Democracy and Dirty Wars in Spain

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Democracy and Dirty Wars in Spain

Author(s): Omar G. EncarnacinSource: Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Nov., 2007), pp. 950-972Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20072832.

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HUMAN RIGHTSQUARTERLY

Democracy and Dirty Wars in Spain

Omar G. Encarnaci?n*

ABSTRACTThis essay examines the rise of government-sponsored anti-terrorist deathsquads in Spain that accompanied the return to power of the Left sincethe interwar Second Republic. It locates the roots of this disturbing andpuzzling development in the institutional culture of the military inheritedfrom the Franco regime as shaped by its history of counter-terrorism policies. This argument challenges widespread assumptions about a clean breakin authoritarian practices in Spain following the democratic transition of1977. Italso calls into question the claim that civilian supremacy over the

military was established in Spain by the time democracy was deemed tohave reached consolidation'' in 1982. The conclusion culls the lessons ofthe Spanish experience of battling terrorism with terror for the comparativestudy of democratization. Itsuggests that dirty wars intended to eradicateterrorist organizations can erode the legitimacy of a nascent democracyand, paradoxically, prolong the fight against terrorism.

I. INTRODUCTIONUndoubtedly, the biggest stain in Spain's otherwise stellar democratic performance in the post-Franco era is the dirty war waged against the separatistorganization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, (ETA), (Basque Country and Liberty).

* Omar G. Encarnaci?n is Associate Professor of Politics at Bard College. He is the author ofThe Myth of Civil Society (2003) and Spanish Politics: Democracy after Dictatorship (forthcoming) and numerous essays on the causes and consequences of democratic transitions.An earlier version of this essay was presented at a panel on Democratization and PoliticalViolence organized for the 2006 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The author gratefully acknowledges the comments on this essay made by the panel'sdiscussants, Larry Diamond and Nancy Bermeo. Research in Spain was facilitated by a grantfrom the Bard Research Council.

Human Rights Quarterly 29 (2007) 950-972 ? 2007 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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2007 Democracy and Dirty Wars in Spain 951

Since the return of democracy in 1977, ETA's terrorist campaign on behalfof Basque independence made Spain the epicenter of domestic terrorism inWestern Europe.1 As a counter-terrorism strategy, between 1983 and 1987,a government-sponsored paramilitary force, the Grupos Anti-terroristas deLiberaci?n (GAL), (Anti-terrorist Liberalization Groups), battled ETA usingETA's own tactics: assassinations, kidnapings, and bombings. The GAL's aimwas the complete eradication of ETA by eliminating its leadership. To thatend, the GAL unleashed a wave of indiscriminate violence on both sidesof the Spanish-French border, which resulted in the deaths of numerous innocent civilians. A full third of those killed by the GAL had no connectionto terrorism whatsoever. Not surprisingly, once exposed by the media duringthe late 1990s, the GAL's existence created the most sensational politicalscandal in recent Spanish history. Among the scandal's consequences wasaccelerating the end of the fourteen-year reign of Felipe Gonz?lez, whoseadministration is generally credited with modernizing Spanish political andeconomic institutions.

At the center of this analysis is unpacking the puzzle of why one of theworld's most celebrated new democracies adopted a dirty war as the cornerstone of its counter-terrorism policy. This question is even more compellingconsidering that when the GAL was born and executing itsmurderous agenda,Spain was ruled by the left-wing party Partido Socialista Obrero Espa?ol(PSOE), (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party). Championing human rights and

advocating self-governance for Spain's ethnic minorities are signature issuesfor the PSOE. Moreover, many of the party's leaders themselves were victimsof Franco's repression. Inexploring the rise of the GAL and its campaign ofextra-judicial killings in Spain, this study hopes to help fill one of the mostobvious lacunae in the comparative literature on democratization. Why arenewly democratic states, even the most successful ones like Spain, susceptible to waging dirty wars? How effective are dirty wars as a state weaponagainst terrorism? Finally, what effect do dirty wars have upon the processesof democratic transition and consolidation?

Strangely enough, scholarly attention to Spain's dirty war has beenscant.2 This may well be the result of how ill fitting the disturbing story ofthe GAL iswithin the prevailing narratives of Spain's Cinderella-like transformation from a paradigm of authoritarian rule under Franco to a model

1. According to the Spanish Ministry of Justice, as of 2004, ETA is responsible for 3,391terrorist acts, resulting in the killing of 836 people and injuring 2,367, of whom 1,294were renderedphysically incapacitated. Since 2004, ETA's

mostsignificant act of terrorism is the 30 December 2006 bombing of a parking lot at Madrid's Barajas airportthat killed two Ecuadorian immigrants.2. The only extensive analysis of the origins of the GAL isby the journalist PaddyWoodworth,Dirty War, Clean Hands: ETA, the GAL and Spanish Democracy (2003). For a summary ofthe book see his essay Paddy Woodworth, Using Terror against Terrorists: The Spanish

Experience, in The Politics of Contemporary Spain 61 (Sebastian Balfour ed., 2005).



