that Puigdemont’s extradition to Spain was only “suspended,” not vacated. The court ruled that Spain’s charge that Puigdemont used public funds to hold the Catalonian independence referendum could still constitute a reason to extradite him to Spain. In addition, the German court said it would consult with Spanish and federal German authorities on this point.

The German Foreign Ministry has cited the “independence” of the Spanish judiciary in the prosecution of Catalonian leaders. Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that she hopes Puigdemont’s extradition to Spain “goes ahead.” It appears that some in Germany still treasure past German support for the Francoist traditions of Spain’s court system and other anti-Catalan and anti-Basque “instruments” of government in Madrid. Spain’s national police force, the “Guardia Civil,” took lessons from Heinrich Himmler and the Gestapo during and after the Spanish Civil War. The “Guardia,” feared under Franco’s dictatorship, preserves many of the Nazi SS’s basic surveillance traditions in its age-old battle against the Catalonians and Basques. It is the “Guardia” upon whom the modern-day Torquemada, Judge Llarena, relies upon to round up Catalonian leaders for prosecution and imprisonment. Under the Hendaye Agreement of 1940 between Nazi Germany and Spain, German intelligence helped keep tabs on members of the Spanish Republican government-in-exile, as well as veterans of the International Brigades who fought for the Spanish loyalists during the civil war. German Abwehr military intelligence agents identified members and supporters of the Spanish, Catalonian, and Basque governments-in-exile in places as far afield as Havana, Mexico City, Montevideo, Bogota, Santiago, Panama City, Caracas, Buenos Aires, Santo Domingo (then called Ciudad Trujillo), and New York City.

When France fell to the Germans, the Gestapo scoured French police files for information on Spanish expatriate residents in France who supported the loyalist government. These included many Catalonians and Basques, some of whom had fled to France after the brutal suppression of the Catalonian rebellion of 1934, as well as the Basque government-in-exile in Paris. Franco’s intelligence service also sent agents to Axis Power-occupied and neutral territory to “neutralize” or arrest Catalonian and other dissidents. Spanish nationalist agents fanned out to Rotterdam, Brussels, Antwerp, Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Toulouse, Zurich, and Geneva in search of Catalonian, Basque, and Spanish enemies of Franco and his Falangist Party.

Spanish Republican President Manuel Azaña, exile in France, was arrested by the Vichy authorities after the Nazi occupation of France. Azaña died while under arrest at the Montauban internment camp. Merkel and her government, who support the arrest and extradition of Puigdemont, have much in common, and not in a good way, with the Vichy authorities who arrested Azaña.

Instead of Franco and his spies, it is now Rajoy and CNI that sends agents out across Europe. In the case of Puigdemont’s delegation, these Spanish agents were dispatched to Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany to apprehend the Catalonian leadership. Adolf Hitler assisted Franco in tracking down enemies of the Madrid government. Today, it is Merkel who is providing similar assistance to Rajoy.

Other Catalonian leaders were imprisoned in Madrid, where they await trials on sedition and rebellion charges. The leader of the pro-independence Popular Unity Candidature (CUP), Anna Gabriel, attained political asylum in Switzerland, where she told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps, “I will not go to Madrid . . . Since I will not have a fair trial at home, I have looked for a country that can protect my rights.” As with the loyalists imprisoned under Franco, the Catalan independence leaders, who enjoy a majority in the newly-elected Catalonian parliament, face decades in Spanish prison cells under Madrid’s EU-supported regime.

Rajoy, like Franco, appointed not a Catalonian but a Spanish Castilian, Deputy Prime Minister María Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría Antón, as acting President of the Generalitat in Barcelona. Rajoy, as was the case with Franco, has Galician roots. Franco’s rule was infamous for stamping out Catalonian government, language, culture, and national identity and Rajoy, whose Spanish People’s Party is the ideological and chronological heir to Franco’s Falangists, does his very best to emulate his party’s ideological forbearer. Unlike 1936, when Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini came to Caudillo Franco’s side, in 2018, it is European Union Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk who rally to Rajoy’s ranks.

The Spanish government-in-exile was recognized by only a handful of nations, including Venezuela and Mexico. Although France did not recognize the exiled government, it did provide sanctuary for only a few of its leaders. Overall, France was as opposed to the Spanish Republicans in 1939 as it is with the Catalonians today. Two successive French leftist Popular Front prime ministers, Leon Blum and Edouard Daladier, ordered Spanish Republican military personnel and civilians seeking asylum in France interred at “assembly centers” in St. Cyprien, Gurs, and Le Vernet soon became concentration camps. When the Nazis took over France in July 1951, the Spanish Republican internees were transferred to German concentration camps and their deaths. Ironically, among those transferred along with the Spanish Republicans to Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau were the two French prime ministers – Blum and Daladier – who ordered the Spanish loyalist refugees to French internment camps. In not putting out the welcome mat for Catalonia’s exiled government, French President Emmanuel Macron followed the precedent set by Blum and Daladier. Puigdemont and his ministers were, instead, welcomed in Belgium, where the politically-strong Flemish independence bloc ensured they would be safe from Spanish-initiated INTERPOL arrest warrants.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was one of the few world leaders to support the Catalonian independence cause, declaring, “Resist, Catalonia! Latin America admires you.” However, Mexico, which supported the Spanish Loyalist government, was not as generous with the Catalonians. Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray Caso told the Spanish newspaper El Pais, “If Catalonia goes for becoming independent from Spain, the Government of Mexico will not recognize it as a sovereign state.” The National Assembly of Quebec issued a statement supporting the Catalonian cause, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a typical Canadian Liberal Party milquetoast call for Spain’s constitution to be respected, a de facto nod to the Madrid authorities for their actions.

