Impunity and shame

Imagine a democratic state where a transition from a dictatorship took place nearly forty years ago. The dictator took up the power after a coup d'État against a democratic government and almost three years of bloody civil war.
Then, imagine that the would-be dictator was Francisco Franco and had the aid of a clique formed by other right-wing and monarchist generals, alongside far-right politicians who sought the support of the clergy and the states of the Rome-Berlin Axis. He also counted on an Army Corps formed by African soldiers who served at the Spanish colonies in Northern Morocco. They were known because of their extreme brutality and lack of respect for their victims.
Furthermore, imagine that rebels' coalition brutally murdered thousands of innocent people through bombings against civilians as well as summary executions all along the territory they were conquering. For instance, Franco ordered the German Condor Legion to destroy the Basque city of Gernika through a terrible bombing, the same thing that Italian troops tried to do in Barcelona. Regarding African troops, they committed lots of violations and a huge slaughter of innocent people, including women, children and elderly people. They did not even hesitate to murder people when they were fleeing from the war.
Imagine that, once the dictatorship was institutionalized, the summary executions and the councils of war went on during the postwar. Everyone who had formed part of a trade union or a political party during the Republic was purged, sometimes according only to lawsuits filled because of disputes between neighbours of a village or town. However, authorities did not verify whether the accusations were true or false, so dozens of innocent people were disappeared, jailed and even killed. And the terror continued until the death of the dictator, nearly forty years later.
Finally, imagine that neither the author nor the accomplices of such attrocities were never put before a court to pay for their crimes. Instead, an amnesty law was approved in order to avoid any criminal case against them. Furthermore, praising the dictatorship is legal in Spain, to the extent that some politicians from the ruling People's Party and its youth organization have been photographed showing Francoist flags or making the fascist salutation. And this situation of impunity keeps on... 

China according to Spanish media, a distorted image

It has become common some news about China appear on Spanish media, especially on the TV. Information about natural disasters like damages caused by typhoons or floods is often shown among other curious images of the country. For instance, a person who often watches the news on Spanish television TVE can be aware of the discrimination some Chinese graduates are being supposed to endure on their job interviews because of their zodiac. No, this is not a joke at all. A public television like Televisión Española, the Spanish offiicial TV, broadcast such information on 24th July 2013, only a day before the information about the imminent trial against Bo Xilai became official. However, the same television silenced the report that Bo's lawyer has not been allowed to legally represent him on the upcoming trial, as appeared last week in foreign newspapers like The Guardian. But no word about this issue was said neither in Spanish nor in Catalan or Basque media though the trial will be determinant for the political stability of China and the CCP. In addition, the denial of legal representation to Bo Xilai proofs that his trial is determined in advance so he is very likely to be convicted. 

The last case which drew the attention of every Spanish media was the order to demolish a luxury mansion which had been built by a Chinese millionaire on the top of a skyscrapper in Beijing. Such information was brought to the televisions and newspapers for several days, where as the latests reports on the lawsuit against Bo Xilai, the conviction of Liu Hui (the brother-in-law of jailed Chinese Nobel Prize Liu Xiaobo) amid a political trial or on the current tensions in Tibet have been silenced. Thus a Spaniard with no knowledge in English language or a person who is not used to read foreign media is unlikely to be aware of such important events. Instead, they would know a lot of features and figures about China's economic growth and the existence of several millionaires with an extreme love for luxury. Nevertheless, such anecdotes are seldom accompanied by other serious informations on the country like the accusations of bribery against GSK or some natural disasters which might take place there, as well as the case of Tang Hui, a woman who won a trial against the re-education through labor camp in which she was jailed for denouncing the rapist of her daughter.