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952 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 29

new democracy. The broad consensus on Spain is that itsdemocracy is fullyconsolidated, and that this notoriously difficult political undertaking wascompleted inSpain inalmost record speed. The 1982 general elections, stageda mere four years after the enactment of a new democratic constitution, are

widely regarded as the precise juncture inwhich democratic institutions andpractices became firmly rooted in Spain.3 Journalistic accounts, however,provide a straightforward and compelling explanation for the emergenceof the GAL: the desire of the incoming socialist administration to shed itsreputation as soft on terror, and the need to demonstrate to the military andthe right-wing opposition that the PSOE possessed the will and know-howto battle ETA. Doubts about the capacity of the PSOE to deal with terrorismfeatured prominently during the 1982 electoral contest and dominated thefirst years of the socialist administration.This analysis offers an alternative explanation, one that finds its inspiration in the theoretical notion that the institutional-historical legacies of thestate are critical to understanding the nature of its actions.4 In particular,this analysis makes the case for the rise of the GAL as the product of theinstitutional culture of the Spanish military inherited from the Franco regimeand shaped largely by its history of counter-terrorism practices. Extra-judi

cial activities have a long and prominent history in the state's dealing withETA, running seamlessly from the first attempt to eradicate the organizationfollowing its embrace of armed struggle in 1968 through the dismantling ofthe GAL in 1987. The survival of these strategies during this period comfortably spans the years of democratic transition and consolidation. Thus,the emergence of government-sponsored death squads after 1983 is bestunderstood as a continuation rather than a departure of the state's counterterrorism strategies.

By making the military and its institutional culture the root cause behindthe rise of the GAL, this study poses a powerful challenge to a principalconventional wisdom in the study of Spanish democratization: that Spainsecured effective and unambiguous civilian control over the military almost simultaneously with the end of the Franco regime and the advent ofdemocracy. This point is one of the pillars upon which many scholars havemade the case for the breathtaking speed at which Spanish democracy isthought to have consolidated. However, the rise of the GAL during themid-1980s suggests a higher degree of military autonomy and influence

3. Among the studies that pointto the 1982 elections as the

definingmoment in the con

solidation of Spanish democracy are Juan J. Linz & Alfred L. Stepan, Problems of DemocraticTransition and Consolidation (1996); Richard G?nther, Jos? Ram?n Montero & Joan Botella,Democracy inModern Spain (2004).4. 5ee Kathleen Thelen & Sven Steinmo, Historical Institutionalism inComparative Politics,in Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism inComparative Analysis (Kathleen Thelen,Sven Steinmo, & Frank Longstrech eds., 1992).



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over policymaking (counter-terrorism policy in particular) than previouslyrecognized. This autonomy was protected by the nation's pacted democratic transition, which did not entail any bureaucratic or military purges.Itwas also enhanced by the behavior of post-transition leaders, who eitherfreely deferred to the military on how best to handle ETA or were unwilling to confront the military on this very sensitive issue. In either case, thebehavior of civilian politicians allowed military approaches for confrontingterrorism developed under Franco to be transported into the democratic

period virtually unchanged. In some cases, this also enabled military leadersto circumvent institutions and procedures established by the governmentto

reign in on the military's influence.

II. THERISEOF THEGALThe GAL was born in 1983, one year after the PSOE's historic electoralvictory. Not only did the party obtain an absolute majority of seats in thenational parliament (the first government since 1977 to achieve this feat), the1982 landslide represented the return of the Left to power in Spain since thedays of the brief and chaotic Second Republic (1931 to 1936). Among theprincipal problems confronting the new PSOE administration was terrorism,which intensified with the opening of the political system and the advent ofdemocracy. ETA-related deaths rose from forty-three in 1975, the year Francodied, to seventy-eight in 1978, the year the new democratic constitutionwas enacted, to 118 in 1980 (a record for a single year to date), the year ofthe first regional elections.5 Officially, the PSOE's main strategy for battlingthis tidal wave of terrorism was to strengthen the anti-terrorist laws passedby the previous government, which, as seen later, were anchored upon avery expansive definition of terrorism. This occasioned a swelling in thepopulation of those arrested on charges of terrorism. In 1985, for instance,the Spanish police arrested 940 Basques for political reasons, pushing thenumber of Basques sentenced to prison in Spanish jails from ninety-seveninDecember 1978 to 484 by March 1988.6The extra-judicial aspects of the PSOE's counter-terrorism policy, includingmost notably its sponsorship of the GAL, however, have drawn the mostattention. Although the investigations convened in the late 1990s absolvedPrime Minister Felipe Gonz?lez of any wrongdoing, they established clearlinks between his administration and the GAL. The investigations resulted