From the Vatican, Pope Francis I, doing his very best to emulate the pro-Nazi Pope Pius XII, who acceded to the papacy in 1939 — the same year the Spanish Loyalists were driven to exile — condemned Catalonia’s nationalism and backed the European Union. It is no secret that the Vatican sees the European Union as a modern-day Holy Roman Empire. Pius XII raised no objection when, in 1943, Franco’s personal priest, Josemaría Escriva, founded the pro-fascist Catholic order, Opus Dei. According to his personal assistant, Escriva is recorded as saying, “Hitler couldn't have been such a bad person. He couldn't have killed six million. It couldn't have been more than four million.” Escriva gave the stamp of approval of the Catholic Church to Franco’s policy of cultural extermination of the Catalan and Basque peoples.

Opus Dei has given succor to fascist regimes around the world, including the juntas of Argentina, Pope Francis’s home country. As Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Francis has been accused of handing over two priests to the security forces of the Argentine junta during the Dirty War of the 1970s. Pro-Vatican propagandists have attempted to whitewash Bergoglio’s dalliances with the Argentine fascist regime. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the current Pope stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Opus Dei-infested government of Rajoy; his proto-fascists in Madrid, which include Spain’s corrupted Borbón monarch, King Felipe VI; and the modern-day Holy Roman Empire that rules from EU headquarters in Brussels.

Just as was the case during the Spanish Civil War, Breton and Corsican nationalists in France have rallied to the side of the Catalonian independence, just as their forefathers supported the Spanish Loyalists, including the Catalonians and Spanish Basques in the late 1930s. Although Macron’s coalition won a majority of seats in France’s July 2017 parliamentary election, it took not a single seat in Corsica. Jean-Guy Talamoni, the president of the Corsican Assembly, vowed that in ten years Corsica would follow Catalonia’s lead in declaring independence. Catalonia and Corsica are not independent today thanks to deals worked out by European monarchs hundreds of years ago. Today, instead of Spanish and French monarchs solely determining the future of Catalonia and Corsica, it is a Rothschild family creation in the Elysées Palace in Paris and a proto-fascist prime minister in the Moncloa Palace in Madrid who call the shots in suppressing the cultural and political identities of Europe’s aspirant nations, including the Basque people on both the Spanish and French sides of the Pyrenees mountain range.

Just as Franco’s troops patrolled the Pyrenees range during the civil war looking for Loyalists sneaking in and out of French territory, Spain’s current Interior Minister, Juan Ignacio Zoido, an Andalusian, ordered patrols increased on the Spanish-French frontier to prevent Puigdemont and his supporters from clandestinely entering Catalonia from France. Zoido was quoted by the UK’s Daily Telegraph as ordering Spanish security forces to be on the lookout for Puigdemont and other exiled officials returning to Catalonia “by helicopter, microlight, or boat.” Zoido could have been channeling any of Franco’s generals during the 1930s civil war.

Unlike the Rajoy regime, which has misused the Spanish courts and constitution to imprison Catalonian political leaders on arcane and trumped up charges of sedition and rebellion, the Catalonian independence movement has been open and transparent about its aims. A clear majority of the Catalonian people want to be free of the shackles of Castilian imperialism and cultural and political superiority. The Catalonian independence leadership, exiled in Belgium, Switzerland, and other countries, does not have some hidden agenda nor, as some Western lunacy suggests, Russian puppet strings. The Catalonian cause reminds one of the passage by the famous Catalonian poet Joan Salvat-Papassei: “the jailers of this world would not catch my shadow, if I were a thief and a bandit they would not know my flight.”

The Spanish government said on Nov.10 that it had noted news manipulation about the Catalan crisis on social media originating from Russia’s territory. Spain's government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said disinformation on social networks was a "serious issue." According to Spanish Defence Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal, the government had established that "many messages and interventions via social networks come from Russian territory." She did not offer any specific examples to confirm the affirmation. Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said there was evidence of activity by Russian networks and hackers. The trolls are said to be spreading misinformation across social media to further "destabilize" Spain and the EU.

The issue was even raised at the EU foreign and defense ministers meeting on Nov.13-14, where Spain briefed the EU on the alleged interference. The debate comes after eight member states urged EU foreign service chief Federica Mogherini to build up the counter-propaganda cell in her service.

Spanish media have many times attacked Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik Spanish language services for instigating tensions in Catalonia, supporting the separatist movement. El Pais daily wrote an editorial on Nov. 10 denouncing "the intense campaign by Russian media that are close to the Kremlin," whose "propaganda machine" it accused of siding with the pro-independence movement.

NATO leadership chimed in. On Nov.9, US General Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of NATO forces in Europe, called on Russia to stop “meddling” into European elections. He was concerned over Russia’s “malign influence’ in other countries. The Atlantic Council, a US-based think-tank close to NATO, has published a report suggesting that Russia was seeking to meddle in support of Catalan independence and to discredit the Spanish central government's position that the referendum on independence held on Oct. 1 was illegal. El Pais, the Washington Times and Politico all issued publications alleging that an army of Russian bots had perfected their techniques of online influence and thus ensured the October 1 vote went down the path of separation.