Such situation provokes severe misunderstanding of the Chinese reality by the Spanish public opinion. For example, only a few Spaniards are aware of the ethnic and cultural diversity in China or the diplomatic and military conflicts which involve the country. Furthermore, many people do not know that Han ethnic group is only the main of the 55 nationalities which populate Chinese territory or that dozens of languages are spoken there. Instead, they think that the Empire of the Centre (the literal translation for 中国, China in Chinese) is only populated by Han Chinese, all of them speaking the same language and having the same culture. Thus, many clichés abound about them whereas the media contribute to promote them by publishing anecdotal informations such as those mentioned above.
Therefore, lots of Spaniards actually ignore that current policies by Chinese Communist Party officials are conducting to a spate of political detentions and trials which reminds the worst years of Maoist rule. This is even more evident in territories like Tibet (not only the TAR but also parts of other provinces which have been historically Tibetan: Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan), Inner Mongolia (an Autonomous Regions which shares its boundaries with the Republic of Mongolia and where the majority of Mongolians live) and East Turkestan (the Muslim-populated Xinjiang Uyghur Automous Region), where the government encourages a flooding of Han migrant workers to exploit the richness in natural resources of those regions. In addition, migrations bring blatant discrimination to the local population and inflicts huge damages to their environment, language, culture and traditional ways of life. Moreover, both the police and the People's Liberation army severely crack down on anyone who dares to protest against injustices they endure on their daily life, even beating and torturing people to death. The situation is even worse in Tibet, where authorities have even issued a death penalty against relatives of self-immolations, acusing them of encouraging those extreme acts of protest. The latest to be given such a harsh penalty has been Dolma Kyab, a man who was sentenced for allegedly murdering his wife Kunchok Wangmo and then burning her corpse to show that she had self-immolated requesting freedom for Tibet.
In addition, very few information is avalaible in Spain about territorial conflicts led by China. The standoff at the border between China and India in the region of Ladakh, including two incursions by the PLA into Indian territory, only appeared briefly at some newspapers like the right-wing La Razón. Moreover, the little news on this issue are never treated giving their historical or political background, but only treated superficially as is they were isolated facts. Thus, the viewer has not the ability to relate some standoffs like this and the rise of military budget in China with the aggressive foreign policy led by the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping.
Given all the circumstances mentioned above, it is clear that Spanish media offer a very biased information on China, trying not to show any information which could go against the ruling Communist Party or question the territorial integrity of the country. Because of that, the general public from Spain may not be aware of the deep implications that China's policies might have even in their own country.

Creating conflicts

An episode of tension has erupted between Spain and the United Kingdom because of Gibraltar, a city under British sovereignty which is situated south from the Iberian Peninsula and near the Spanish province of Andalusia. In fact, Spanish police has recently implemented new and stricter controls across the border between Gibraltar and La Línea de la Concepción, one of the Spanish cities which share its boundaries with the rock. Spanish authorities claim that the purpose of those security checks is to prevent snuff smuggling whereas hundreds of Spaniards who daily cross the border to their jobs are forced to wait for hours and so being late to their commitments.

However, snuff smuggling is not the origin of those checks and their consequences. Everything started when Gibraltar government started building an artificial reef which in practice prevented Spanish fishing boats from fishing in the area. It was located near the Spanish Playa de Poniente (Western Beach), in the city of La Línea de la Concepción and 500 meters away from British territorial waters. Thus the Spanish government raised concerns on the effects that this mesure could have for the economy of the area and send the Civil Guard to stop the collocation of the blocks which formed the reef. Moreover, Spanish authorities reacted aggressively implementing harder controls along the border and threatening Gibraltar with cutting the Spanish airspace to the aircraft from or to the rock as well as with cutting out the concessions on telecommunications. Furthermore, Spain is working on a tax which would charge people who want to cross the border either to reach their commitments or to enter Gibraltar as a tourist. If it is approved, each vehicle which wants to cross the frontier will be forced to pay 50€, a measure which goes clearly against the freedom of movement of both residents and tourists. Nevertheless, the rock is not within Schengen space thus no rules regarding freedom of circulation are to be applied there.