5. Jos? M. Maravall & Juli?n Santamar?a, Crisis del franquismo: transici?n pol?tica y consolidaci?n de la democracia en Espa?a, 68-69 Sistema 79, 105 (1985).6. Robert P. Clark, Negotiating with ETA:Obstacles to Peace inthe Basque Country, 1975-1988,at 46-65 (1990).



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in the sentencing in 1995 of Enrique Rodriguez Galindo, an officer of theGuardia Civil (National Police Corps), and Julen Elgorriaga, a top PSOE official, on charges of kidnaping and murder. Three years later, in 1998, twoof Gonzalez's ministers, Jos? Barrionuevo, the secretary of state for security,and Rafael Vera, minister of the interior, and Juli?n Sancristobal, the civilgovernor of the province of Viscaya, were found guilty by the Spanish Supreme Court of participating in another GAL kidnaping.The trials of socialist officials destroyed the story (which those involvedin the creation of the GAL had promulgated) that the GAL was comprisedof mercenaries hired by the Basque business community in retaliation forhaving to pay the so-called revolutionary tax. Since its inception, ETA hasrelied upon extortion schemes perpetrated upon Spanish and especiallyBasque businesses to underwrite its activities. The investigations also revealedthat the GAL was active between 1983 and 1987, a period that roughlycoincides with the PSOE's first term in office. They further revealed that theGAL's operations brought together multiple violent right-wing groups suchas Anti-terrorismo ETA, Grupos Armados Espa?oles and Alianza Apost?licaAnticomunista.

France's Basque provinces were the main theater of operations for theGAL, a reflection of a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, the GALaimed to decapitate ETAwhere many of its leaders resided. By the late 1960sFrance had become a terrorist heaven for ETA given the unwillingness ofFrench authorities to extradite anyone suspected of terrorism to Spain for fearof instigating a backlash from ETA and inciting Basque nationalist flames inFrance's own Basque provinces. On the other hand, bringing the fight againstETA into France was meant to force the French government into greatercooperation with the Spanish government in solving the Basque conflict.Over the course of its life, the GAL was responsible for twenty-sevenassassinations and three times as many injuries. Roughly a third of thosekilled (nine) and an even higher proportion of those injured had no connection to ETA at all.7 The GAL's first operation took place in Bayonne in

October 1983 with the kidnaping of two ETA members, Joxean Lasa andJoxe Zabala. They were transferred to Spain, where members of the GuardiaCivil tortured them for several weeks, before they were shot in the back andburied in quicklime in the resort city of Alicante. Subsequent attacks bythe GAL tellingly mirror ETA's own terrorist activities and included placingbombs in commercial establishments used by ETAmembers. This accountsfor why so many civilians got caught in the crossfire. In one incident theGAL bombed a bar frequented by ETA members

eventhough at the timeof the bombing the killers could see children playing inside. Two little girls

7. Paddy Woodworth, Using Terror against Terrorists, in The Politics of Contemporary Spain,supra note 2, at 63.



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were seriously wounded in the attack after the GAL killers sprayed the barwith bullets.8The GAL's two-pronged strategy met with almost immediate success,which explains why the organization began to curb itsmurderous campaign

by 1987. By then the French government had become a reliable partner of theSpanish government in its fight against ETA. In 1984, the French governmentdeported twenty-three ETAmembers and extradited three directly to Spain.Cross-national cooperation further intensified after Jacques Chirac becamePrime Minister in 1986, partly from pressure from the French public coming from the unprecedented climate of violence created by the GAL withinFrance's Basque provinces. In this sense, the GAL's indiscriminate use ofviolence proved to be the most important stimulus for French cooperationwith the Spanish government. As noted by the Irish Times journalist Paddy

Woodworth, 'The threat to French citizens was indeed much more persuasiveto the French government, and especially to French public opinion, than thekilling of ETA refugees. The price of being the land of asylum simply becametoo high, even for those French Basques who regarded the ETA diasporawith some benevolence. 9

In this context of a languishing leadership and increasing Franco-Spanish cooperation, ETA entered into negotiations with the Spanish governmentinAugust 1987. Inmeetings held inAlgeria, representatives of the Spanish

government and ETA met to discuss the possibility of negotiations, which isall the meetings actually accomplished. ETAwanted negotiations directly withthe government rather than with police representatives and demanded thatnegotiations include the incorporation of the province of Navarra into theBasque Country and an acknowledgment of the right to self-determination bythe Basque people. The Spanish government, which was principally interestedinmatters of public order and security, regarded most of ETA's agenda asmatters to be negotiated between the central state and the Basque regionalgovernment, not ETA. For its part, the Spanish government demanded thatETA halt all violence against the government before entering into negotiations. This made negotiations basically a non-starter for ETA since violencewas the organization's only currency for forcing the government to come tothe negotiating table in the first place.