If the accusations were true, it would mean that Russia-backed media networks operate to undermine Russia’s official position on the issue made clear in a Foreign Ministry’s statement. Russia has consistently voiced its respect for Spain’s territorial integrity.

Can anyone of sane mind believe that Russia’s “meddling” is the real reason to make over 40 percent of Catalans support independence? Has Russia been behind the 95-year-old independence movement in Catalonia? Has Russia made the Catalans’ language and culture distinct? Did Russia make Francisco Franco oppress the Catalan people? Has Russia provoked the economic crisis in Spain, which has served to magnify calls for Catalan independence? Has Russia made Catalans believe that the current tax structure is unfair? Has Russia made Madrid unwilling to renegotiate Catalonia’s autonomy agreement? Has Russia written Spain’s constitution, which expressly prohibits a region from breaking away unilaterally? Did Moscow order Spanish police to use brutal force, while preventing the unconstitutional vote? If it didn’t count, why take such pains to stop it?

Several world leaders and political figures condemned the violence specifically. Did Russia make them do it? Did Russia make the EU abstain from mediation effort? And, finally, does Russia stand to gain from an independent Catalonia?

With many publications on the issue, no evidence has been produced to demonstrate a link between the Russian government and Catalonia vote. Obviously, the use of the "Russian meddling" narrative seems to work as a distraction from the wrongdoing of the Spanish government. The fantasy provides a convenient scapegoat to avoid responsibility of the Spanish government for missing opportunities to launch meaningful political dialogue with Catalonia and mishandling of the vote. Spain is by far not the only country to use the narrative to its own advantage. As Karl Sharro, a well-known British architect and satirist, commented on the results of UK elections, “The most disappointing thing about the UK election is there wasn't even a hint of Russian interference. It's like we don't matter at all.”

Millions of pro-independence Catalans are on their own. Europe turned its back on them, violating fundamental international law, affirming the right of self-determination for all people.

Separatist officials blasted EU policy, ignoring the rights of Catalans, silent in the face of vicious Madrid repression, lawlessly deposing and jailing its officials.

Outspoken Girona Mayor Marta Madrenas said “(w)hat surprises me is that Europe doesn’t give a damn. The Spanish state is violating fundamental rights and liberties. Are those not founding principles of the EU?”

Other separatists feel the same way. Girona pro-independence Catalan National Assembly coordinator Adam Bertran said “(w)e were hoping for a Europe of democratic values, a Europe that defends human rights, defends non-violence and defends its citizens rather than its institutions.”

“But what we have seen until now is silent complicity with Spain” deplorable collusion with fascist repression.

Without supportive international pressure, mainly from Europe, PM Rajoy will continue operating extrajudicially.

The only solution is dialogue and compromise, along with ending regime repression, reinstating Catalan officials, releasing jailed ones, and dropping all unacceptable charges.

Otherwise, tensions will remain heightened and things will likely get worse than already, including other parts of Spain wanting separation from Madrid.

Overnight in Catalan communities, cars were torches and public bins set alight, multiple incidents reported. Electrical installations were affected.

So far the perpetrators are unknown, possibly right-wing thugs trying to intimidate separatists, more incidents likely to follow.

On Monday in a London Guardian op-ed, deposed President Puigdemont called Catalonia “the only territory in the European Union that has been denied the supreme law its citizens voted for; the parliament that its citizens elected; the president that this parliament elected; and the government that this president appointed in the exercise of his powers.”

By deposing Catalan officials and dissolving its parliament, Madrid acted “an arbitrary, undemocratic, (and) unlawful manner…interven(ing) in our self-government and the institutions that the Catalans have been building in our nation for centuries.”

“It committed a brutal judicial offensive to bring about the mass imprisonment and criminalization of candidates promoting political ideas that, just two years ago, obtained historically high levels of public support.”

It’s what democracy is supposed to be all about! Support more overwhelming on October 1 – a 90% + majority for independence from Spain by referendum, marred by Madrid-ordered police state violence.

Dismissing and banning Catalonia’s democratically elected government constitutes a high crime against rule of law principles – Europe complicit through silence and support for what demands condemnation.

False charges against Catalan officials include glaring irregularities, said Puigdemont – assuring unfair judicial proceedings against them, declared guilty by accusation.

“No crime committed in the name of the unity of the country will ever be prosecuted: not the violations of the secrecy of postal correspondence, nor the repeated restrictions on the right to freedom of expression, the blocking of websites without judicial authorization, arrests made without judicial order, nor the certification of a police brigade outside the law to illegally pursue pro-independence political leaders and the Spanish left,” Puigdemont stressed.

“(W)e will defend our rights to the end,” he concluded. Spain’s future in on the line.

Rule of law in the country is dead. It’ll take a nationwide convulsion to revive it.

stephenlendman.org

The imposition of direct rule on Catalonia was a longtime goal of the Madrid regime for years. Catalonia sought the same autonomous powers afforded to Spain’s Basque region, most notably, the power of taxation. However, Castilians of Madrid and other “taker” regions that rely on Spain’s national budget for their benefits, have grown comfortable with the fact that Catalonia provides much of Spain’s budget. Catalonia’s wish to keep more of its tax money in the region and not have it distributed to “taker” regions of Spain, led the Rajoy regime and Spain’s Supreme Court to reject expanded autonomy powers for Catalonia. Catalonia’s independence referendum grew directly out of Madrid’s rejection of a negotiated agreement with the Barcelona government.