An isolated fact has led to a diplomatic conflict between the United Kingdom and Spain so far, damaging the inhabitants from both sides of the boundary. But have the latest events be the true cause for such an episode of tension? Why has this conflict exploded preciselly now? Has it something to do with corruption scandals and bad economic results in Spain?
Though Spain delivered Gibraltar to the United Kingdom as a payment to obtain the recognition of Phillip V as the new Spanish king according to the Utretch Treaty, signed in 1713, the reality is that Spanish nationalism has repeatedly used this issue when the situation within the borders of Spain was critical. Several reasons have been exposed by Spanish authorities to raise their concerns on the sovereignty of the rock, as for example the fact that "Utretcht Treaty did not include any clauses regarding the airspace of Gibraltar (sic.)". Other matters of controversy are the territory beyond the 1713 borders which has allegedly annexed by the British government and the sovereignty of the waters surrounding the territory. After several years of sieges and fights during the 19th Century, the worst dispustes took place during Francisco Franco's ruling in Spain, who even forced the closing up of the fence which marked the border between the country and Gibraltar in 1966 and left thousands of Spaniards jobless, after three years of non-stop tensions between both countries which even led Franco to put this issue at the hands of the United Nations that issued two resolutions regarding the status of Gibraltar and its sovereignty while respecting the interests of its inhabitants.
However, the reclamations regarding the rock are always issued when the different governments, like Franco's dictatorship, have something to hide within their borders. In this case, the conflict erupted when Spanish justice is investigating a case of supposed corruption by the ruling party in the country, the People's Party, which is among one of the greatest scandals the country has ever seen. This is the main reason Britons claim to be behind the current reivindications, as well as the territorial disputes within Spain. Moreover, Catalonia and the Basque Country, which are seeking their independence from Spain, have shown their support to Gibraltar and its British sovereignty, as accepted by Gibraltarians on a referendum which rejected the shared ruling of the area in 2002. Hence, claims of "Gibraltar Español" (Spanish Gibraltar) obey only to the purpose of deviating the attention off the critical problems of this country by reliving the ghost of a conflict which has never existed since the same king Philip V admitted that Gibraltar would be forever English. Spain cannot continue giving the back to the history.

Illusion and delusion: China's current policies towards Tibet

Chinese Communist Party has implemented more hard-line policies on Tibet during the last weeks ahead of the birthday of the Dalai Lama. This has happened despite rumours which suggested that the cult to the figure of Tibetan spiritual leader had been allowed in some areas and the invitation by a Chinese religious group to visit Hong Kong in September, as well as the latest statement by Chinese scholar Jin Wei, who suggested that talks with Dalai Lama's representatives should be resumed after more than two years of stallement and even claimed that China should invite him to visit Hong Kong or Macau and eventually allow him to come back to Tibet only on the role of Buddhist leader with no voice on political affairs.

After tightening the surveillance on Tibetans and the plans to vanish the ancient heritage of Lhasa by creating  a comertial area across the Barkhor area (a road that circumvalates Jokhang temple, one of the holiest in the city), the last move by Chinese authorities in Tibet has been the re-launchment of calls for "absolute fight" against the Dalai Lama, as Yu Zhengsheng stated during a meeting with local officials and religious leaders in Gansu province. At the same time, Chinese police shot several people who were celebrating the birthday of Tenzin Gyatso in Tawu county, Kham (Ch.: Daofu County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan). According to some reports emerging from exile, at least two monks (Tashi Sonam and Ugyen Tashi) were shot in the head whilst several others were injured due to the shooting and the use of teargas. In addition, a report by Human Rights Watch has highlighted recently that nearly a third of Tibetans (approximately 2 million people) have been moved away from their homes and grasslands and transferred to the so-called New Socialist Villages, being barred from continuing with their traditional way of life. Therefore, many nomads have been forcibly sedentarized and condemned to alcoholism and margination. The video below gives the background and key features for this issue.