Why did the PSOE embrace a strategy of using terror to fight terrorism?As noted previously, the PSOE came into office determined to erase theimpression within the military and the right-wing opposition that itwas softon terrorism. Compelling reasons rest behind this widespread impression.The PSOE had a long history of supporting regional rights in Spain, something that afforded the military the impression that the party would be lax

8. Id. at 70-71.9 Id. at 72.



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in dealings with Basque nationalists. As one of the leading parties frontingthe inter-war Second Republic the PSOE supported sweeping autonomyrights for Catalonia and the Basque Country. The goal was the eventual federalization of Spain, something the Right and the military have historicallyopposed. In the democratic period began in 1977, the PSOE was quick torestore its reputation as a defender of regional rights. The party's leadersfrequently attacked the first democratic administration of the post-Francoera headed by Prime Minister Adolfo Su?rez for being a rigid defender ofSpanish centralism. 10 On the whole this attack was unfair because Su?rezand his Uni?n de Centro Democr?tico (UCD), (Democratic Center Union)party were the architects of the constitutional compromise that eventuallyled to the partition of Spain into seventeen self-governing regions.More important, as the leading opposition party at the inception of democracy, the PSOE, alongside other parties from the Left, harshly criticizedthe Su?rez administration for its heavy-handedness in handling ETA. Thisclaim had more merit. After Franco's death in November 1975, the lead

ing political parties from both the Left and Right were united in petitioningKing Juan Carlos, anointed by Franco as his successor, to grant pardonto all Basques imprisoned for political crimes committed under the oldregime. Between November 1975 and March 1976, the King issued threeamnesty decrees that virtually emptied Spanish jails of political prisoners.The government also provided programs for the r?int?gration into societyfor ETAmembers ready to renounce their association with the organization'sterrorist activities. These early overtures of reconciliation from the govern

ment, however, failed to appease ETA. Instead, Spain experienced a spikein terrorist activity as the democratic elections of 1977, the country's firstsince 1936, were approaching.In the face of relentless provocations from ETA, the Su?rez administrationintroduced the first anti-terrorist legislation of the democratic period. Lawspassed after 1978 expanded the powers of the Guardia Civil to detain andarrest anyone suspected of involvement with terrorism, even ifperipherally.This was made possible by the adoption of the very expansive and highlyambiguous definition of terrorism articulated in the 1981 Law for the Defense of the Constitution. Itdefined terrorism not only as embracing anyattack on the integrity of the Spanish nation but also as any effort to secureindependence of any part of its territory, even if non violent. 11 This law ledto the arrest and eventual conviction of virtually the entire leadership of

Herri Batasuna (HB), (Popular Unity party), generally regarded to be ETA'spolitical wing, thereby accelerating

the radicalization of the organizationby hardening its political stances.

10. Richard G?nther, The Spanish Socialist Party: From Clandestine Opposition to Party ofGovernment, /hThe Politics of Democratic Spain 8, 42 (Stanley G. Payne ed., 1986).

11. Clark, supra note 6, at 39-47.



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The second assumption about ETA terrorism was also rapidly shattered:that the advent of a socialist administration in Spain would make France'sown socialist government more willing to help Spain in its struggle againstETA. Paris seemed unmoved by the plight of its sister socialist administration inMadrid. French Prime Minister Fran?ois Mitterand refused to takeseriously the Gonz?lez administration's repeated extradition requests. TheFrench government also strenuously denied that France had become a refugefor ETA even though itwas widely known to the police of both countriesthat senior ETAmembers moved freely in the streets of Bayonne and otherFrench towns along the Franco-Spanish border.