As the Madrid regime was hauling members of the Catalonian government before kangaroo courts in Madrid, the British government was moving to impose direct rule on autonomous Northern Ireland. The reason for London’s actions was officially stated as providing Northern Ireland with a Westminster-dictated budget. However, the move by London essentially stripped the Stormont Assembly in Belfast of all financial powers, a move that reversed the devolution of powers to Northern Ireland’s coalition government of the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the mainly Catholic Sinn Fein party.

The reversal of devolution of powers in Northern Ireland and the de facto imposition of direct rule by London served as a backdrop to calls for more Northern Ireland sovereignty with Britain’s exit from the European Union. Most Northern Irish favor maintaining the open border with EU member Ireland. London’s direct rule over Northern Ireland complicates Northern Ireland-Ireland relations as the United Kingdom establishes a Fortress Britain regime over the British Isles. The British move against autonomy and devolved powers in Northern Ireland also serves as a warning to the Scottish National Party government in Scotland that it, too, might face a rollback of its powers as Edinburgh clamors again for independence or increased autonomy with a special status within the EU.

Labor-ruled Wales, which also desires a special relationship with the EU post-Brexit, may also face the Tory whip in an imposition of increased power by London over the autonomous government in Cardiff. In addition, moves by the semi-independent Isle of Man and Channel Islands to strike their own post-Brexit deals with the EU have resulted in calls for the islands to be brought under the umbrella of the Westminster parliament. This has only fueled Manx nationalism in the Isle of Man and Norman resistance in the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, the latter lying closer to France than to Britain.

The government of Iraq moved against the Kurdistan Regional Government, likely encouraged by the actions of Madrid and London toward their own restive regions seeking independence. Overwhelming support for independence in a Kurdistan referendum was met with instant opposition from not only Baghdad, but Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, three countries that rarely agree on anything.

The Iraqi Constitution of 2005 provided for the Kurdistan Autonomous Region to have more autonomy than any Iraqi province. However, Baghdad never actually recognized Kurdistan’s full autonomous rights and the Iraqis have failed to implement 67 out of 144 articles in the Iraqi Constitution, including those that deal with Kurdish autonomy. After fighting a bloody conflict with the Islamic State and seeing its longtime president, Masoud Barzani, resign as president in the wake of the failed independence bid, Kurdistan is now no more autonomous in the eyes of Baghdad than are the provinces of Anbar or Basra.

Catalonia, Northern Ireland, and Kurdistan were not the first to feel the pain of direct rule from their colonial masters. In 2016, the United States forced the self-governing Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to follow orders from a seven-member Federal Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) established in the wake of the island territory’s financial crisis. The crisis had been caused by greedy Wall Street vulture investment firms and ratings houses that trashed Puerto Rico’s financial prognosis. Essentially, the Obama administration and the Republican-led Congress imposed direct rule on Puerto Rico. After the territory was devastated by Hurricane Maria, the Trump administration treated the territory like a foreign backwater nation, even though Puerto Ricans are full U.S. citizens. The U.S. Virgin Islands, devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, has also seen its ability to make its own decisions constrained by Washington. The fate of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands has American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas also worried about their ability to decide their own policies free of interference from Washington.

Australia kicked of the penchant for countries to impose direct rule with its decision in 2015 to abolish Norfolk Island’s self-government by abrogating the 1979 agreement between Canberra and the island. Australia closed the Norfolk Island Legislative Assembly and dismissed the island’s government. The island was unilaterally made a part of the Australian state of New South Wales and a right-wing talk radio host was dispatched to the island to serve as administrator. Norfolk Island’s residents appealed to the United Nations for help as a non-self-governing territory denied its rights under the UN Charter. Norfolk Island also requested New Zealand to make it a self-governing territory in the fashion of other such territories of New Zealand, namely, the Cook Islands and Niue.

New Zealand was not exactly the type of country with which Norfolk Island would want to hammer out an associated self-government agreement. New Zealand out its colonial foot down when the Cook Islands, a developed associated state of New Zealand, expressed an interest in applying for full membership in the UN. The word from Wellington was a resounding “no deal.”

Perhaps, totalitarian-inclined governments are taking their cues from an American administration that has done nothing but show its disdain for international treaties and domestic arrangements. The Trump administration has not only trashed the self-government of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, but has also ignored tribal sovereignty agreements between Washington and native American governments. These conflicts with tribal governments have arisen over the desire by Trump and his cronies to turn over native lands to exploitative oil, natural gas, timber, and mining companies. Trump also recently wanted Alaska to rename the mountain of Denali to its previous colonial name of “Mount McKinley.” Trump’s desire was rejected by Alaska’s two Republican senators.

Bullying leaders everywhere are rolling back on constitutional and other agreements granting self-governance and autonomy to regions and territories. The Netherlands shows no desire to return the autonomy to the Caribbean islands of Bonaire, Saba, and Saint Eustatius that was seized by Amsterdam following the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles. Denmark is fighting tooth and nail against any moves by Greenland and the Faroe Islands to achieve independence, options permitted in their agreements with Copenhagen. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are militarily opposing the attempt by South Yemen to have its independence, lost as the result of an unpopular union with Yemen in 1990, fully restored.