The situation has worsened since Xi Jinping became president of the country and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, with a spike on surveillance on non-Han people, including Tibetans and Uyghurs (a Turkic ethnic group living in Xinjiang).  Several measures of control have been implemented on minorities, such as monitoring of phone and internet communications, house-to-house searchings and arbitrary detentions or a tightening control on religious activities among others. Moreover, the increased control on minorities and "separatism" is not an isolated fact but an attempt to reassure its current boundaries by controlling some strategic points. In the case of Tibet, the plateau is the source of some of major rivers in East and Southeast Asia like Mekong, Yangtze, Brahmaputra or Salween. In addition, both Tibet and Inner Mongolia are rich in mineral resources crucial to the development of China whilst Xinjiang is rich in petrol, agricultural resources and livestock. So that, the Communist Party of China is not interested in loosing its control on them. Furthermore, both Tibet and Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia are territories which share its borders with several countries, thus a heavy military presence is deployed there.
On the other hand, current policies towards Tibet or other "separatist" regions coincide with an increasing assertiveness towards some territories which are considered by China as its own. China's claims include not only the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, an archipielago situated in the East China Sea (they are a disputed territory by both China and Japan) but also other islands and continental territories like Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state which shares its boundaries with Tibet, Bhutan and Myanmar and claimed by China as a territory called Southern Tibet. But the region which has suffered more attacks to its sovereignty is the territory of Ladakh, a valley situated in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, which shares borders with the Tibetan region of Ngari and Aksai Chin, currently part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In fact, the last one has been repeatedly invaded by patrols of the People's Liberation Army during the last year, with some incursions into the area like the ones which took place in April or May this year and have not resulted in violent clashes between both armies, the last of them taking place only four or five days ago. However, India's reaction has been lukewarm since it has not broken any diplomatic conflict between the two countries. For instance, there have been some high-level meetings between important politicians from both countries, including Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang's visit to India in which both countries scheduled diplomatic meetings to discuss the ways to end the rows.
Unlike some scholars who seem surprised by the continuity of hard-line policies on Tibet at a scale that reminds the years of the Cultural Revolution and the impunity that China is enjoying, the last change on the leadership in the country and the CCP has made a variation on policies towards the region unlikely. Instead, some Western countries turn a blind-eye on the precarious situation of human rights in the country by intensifying their economic ties with China or making some political agreements with the Communist Party, like the Memorandum of Understanding between the CCP and the People's Party, the ruling party in Spain. Moreover, the concerns that different governments like the United States have raised over Tibet have not prompted any response by Chinese authorities, which repeatedly claim that Tibetans enjoy more freedom than ever. Thus China enjoys great freedom to address the situation in Tibet at its convenience, despite the damages that the repression on Tibetans could cause to this ethnic group and even to the whole country. 

Hero or genocide?

A museum in Toledo still praises Spanish dictator Francisco Franco as a hero. Basque MP Jon Iñarritu, from Amaiur (a separatist party from the Basque Country) posted a picture to Twitter in which some sculptures of the dictator can be seen within the category "Spanish heros". This qualification could be "acceptable" as a personal opinion (although praising a dictator as a hero can be very criticized), but the institution which has labelled Franco in this way belongs to the Spanish Ministry of Defence. Thus the Army Museum of Toledo is fundraised with public funds. As quoted on its website, the "Spanish Army Museum is a state-owned museum dependent on the Ministry of Defence. Its main objective is to promote knowledge on Spain’s military history". It seems to be situated in the city centre, close to General Moscardó Street (Moscardó was a general of the Francoist army who became famous due to his strenght at the Alcazar or Palace of Toledo, which was besieged for days by the Republican troops at the beginning of the Civil War. The "liberation" of this symbolic space would pave the way for Franco to establish his personal leadership within the rebels against the government of the Spanish Republic). So the museum is not the only remaining of the dictatorship it that city, capital of the region of Castilla-La Mancha.
Nevertheless, it is not the first time that an individual or institution is officially praised by the Spanish government. I quoted other examples on a previous blogspot, all of them related to official statements or homages in support of the former dictatorship. Moreover, the government continues to fund a private foundation which aims to preserve and protect the memory of Franco and his dictatorship. This is the case of the Fundación Francisco Franco, a private entity which praises the figure of the former dictator and tries to preserve his legacy. In 2001, it was given €24,043.08 in order to hire personnel for the digitalization of its archive, including security copies of the documents exhibited there. Among other activities, the entity also organises several symposiums on the fight against communism and some historical features of the regime. The English version of its website is not avalaible, but anyone wanting more information can visit the Spanish one, in which the activity and aims of the foundation are explained.

However, the same government which gives financial aid to the heirs of the former dictatorship is unable to investigate and clear the dozens of extrajudiciary executions which took place since the early months of the war, neither the unlawful councils of war which would take place once the dictatorship was institutionalised. Meanwhile, thousands of people are still missing whereas the corpses of many others are languishing in mass graves all around Spain and others were illegally transferred to the mausoleum of Franco.