III. STATEMILITARYCULTUREAND PRACTICESA serious problem with the explanations offered above for the rise of theGAL is that they neglect to consider the prominent role that the militaryplayed in shaping anti-terrorism policy in Spain after the formal dismantling of the Franco regime. Battling terrorism was firmly in the hands of the

military during the late Franco period, and this remained the case well pastthe democratic transition marked by the 1977 elections. Indeed, itappearsthat as the military gradually surrendered control over other aspects of thestate's policymaking sphere (first over the economy in the late 1960s andlater over the reform of Francoist institutions in the mid-1970s), it tightenedits grip over counter-terrorism policy.Under the Franco regime, the military was socialized into the idea ofa culturally homogenous and indivisible Spain and was tasked with theresponsibility of dealing with any internal threat to that view of the nation.This was a counter reaction to a process of devolution of powers from thecentral state to the regions beginning with Catalonia, the Basque Countryand Galicia that took place during the Republican period.16 Enforcing thestate's agenda of cultural homogeneity made the Basque Country, historically a fiercely independent region, one of the principal targets of Francoistrepression.In Franco's Spain, Basque nationalism in almost every imaginablemanifestation was severely repressed. State policy prohibited the publicuse of Euskera, the Basque Country's ancient language and its chief claimto constituting a separate nation from the rest of Spain, even though only

16. Only inCatalonia was regional autonomy fully realized. The Basque statute of autonomywas passed at the height of the Spanish Civil War in 1937 when the region was halfoccupied by Franco's nationalist army. The Galicians had voted on their autonomy referendum before the Basques in 1936, but they were less successful in advancing theirautonomy project since the region was under Francoist control from the onset of thewar.



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a small minority of Basques can actually speak it.The Franco regime alsoinstituted a ban on the public display of the Basque flag as well as the veryintrusive and seemingly perplexing policy of forbidding parents from givingtheir children Basque names. These policies resulted in thousands of ordinaryBasques being arrested, tortured or forced into exile by the Franco regimeduring the years leading to the democratic transition.17They also insured thatthe conflict in the Basque Country would become Franco's most complexlegacy for the new democracy.The attempt to eradicate every vestige of the uniqueness of Basqueculture had the predictable effect of radicalizing many sectors of Basquesociety, eventually giving rise to extreme nationalist organizations.18 Notable

among them was ETA,which was created in 1959 by young middle classuniversity students in reaction to the passivity toward the Franco regime ofthe Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV), (Basque Nationalist Party), the historicadvocate of Basque nationalism.19 Until ETA'sembrace of armed struggle in1968, with an attack on a train full of soldiers and civil war veterans, the

organization's violence had been limited to acts of vandalism such as blowing up monuments and setting up bombs in front of Guardia Civil stations.

By 1968, however, what had been a conservative, confessional, nationalistmovement was joined by a radical, leftist, revolutionary organization. 20After 1968, the military spared no effort in attempting to repress theonset of ETA terrorism. So pronounced was the militarization of the Basque

17. As would be expected, the repression of Basque culture under Franco is a central explanation behind the persistence of the conflict in the Basque Country. Ithas given riseto ETA's claim that the presence of the Spanish state in the Basque Country amountsto cultural genocide. Under this calculus, the democratic nature of the state in Spainis irrelevant, as is the strong recognition of minority cultures guaranteed by the 1978democratic constitution, because only complete independence can guarantee the survivalof Basque culture. These claims are obviously exaggerated as the central governmentno longer imposes a national policy of cultural homogeneity. Since the transition to democracy, Basque culture is recognized as unique within the Iberian context and Euskerais taught in schools and widely used in the affairs of the Basque regional government.18. Another sector of Basque society radicalized by Franco's repression was the BasqueCatholic Church. The large-scale violations of human rights by the Franco regime inthe Basque Country prompted many Basque priests to openly disobey the government. Many began to conduct mass in the local language, directly violating the Francoregime's official linguistic policy of one nation, one language. In 1960, 350 priests inthe Basque country wrote a letter to their local Bishop protesting the Franco regime'spolicies in the region. It led to the trial of several Basque priests inMadrid on chargesof insubordination to state policy.19. At the heart of ETA's struggle is the creation of an independent, socialist state incorporating the Spanish provinces of Vizcaya, Avala, Guip?zcoa

and Navarra. The most extremeBasque nationalists also seek to incorporate the French provinces of Labourd, BasseNavarre and Soule in their plan for the creation of an all-Basque nation. For more onETA's origins see Jos?Mar?a Garmendia, Historia de ETA (1979). On the evolution of ETA'sseparatist struggle see Robert P. Clark, The Basques: The Franco Years and Beyond (1979);Robert P. Clark, The Basque Insurgents (1984).20. G?nther, Montero & Botella, supra note 3, at 76.