Rather than letting “freedom ring,” the bullies in Madrid, London, Baghdad, Washington, Canberra, and other capitals are relishing in the sound of actual and virtual jackboots on the streets of Barcelona, Belfast, Kirkuk, San Juan, Charlotte Amalie, and Aden.

In just the past few weeks, two examples emerged to demonstrate the harmful consequences when political leaders overplay their hand and provoke harsh responses. One occurred in Iraqi Kurdistan, the other in Spain’s Catalonia region. Both entities now teeter on the brink of calamity. There also are pertinent lessons from those episodes for U.S. policymakers.

Despite abundant warnings from multiple sources, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil held a referendum on September 25 regarding independence from Iraq. President Masoud Barzani’s administration should have realized even before the vote that matters were not likely to turn out well. Not only did Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi make it clear that such a referendum was unacceptable and would lead immediately to retaliatory measures, but neighboring states, including Iran, Syria and Turkey, did so as well. Even the United States, which regards Kurdish fighters in both Iraq and Syria as extremely valuable allies in the struggle against ISIS, urged the KRG to exercise more caution.

Within mere weeks after the bold referendum, the KRG had lost much of what it had gained in the years since it established a highly autonomous foothold in Iraq’s predominantly Kurdish region following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Iraqi Kurdistan had become independent in nearly everything but name. It had its own army, flag and currency, and it largely controlled the export of oil from northern Iraq. Baghdad’s sovereignty over the region was minimal and tenuous. The KRG even had been successful in exploiting the ISIS threat and the setbacks that Baghdad suffered to establish control over Kirkuk, a long-standing Kurdish objective.

Prudent statesmanship would have dictated leaving well enough alone and consolidating those gains. Instead, Erbil reached for full, formal independence. That was a provocation that neither Baghdad nor any of the other capitals could let go unchallenged. The Kurds are the largest distinct population in the world without a homeland, and major portions of that ethnic bloc are present in Iran, northern Syria and especially Turkey (some 50 percent of the total), as well as northern Iraq. An independent Kurdistan is seen as a threat to the territorial integrity of all of those countries. Therefore, there was no chance whatsoever that they would tolerate the results of Erbil’s independence referendum.

Advocates of Catalonia’s independence from Spain appear to have made a similar blunder. Sentiment for independence has been building in that region for decades, and the regional government decided to hold a referendum regarding that option on October 1. As in the case of Kurdistan, there were clear warnings not to go down that path. The central government in Madrid was emphatic that such a move would not be tolerated. Indeed, the Spanish authorities sent police and other security personnel to prevent the balloting. That move led to ugly incidents in which those units behaved in a barbaric fashion, beating hundreds of mostly peaceful pro-independence demonstrators in Barcelona.

Despite such actions, the referendum went forward and produced an outcome favoring independence. Spanish authorities have since greatly hardened their stance. Madrid’s first demand was for Catalonia to hold new elections to replace the existing regional government. When the Catalans refused, and instead issued a declaration of independence, the Spanish parliament voted to oust officials of that government and to dissolve the elected regional legislative body. The vote also granted the prime minister unprecedented authority under the Spanish constitution to put down the rebellion. Through more subtle means, the Catalans might have achieved greatly enhanced autonomy for their region. By boldly pushing for independence, they are in danger of being subjected to harsh repression from Madrid. As in the case of Kurdistan, overreaching has led to a severe setback at a minimum and potential disaster at worst.

One might think that U.S. leaders are perceptive enough to avoid similar folly, but the record suggests otherwise. The United States achieved its initial objectives in Afghanistan, routing Al Qaeda, ousting the Taliban regime that had given that terrorist group safe haven and eventually killing Osama bin Laden. However, Washington was not content with such modest but important accomplishments. Instead, U.S. leaders prolonged and escalated America’s military intervention. They also changed the objective from punishing and defanging Al Qaeda to a murky counterinsurgency and nation-building mission. The predictable result is a war now in its sixteenth year, with little prospect of achieving those impractical goals.

The Trump administration shows signs of similar overreach with regard to policy toward Iran. President Obama wisely collaborated with other international powers to negotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Tehran to limit Iran’s nuclear program. By all reasonable accounts, the plan is working and Iran’s program remains under severe restraints that would prevent a breakout to build nuclear weapons. But President Trump, succumbing to the blandishments of ultra-hawkish Iranophobes, has refused to certify Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA, opening the door for new U.S. sanctions and the possible torpedoing of the agreement. Once again, the United States flirts with overreaching, undoing an agreement that is working well, and creating the prospect of a renewed, very dangerous crisis with Iran.

Wise officials in any country need to resist the temptation to overreach, thereby jeopardizing existing achievements and the potential for modest additional gains. Veteran Wall Street investors have a saying: “bulls make money, bears make money, but pigs get slaughtered.” Political leaders should heed a similar admonition.

nationalinterest.org

Things are in unchartered waters, crisis conditions a long way from resolved.

Both sides have polar opposite values. Pro-independence Catalans want their democratic rights upheld.