Should a dictator whose regime provoked dozens of deaths be praised as a hero even after his own death?

Andreu Nin, a late homage

Catalan Parliament finally decided praising the figure of Andreu Nin, a Catalan anti-stalinist intellectual and politician who was detained, tortured and finally executed with the placet of the Spanish Republican government during the Spanish Civil War. He had been one of the founders of POUM (Worker's Party for Marxist Unification) in 1935, as well as the Justice Minister of Catalan Government during the Civil War, until he was expelled from Generalitat in May 1937. A month later, he would be detained and finally murdered for daring to propose another way to conduct the Spanish civil war instead of the dependence towards the Soviet Union. In fact, even the NKVD was involved in his death.
It was the first time that all the Catalan political forces had managed to celebrate an hommage in his remembrance, almost 76 years after his death. However, his political relevance was once again a matter of controversy whilst each party praised a different trait of his career. Despite this disagreement, the reality is that he was a brave politician who dared to oppose Stalin after having worked for the Commintern, alying himself with the Trotskist Left Opposition. In addition, he would later break up with Trotsky because of the unification of Trotskist Izquierda Comunista de España and Bloc Obrer i Camperol, a Catalan communist party opposed to the Comintern. Furthermore, he always defended the right of Catalans and other peoples in Spain and Europe to freedly decide on their own future. As an intellectual, he collaborated in many newspapers, translated some classic books from Russian literature into Catalan and Spanish and wrote several essays in which he reflected his political ideas.

Nin was kidnapped on 16 June 1937 in front of the headquarters of his party at Ramblas, one of the main streets of Barcelona. After being held in Barcelona for a while, he was later transferred to a prison in Alcalá de Henares, a city situated 40km away from Madrid where several communist cadres from the PCE (Spanish Communist Party) and political commissars from the Soviet Union were trying to control the Republican Army. However, his inprisonment was totally unofficial: it is not on any record. 

He was repeatedly interrogated by the police while being held, in order to make Nin confess that POUM was involved with Falange in a conspiration against the Spanish republican government. No evidence could proof it, only a few documents which were fabricated by two Spanish policement following orders of Soviet NKVD and the Soviet consul in Barcelona. After that, several men under the command of Alexander Orlov picked him out from the prison and transferred him to a Cheka, a secret detention centre which was firstly seen in the USSR; during the Spanish Civil War, it was used by the Republican faction, mainly by communists, to detain either Francoist prisoners or political dissidents. The detention centre where Andreu Nin was confined was situated at the house of the matrimony formed by Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros, a communist aristocrat and General of the Republican air forces, and Constanza de la Mora Maura, the granddaughter of former conservative Prime Minister Antonio Maura and eventually the head of the Foreign Press Office of the Republican government. Once there, Nin was tortured and finally executed at an undetermined point in the road from Alcalá de Henares to Madrid.
However, the official version would never admit that the death of Andreu Nin was the result of a conspiration led by Soviet agents who were deployed in Spain under the treaty by which the USSR agreed to provide weapons and aircraft to the Republican Army. Instead, the government claimed that the former POUM leader escaped from the prison helped by his "contacts" within Falange and Gestapo agents hidden in the International Brigades. That is the reason why Spanish Prime Minister Juan Negrín used to say that Nin was either in Salamanca or in Berlin, helping the Nationalist faction win the war.
The documentary below investigates the conspiration that would lead to the murder of Andreu Nin. It is based in the investigations by Catalan historian Pelai Pagès, among others and broadcast by Maria Dolors Genovès (in Spanish).

Andreu Nin was a victim of the tensions within the Republican faction during the Spanish Civil war, in a conflict that has be named as a "second Civil War within the Spanish Civil War" by some historians. The opposition between two ways of making the war was effectively one of the reasons that caused the defeat of those who were fighting for their freedom and trying to prevent the imposition of a regime with close ties to Fascism and Nazism. In fact, the Republic (and also the Catalan government) were victims of the geopolitical reality of a European continent on the eve of a total war. European countries decided not to help the legitimate government whereas Germany and Italy were helping Francoist troops, lefting Republicans in the hands of Stalin. However, the non-intervention would not prevent the outbreak of the Second World War.