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Country after 1968, that the region gained the appearance of being an occupied territory, much in contrast to the rest of Spain where a relatively openpolitical environment prevailed. This had the unintended consequence ofmaking real the stated claim in the late-1800s by Sabino Arana, the foundingfather of Basque nationalism, that the Basque Country was a nation militar

ily occupied by Spain. Underscoring the occupation were anti-terrorismlaws that applied exclusively to the Basque provinces and that producedsome of the most emblematic episodes of political repression of the lateFranco era. In the 1970 Burgos trial, sixteen ETA members, including twowomen and two Basque priests, were collectively court-martialed and nineof them were sentenced to death. International pressure spared them theirlives. In 1975, despite pleas from the Vatican and the United Nations, theFranco regime executed two ETA members and three Communist leaders.No fewer than thirteen countries withdrew their ambassadors from Madridin protest for the killings.

Barely noticed by the outside world was the extra-judicial violence employed by the state against ETA.The words of Manuel Fraga, Franco's formerMinister of Communication and Tourism, and long-time President of theregional government of Galicia in the post-transition period, aptly capturethe extra-judicial side of the Franco regime's counter-terrorism approach:The key to defeating terrorism is for the state to kill more terrorists thanthe terrorists kill civil guards. 21 Central to this mission was the employmentof state-sponsored paramilitary death squads with the intention of huntingdown and killing ETA leaders. This suggests the unlikelihood that the PSOEwould have embraced the strategy of violence against ETAwere it not forthe existence of such proclivities within the military. Surely, this contentionis not intended to absolve the PSOE of culpability for its involvement inthe GAL. As seen already, the investigations into the operations of the GALclearly established a link between the death squads and the PSOE. Rather,it is intended to suggest that there was an established pattern within themilitary of extra-judicial activity in its fight against ETA that ran virtuallyuninterrupted up until the coming of the Socialist administration.Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, Franco's alter ego and apparent politicalheir, whose spectacular assassination by ETA in 1973 remains to date theorganization's boldest act of terrorism, is the GAL's intellectual father. Following ETA's first terrorist act in 1968, Carrero Blanco began to devise a planto eradicate ETA. For Carrero Blanco, not even the formidable repressive

machinery available to him under Francoist legality could stem the risingtide of militant democratic opposition. 22 Only a specialized anti-terrorist

21. Arcadi Espada, Aquel a?o de un muerto cada 60 horas, El Pa?s Digital, 27 August 2000.Available at www.udel.edu/leipzig/270500/elb270800.htm.22. Woodworth, Using Terror against Terrorists, supra note 2, at 67.



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force that would fight the terrorists with their own tactics could defeat theterrorists. Carrero Blanco did not have to look far to staff this new militaryforce, given that the Franco regime had already created a very auspiciousenvironment for the flourishing of a broad assortment of mercenary, right

wing groups in Spain. The job of these seasoned paramilitary groups washunting and killing the insurgencies that erupted in Franco's Spain duringthe 1940s and 1950s. Their first target was the huidos, the Republicans thatchose to take to the hills rather than surrender to Franco. Subsequently,they targeted the maquis, the Spanish exiles who played a prominent rolein the French Resistance to Fascism and began to enter Spain in the hopesof toppling Franco after the end ofWorld War II.23Carrero Blanco's plan for a dirty war against ETA was interrupted byhis assassination in 1973, though his lieutenants gradually brought it tofruition. 24 In 1975, military officers formed the little-known Batall?n VascoEspa?ol (BVE), (Basque-Spanish Battalion) to target ETA. Inevery sense, theBVE was the prototype for the GAL. Indeed, the GAL is best regarded asa carbon copy of the BVE. Despite itsmisleading name, the BVE operatedmainly in France. Like the GAL, the BVE was also staffed by mercenariesand coordinated by units of the Spanish military. Virtually the same constellation of radical right-wing groups that originated the BVE would go onto form the core of the GAL, including the Anti-terrorismo ETA, GruposArmados Espa?oles, Alianza Apost?lica Anticomunista, and the Guerrillerosde Cristo-Rey. Not surprisingly, it has been widely reported in the Spanishmedia that some individuals went directly from the BVE to the GAL. Finally,like the GAL, indiscriminate violence was a hallmark of the BVE. Between1975 and 1981, the BVE engaged in anti-terrorist activities that resulted inthe killing of five ETAmembers and injured over two-dozen others withoutany connection to terrorism. The most infamous attack of the BVE left threegypsies dead, including a pregnant woman whose dead fetus made for agruesome cover page inmany of the nation's newspapers.25

Perhaps not by accident, the creation of the BVE in 1975 coincided withthe beginning of the transition to democracy because the military probablyreasoned that battling ETA under democracy would be a lot more difficultthan under the Franco regime. Franco passed away that same year, whichprovided the opportunity for the King to appoint Su?rez to orchestrate a regimetransition to democracy anchored upon reform rather than rupture with theold regime. His expert management of the transition to democracy got him

23. On Franco's repression of the huidos and the maquis see Paul Preston, The Urban andRural Guerrilla of the 1940s, in Spanish Cultural Studies 229(Helen Graham & Jo Labanyieds., 1995).24. Woodworth, Using Terror against Terrorists, supra note 2, at 67.25. Espada, supra note 21.