Madrid wants them denied, forcefully if separatists resist. UK-based lecturer in politics and Spanish Caroline Gray accused pro-independence activists of living in a “parallel universe of the new republic…(t)he situation…unpredictable if Spain moves in to take control.”

Catalan separatists still consider Pugdement president despite removal from office by Madrid. He urged peaceful resistance.

Lawlessly jailed activist Jordi Sanchez called for “Gandhi-style resistance.”

Most Catalans celebrated the new republic. Spanish PM Rajoy says it doesn’t exist. A constitutional crisis threatens to become much more serious.

Puigdemont and other Catalan officials face possible arrest on sedition charges. A Rajoy regime tweet said his call for peaceful resistance is “very serious.” His “irresponsibility…has no limit.”

Separatists wanting libertad won’t accept losing what they’ve long been struggling for.

Pro-independence Republican Left of Catalonia party member Josep-Maria Terricabras blasted Brussels, saying:

“The European Union is not exactly a union…It’s a club of states and they protect each other.”

“They’ve done this again and again over history when in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, they said ‘no, you are not new countries. We are not going tor recognize you.’ “

“Then, some weeks later, they recognized them, and accepted them as a member of the union.”

“When our leaders in Europe say ‘yes, perhaps tomorrow’, they will say no. I’m not afraid about that and I am not surprised at all.”

Senior lecturer in Hispanic and Catalan Studies Sally-Ann Kitts said “substantial European pressure” is needed to get Rajoy to negotiate.

Brussels may be forced to intervene, she believes, calling its failure to condemn referendum day violence “a really big mistake and quite shameful.”

The current situation won’t be easily resolved as long as Madrid remains hardline. The international community calling the crisis an internal affair is unacceptable.

At some point, Madrid will “have to face up to” reality that negotiation is the only way to resolve things, said Kitts. Millions of Catalans wanting separation from Spain can’t be ignored.

Both sides need to talk. Otherwise protracted crisis conditions will continue, likely violent street clashes and bloodshed.

European Council president Donald Tusk dismissively saying “nothing change(d)” after Catalonia formally declared independence is unacceptable.

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker admitted “more cracks” in the fragile union.

On Sunday, deposed Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras said “(w)e cannot recognize the coup d’etat against Catalonia, nor any of the anti-democratic decisions that (Rajoy’s regime) adopt(ed) by remote control from Madrid,” adding he remains “vice president of the government of Catalonia.”

Belgian minister for asylum and migration Theo Francken said Puigdemont and other Catalans “who feel politically threatened can apply for asylum in Belgium. This includes the minister-president Puigdemont. It’s completely legal.”

On Saturday, Madrid’s orders against Catalonia and its officials became effective, usurping control over the new republic.

If separatist politicians boycott the December snap election, they’ll cede power to Madrid, able to assure puppet governance representing its interests.

On Saturday, veteran activist Marti Olivella began teaching Catalans passive resistance techniques, saying:

“I think it’s an illusion to think that people who have led us this far and declared independence are going to just walk away because a law is published.”

If deposed Catalan officials remain united in parliament and other government buildings, and pro-independence activists protect them by forming a human shield, “it will be complicated for” Madrid, he said, adding:

“(T)wo million people put their physical safety on the line to go out and vote in the referendum” – accomplishing what they set out to do, despite police state viciousness.

One activist likely spoke for many others, saying “(t)oday we are a republic.” Madrid “want(s) our territory and our wealth.”

Most Catalans reject its rule. Will they continue struggling for liberty no matter how tough the going gets?

Will Madrid unleash police state violence against them? Will the international community continue supporting Rajoy or demand resolving things through dialogue?

Answers to these questions will explain the course of future events, very much unknown so far.

stephenlendman.org

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose Popular Party is a direct political descendant of Franco’s fascist Falangist Party, wasted no time in invoking, for the first time, Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, which allows the Spanish Kingdom to impose direct rule on regions not adhering to the whiplashing from Madrid. Catalonia is the first, but possible not the last victim, of Spain’s neo-fascism on display for the entire world.

During the Spanish Civil War, the Catalans and Basques fought with bravery on behalf of the Spanish Second Republic against the fascist forces of Franco and his fascists. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini provided all-out support for Franco, much like the European Union, NATO, and the United States have fully backed Rajoy in his confrontation with Catalonia. Spain’s King Felipe VI October 3 speech, in which he condemned the Catalan referendum’s pro-independence results, was seen by many Catalans, as well as other groups like the Basques, Galicians, and Andalusians, as an unnecessary involvement in politics. Not only Catalans, but others across Spain, began calling for the scrapping of the Bourbon family’s monarchy and the establishment of the Spanish Third Republic. The Bourbons have little respect among the working peoples of Spain and France. After all, it was an ancestor of Felipe VI, Louis XVI of France, who lost his head to a French revolutionary guillotine after ignoring the poverty of the French people.