Given all these circumstances, the hommage to Nin becomes an act of special importance, especially when his corpse has not still been recovered. His remains are lying somewhere near the road between Alcalá de Henares and Madrid. So the time has come to rehabilitate his memory and praise him as an intellectual who fought tirelessly against fascism. 

Testimoni de Tsering Woeser

Amb el pretext d'un viatge que periodistes estrangers han de fer a Lhasa entre els dies 6 i 13 de juliol, el govern xinès ha tornat a posar l'escriptora i activista Tsering Woeser* sota arrest domiciliari, juntament amb el seu marit Wang Lixiong. Ha donat el seu testimoni sobre aquests fets en una entrada escrita al seu bloc, així com l'explicació que un amic seu ha escrit en anglès. També s'hi poden trobar unes quantes fotografies fetes per la mateixa Woeser, les quals il·lustren molt bé la situació en la qual es troba.

Heus ací el testimoni de Woeser, traduït al català:

No és agradable tornar a parlar d'arrest domiciliari.

Només perquè vosaltres [el govern xinès] voleu permetre a les autoritats que organitzin una sèrie d'entrevistes de grup amb periodistes estrangers a Lhasa (sembla el mateix espectacle de cada any), i perquè els periodistes havien començat els preparatius, incloent-hi una entrevista amb mi, ens heu posat al meu marit i a mi sota arrest domiciliari per l'"escàndol" que s'ha format (sembla que els periodistes estrangers només han de veure la imatge de tibetans feliços vivint feliçment les seves vides). És evident que les autoritats tibetanes tenen por que se sàpiga la veritat.

I aquesta és la visió general escrita en anglès per un amic de l'escriptora:

Un altre cop, com si seguissin una rutina lamentablement regular, Tsering Woeser i Wang Lixiong han tornat a ser posats sota arrest domiciliari.

Aquesta vegada ho han fet per esbiaixar les informacions que sorgiran arran d'un viatge a Lhasa que ha estat organitzat per als periodistes estrangers a la Xina.

Woeser ja s'ha reunit amb alguns dels periodistes i les autoritats semblen amoïnades perquè les seves opinions puguin contradir la imatge de color de rosa que volen presentar mitjançant un itinerari aprovat i els encontres pactats per projectar una imatge de tibetans feliços vivint feliçment les seves vides. 

Està previst que el grup viatgi a Lhasa el 6 de juliol i que romangui al Tibet fins al dia 13. També està previst un viatge per a diplomàtics estrangers, possiblement a finals de juny.

Woeser ha tuitejat que, aquesta vegada, els passos de les autoritats han estat més ostentosos que mai.

En la tarda del 19 de juny, set o vuit policies i membres del personal de Seguretat de l'Estat els van envoltar.

Els van agafar al carrer Cuwei del districte Haidan i van ser portats fins a casa seva a Tongzhou, a l'est del Gran Pequín.

La policia els va portar en el seu propi cotxe, mentre un vehicle del personal de Seguretat de l'Estat els seguia.

No se'ls va permetre de fer cap aturada, ni tan sols per aconseguir alguna cosa per menjar. Després, policies vestits de paisà es van col·locar al voltant de l'edifici, mentre dos més vigilaven permanentment l'ascensor. 

De moment sembla que l'arrest durarà fins el 25 de juny, potser més.

Malgrat els sentiments optimistes que el canvi de lideratge a la Xina ha suscitat a Dharamsala [la seu del govern tibetà a l'exili], sembla que el govern sembla tan determinat com abans a sufocar qualsevol informació sobre el Tibet que vagi en contra del missatge que el govern intenta transmetre'n al respecte.

Tsering Woeser representa una de les escasses veus dissidents sobre el Tibet que roman accessible, i les autoritats la volen fer inaccessible.

*Tsering Woeser (Lhasa, 1966) és una escriptora, poetessa i activista tibetana. Mentre treballava per a una publicació patrocinada pel Partit Comunista Xinès va publicar una sèrie d'escrits per denunciar la situació que travessa el Tibet, per la qual cosa va ser acomiadada. Actualment viu a Pequín amb el seu marit Wang Lixiong, i és freqüentment posada sota arrest domiciliari.