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elected in 1977 to head the first democratic government of the post-Francoera. Little is known for sure about Su?rez's involvement with the BVE, but itisgenerally thought that his administration deferred to the military on mattersof national security, including counter-terrorism. This explains why the 1976Law of Political Reform, which legalized political parties in Spain and put the

process of democratization into motion, excluded the Spanish CommunistParty (PCE),which like ETA, had been singled out by the Franco regime as anenemy of the state. Until the early 1970s, the leadership of the PCE advocatedthe overthrow of the Franco regime by means of a popular revolution.Civilian deference toward the military is also an important factor in understanding the rise of the so-called Pacto del Olvido (Pact of Forgetting), theeuphemistic term for the agreement to grant immunity to the military overhuman rights violations committed under Franco. This was no small dealconsidering that the Franco regime is directly responsible for the deaths ofsome 200,000 Spaniards by execution, disease, and hunger in prisons between 1939 and 1943.26 The pact of forgetting has, until recently, effectivelyprevented any meaningful discussion of the past in Spain. This is quite incontrast to the experience of other new democracies in Latin America andEastern and Central Europe where truth commissions and military trials havebeen organized to account for the crimes of the old regime.27To be sure, civilian politicians did not always obey the military's commands. In 1977, Su?rez legalized the PCE against virulent opposition fromthe military. That same year he merged three military ministries under acivilian-led Ministry of Defense. Su?rez also infuriated the military whenhe brought eleven intelligence services under one single agency, the CentroSuperior de Informaci?n de la Defensa (CESID), to centralise the intelligenceflow of information and to work closely with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 28An organic law approved on 1 July 1980 redefined the jurisdiction andresponsibilities of the leading civil and military authorities that emphasizedcivilian supremacy over the military.These reforms, however, did not bring about effective civilian controlover the military as suggested most vividly by the Tejerazo, the failed

military coup of 23 February 1981. This came on the heels of the adventof regional self-governance in Catalonia and the Basque Country, which

26. This figure of Franco's victims comes from Gabriel Jackson, The Spanish Republic and theCivil War, 1931-1939, at 539 (1965).27. See, e.g., Madeleine Davis, Is Spain Recovering itsMemory? Breaking the Pacto del

Silencio, 27 Hum. Rts. Q. 858 (2005).28. Jorge Zaverucha, The Degree of Military Political Autonomy during the Spanish, Argentine and Brazilian Transitions, 25 J. Latin Am. Stud. 283 at 286 (1993). We can concludethat Su?rez paid dearly for his affronts to the military. His sudden resignation in 1981 isrumored to have been engineered by the military over his political decisions, includingthe legalization of the Communist party in 1977 and the granting of limited self-governance to the Basques and the Catalans in 1981.



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the military regarded as synonymous with the dismemberment of the nation. Claiming to be acting on behalf of the King, paramilitary groups ledby General Antonio Tejero held the Spanish parliament hostage. The coupserved as a waking call to the civilian elite of the continuing threat that themilitary posed to the new democracy. Paradoxically, this realization did notembolden the civilians into assuming a more assertive stance toward themilitary; quite the contrary. As reported by Stanley Payne, during the twentymonths that followed the coup Spain was said to live under a democraciavigilada (guarded or conditional democracy) that required the governmentto negotiate each new step in policy or major personnel change with thesenior commanders. 29

The Socialist administration inaugurated in 1982 did not break any newground on civil-military relations. As reported by Payne, there was no verydistinct 'Socialist policy' vis-a-vis the armed forces as distinct from that ofthe UCD. 30 This explains much about the seemingly seamless transfer ofmilitary autonomy over the issue of counter terrorism policy and despite thereforms put in place by the Su?rez government. Ironically, some of thesevery reforms were subverted by the military in the creation of the GAL. Itsfounding can be traced to the CESID, which, as noted previously, Su?rezhad created to centralize the gathering of intelligence information and reportto the government. However, by 1982, the agency had deviated from itsoriginal purposes, and started to report to the armed forces rather than thegovernment. 31A new purpose for the CESID was plotting a new dirty war againstETA. Indeed, this intelligence office became the unintended brainchildof the GAL. According toWoodworth, by the early 1980s, the pros andcons of launching a new dirty war were indeed being seriously analysedat the highest level by Spanish military intelligence. 32 Woodworth alsoreports of intense lobbying by military officers inclined to launch an attackby paramilitary forces on ETA. He quotes security officials as having said:Give us the money and cover, and we will clean things up for you. Ifyougive us a free hand, we will finish off ETA in a very short space of time.Also revealed is the knowledge by the military that a socialist governmentprovided the best cover for their clandestine operations. We want to do itwith the security of knowing that we have the political support of a left-wingand democratic party. 33

29. Stanley G. Payne, Modernization of the Armed Forces, /7?The Politics of Democratic Spain,supra note 10, at 181, 184.30. Id. at 185.