Spain’s reaction to Catalonia’s independence was swift and reminiscent of Hitler’s extinguishment of Austria’s independence in his infamous “Anschluss” (union) between Nazi Germany and Austria. Rajoy ordered the sacking of Catalan First Minister Carles Puigdemont; his entire Cabinet, chief of the Catalan Mossos d’Esquadra police Jose Luis Trapero, Catalan representatives in Madrid, Brussels, Strasbourg, London, Paris, Copenhagen, Rome, Berlin, Vatican City, Lisbon, Rabat, Warsaw, Vienna, Zagreb, and Geneva; and even Catalan schoolteachers. Catalan government ministers were replaced with lisp-talking Castillian apparatchiks sent to the Catalan capital of Barcelona to administer, by fiat, all Catalan government institutions. Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria took over Puigdemont’s job, while Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido took over the Catalan police functions from Trapero. Police duties in Catalonia were largely transferred from the Mossos d’Esquadra to the feared “Guardia Civil,” the notorious political enforcers for Franco’s fascist regime that were created by Franco as a Spanish version of Nazi Germany’s Gestapo.

The Madrid regime announced that new Catalan elections would be held on December 21 of this year, however, it is far from clear whether Catalonia’s pro-independence parties will be permitted to field candidates. Madrid may proscribe all of Catalonia’s pro-independence parties and groups, including “Junts Pel Sí” ("Together For Yes") and the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), leaving only pro-Spanish parties like Rajoy’s neo-fascist Popular Party and the accommodationist Socialists, Ciudadanos, and George Soros-financed Podemos on the ballot. Moreover, Madrid has threatened to put on trial all of Catalonia’s independence leaders for sedition. Sedition convictions under Spanish law carry a maximum 15-year prison term.

Madrid also ordered shut down a Catalan government special commission that was investigating Spanish police brutality against Catalan citizens during pro-independence demonstrations following the October 1 referendum. Ominously, the Madrid authorities ordered sacked police chief Trapero to turn in his passport, a sign that Madrid is contemplating seizing the passports of all of Catalonia’s independence leaders to prevent them from operating a Republic of Catalonia government-in-exile. The precedent for such action was the anti-Franco Spanish Second Republic’s government-in-exile established in Paris in 1939 after Franco’s seizure of Spain. After Nazi Germany’s invasion of France in 1940, the government-in-exile moved to Mexico City, where it was recognized by Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Venezuela, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Albania until its dissolution in 1977 after Spain’s so-called “constitutional monarchy” was restored after Franco’s death. The seizure of passports from Catalan officials and the closure of Catalan foreign missions abroad by Madrid is clearly aimed at preventing a Catalan government-in-exile from being formed.

Today, Rajoy and his junta have the support of all the major corporate periodicals in Spain, El País, El Mundo, ABC, El Razón, and Barcelona’s quisling newspaper La Vanguardia. However, no newspaper endorsements or messages of support from Donald Trump, Angela Merkel, Theresa May, and Jean-Claude Juncker that will enable Rajoy’s thugs to keep Catalonia under his boot heel. Catalonia’s future will be determined by its own people and their friends abroad, many of whom have rallied to Catalonia’s cause.

No sooner had Catalonia declared its independence, messages of support began streaming into Barcelona. Jean-Guy Talamoni, the president of the National Assembly of Corsica, a French island where independence sentiment is strong, praised the “birth of the Republic of Catalonia.” Carole Delga, the president of the French region of Occitania, where Catalan is spoken in the Pyrenees-Orientales department, recognized Occitania’s strong ties to Catalonia and called for urgent talks between Spanish and Catalan authorities to maintain the civil peace.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has promised a second Scottish independence referendum, voiced support for Catalonia. The leader of the Scottish National Party government in Edinburgh said, “The right to self-determination is an important international principle, and I hope very much it will be respected in Catalonia, and everywhere else." There is every reason to believe that Rajoy is seizing the Spanish European Union passports of Catalan leaders to prevent them from establishing a government-in-exile in either Edinburgh or Glasgow, two cities from which they could have at their service satellite communications links and direct air access to Europe’s major cities. There is a great degree of support among Scots for Catalan independence. The new Catalan Defense Committee Scotland is organizing opposition to Madrid’s aggression against Catalonia. It has stated, “The brutality and repression that has been visited upon the people of Catalonia cannot be allowed to continue, or to be legitimized.” The committee is not only confining its activities in Scotland and is vowing to spearhead a Europe-wide movement.

Catalonia’s cause is also supported by Jan Peumans, the speaker of the Flemish regional parliament. Citing the example of Scotland, Peumans said of Catalonia and his own region of Flanders, that independence of such regions is an “evolution that no European government can avoid.”

Regional leaders in Italy’s Lombardy and Veneto regions, which both voted in favor of more autonomy in recent referendums, rallied to Catalonia’s side and condemned Spain’s arrest and intimidation of Catalan leaders. Separatist leaders in the Faroe Islands, which voted in 1946 for independence from Denmark only to see the Danish government bow to pressure from Washington to keep the islands Danish, hope to repeat the 1946 vote in an April 2018 referendum for a new constitution for an independent Faroes. The declaration of the Republic of Catalonia has provided encouragement to not only the Faroese but those in Greenland who want to see a total break from Danish (and NATO) control.

Rajoy’s junta’s crackdown in Catalonia could also re-ignite the Basque region’s desire for independence. The Basque guerrilla group ETA declared a unilateral cease fire in 2010 but it never fully disarmed. If the Spanish suppression of Catalonia succeeds, the Basques may see themselves as next on Rajoy’s list. Unlike the Catalans, the Basques have shown Madrid that they are quite capable of bringing a war home to the very center of the Spanish state in Madrid. The Galicians may also see their autonomy at risk and a mobilization of the armed “Restistencia Galega” would force Madrid to face multiple fronts in not only Catalonia and the Basque region, but Galicia, as well.

Señor Rajoy and his proto-fascists would do well to listen to the Catalan protesters singing from the streets of Barcelona their traditional Catalan songs and one from the musical “Les Misérables” that should worry the puppet minister for the Bourbon king of Spain: “Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music of a people Who will not be slaves again!.. Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Beyond the barricade. Is there a world you long to see? Then join in the fight. That will give you the right to be free!”

Most notably, Putin contrasted the case of Kosovo which declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Then, the EU fervently backed Kosovo’s breakaway declaration from the Serbian republic out of deference to Washington’s policy of dismembering the former Yugoslavia.

So, evidently, the case of Kosovo is an acceptable secession according to the EU, but not it seems in the case of Catalonia.

We could also cite Crimea, although the political circumstances are very different.

Crimea held a referendum to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation in March 2014 – after the elected government in Kiev was overthrown in a violent coup. The point about Crimea is this: the EU has never stopped harping on about what it says is the illegality of the Crimean referendum and Russia’s alleged nefarious destabilizing role. The EU has slapped several rounds of economic sanctions on Russia leading to a grave deterioration in relations.

Nevertheless, arguably, the Crimean referendum was constitutionally held, whereas the Kosovo secession came about following NATO military aggression towards Yugoslavia.

But despite this hyper-interventionism by the European bloc in the internal affairs of Ukraine, including the clandestine backing of the Kiev coup in February 2014, the EU leaders are strangely mute on a crisis within their own bloc regarding Spain and Catalonia.

The Spanish northeast region, centered on Barcelona, held a referendum on October 1, which in spite of a vicious police crackdown on the orders of the central government in Madrid, returned a majority vote in favor of independence.

The Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy has since rejected the referendum result out of hand and is now moving to cancel the Catalonian regional administration, headed up by Catalan president Carles Puigdemont.

Rajoy’s ruling Popular Party has shredded the Catalonian plebiscite as “illegal”, saying it violates the Spanish constitution. Rajoy has refused to countenance any negotiations with Puigdemont’s regional administration unless the referendum is repudiated – a move which would be humiliating.

The policy of Madrid amounts to heavy-handed repression. Yet that this repression is taking place within a European Union member state is a cause of much disquiet. While the EU governments bite their lips on the Catalonian matter, by contrast they seem to always jump to condemn Russia over alleged repression of minor protests organized by the dubious dissident Alexei Navalny.

Admittedly, the Catalonian issue is weighed with complicated legal argument. It is arguable that the Catalans are acting outside of the constitution by unilaterally holding the referendum. Pro-independence Catalans would counter that their hand was forced owing to years of reluctant attitude in Madrid to address their separatist aspirations. There is also a substantial electorate in Catalonia which is against independence from the rest of Spain.

However, what is instructive here is the expedient stance taken by the EU towards the Spanish-Catalonian dispute. When Mariano Rajoy attended the EU annual summit before the weekend, he was roundly greeted by other leaders who closed ranks in support.

As a Reuters report headlined: “Catalonia finds no friends among EU leaders”.

French President Manuel Macron said it was an internal private matter for Spain and expressed “unity” with Premier Rajoy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that the confrontation must be resolved “within the constitution” of the Spanish state – thus delegitimizing the Catalonia referendum, as per Madrid’s position.

“It’s an internal Spanish matter,” reiterated Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Reuters also quoted a senior EU diplomat, who revealed the cynical calculus being made by the various government leaders, by saying: “There is not much to gain from backing Barcelona and a lot to lose from angering Madrid.”

It was perhaps the equivocating European Council President Donald Tusk who took the prize for shallow expedience.

“It is not on our agenda,” said Tusk to media reporters. “All of us have our own emotions, opinions, assessments but formally speaking there is no space for an EU intervention [in the Spanish-Catalonian dispute].”

Of course, the tacit concern here is that the EU does not want to exacerbate separatist movements elsewhere across the 28-member union. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker admitted that Catalonia could be a “domino effect”, providing precedent for further secessionist calls within Belgium, Italy and Scotland.

Furthermore, if Brussels were to mediate in Spain it could find itself accused of interfering in sovereign affairs, thereby adding fuel to populist and Eurosceptic parties that have emerged like a hot rash across Europe, from the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, to Hungary and lately in Austria and Czech Republic with Sebastian Kurz and Andrej Babis, respectively.

Politically, the agnostic view of the EU toward the Catalonian question might be understandable based on vested interests of European governments. But where is the principle in that position?

By ignoring the issue, the EU leaves itself open to criticism of being unscrupulous and of peddling double standards. After all, the bloc’s foundational principles state that it shows “solidarity” with the democratic rights of minority groups within the union.

Speaking at the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi this week, Putin not only pointed out the glaring hypocrisy and double standards of the EU with regard to Catalonia and Kosovo. He also said that the EU’s meddling in the internal affairs of Serbia back in 2008 served to unleash the politics of separatism across Europe – that has come back to haunt Brussels.

At a time when EU leaders are struggling to maintain political and moral authority in the eyes of their electorates, their self-serving and cowardly pandering toward Madrid over Catalonia is another grievous blow to their image.

All the self-righteous declarations by European governments about democratic principles is seen to be little more than idle rhetoric that can be discarded at any moment if it is expedient to do so.