31. Zaverucha, supra note 28, at 286.32. Paddy Woodworth, The War against Terrorism: the Spanish Experience from ETA to alQaeda, 17 Int'l J. Iberian Stud. 172 (2004).33. Woodworth, Using Terror against Terrorists, supra note 2, at 70.



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Reporting by the conservative newspaper ElMundo (which is creditedwith breaking the story of the GAL), details the heavy involvement of theCESID in the development of the GAL. The paper reports the agency's kidnaping of beggars and drug addicted teens for the purpose of using themas guinea pigs in anticipation of the kidnaping and torturing of Basque terrorists.34 The CESID's authorship of the GAL was broadly corroborated bythe investigations of the late 1990s headed by Judge Baltazar Garz?n, betterknown to the world for having issued the indictment that led to the arrestof Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet. A CESID document leaked to theSpanish media considered the Founding Document of the GAL underscoresthe leading role played by the Spanish military intelligence in creating theGAL and enticing the PSOE into embracing the use of extra-judicial killingsin its struggle against ETA. Itcontains the very revealing statement that: Weconsider the most advisable form of action to be the use of disappearancesthrough kidnaping. 35

By refusing to reign in on the military's plans (and in fact agreeing tothem) the PSOE became an accomplice in the dirty war against ETA. To itscredit, and perhaps mindful of how dangerous to democracy the CESID hadbecome, in 1984 the Gonz?lez administration began to chip away at theautonomy and influence of the agency. That same year, the CESID becameorganically dependent upon the Defence Minister, but functionally subordinated to the Prime Minister. 36 Moreover, the government establishedparliamentary oversight over the agency. These measures were intended toend the [?Indiscriminate use of the intelligence service apparatus to regulateinternal affairs, and to uproot the Francoist mentality concerning vigilanceagainst the internal enemy. 37

IV.COMPARATIVE NALYSIS:REGIMECHANGEAND MILITARYAUTONOMY

This analysis yields important lessons for students of Spanish politics. At thebroadest level, itexposes the myth that permeates so much of the literatureon Spain's democratization that the end of the Franco regime in 1977 meanta clean break with the authoritarian past. 38 Ironically, this assertion is

34. Spain's state-sponsored death squads, El Mundo, 29 July 1998, available at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/141720.stm.35. Los papeles del CESID, ElMundo, available at www.elmundo.es/nacional/gal/investigacion/6.html.36. Zaverucha, supra note 28, at 287.37. Id.

38. Felipe Ag?ero, Democratic Consolidation and the Military in Southern Europe andSouth America, in The Politics of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe inComparativePerspective 124, 128 (Richard G?nther, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros & Hans-Jurgen Puhleeds., 1995).



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encountered most frequently in connection with the study of civil-militaryrelations, which presumes that the establishment of civilian control overthe military was attained simultaneously with the completion of the transition to democracy. The most authoritative study of civil-military relationsin Spain by Felipe Ag?ero concludes that Franco's authoritarian regimewas clearly civilianized 39 and that during the democratic transition the

military remained within well-bounded spheres of competence and did notinterfere with political decisions by civilian officials. 40 Similar claims areechoed in other assessments of civil-military relations in Spain. One fromthe mid-1990s from Jorge Zaverucha concludes that: The constituted civilhierarchy has been institutionalised . . . civilian control over the militaryhas emerged. Spain's newly founded democracy now appears quite similarto the older European democracies. 41If not wrong, these assertions about the role of the military in Spain'snew democracy were at the very least premature at the time when theywere issued.42 The GAL affair clearly suggests that extra-judicial strategiesfor fighting terrorism developed under the Franco regime managed to surviveand even thrive under two democratic administrations. They also suggest amore significant level of military autonomy and influence over public policythan previously acknowledged. These findings, which were vividly brought tolight by the investigations into the operations of the GAL of the mid-1990s,

prompt the questions of how scholars misread the state of civilian-militaryrelations in Spain following the demise of the Franco regime, and why theywere willing to declare Spain a paradigmatic example of civilian supremacyover the military. 43 We can point to at least two assumptions that in hindsightnow appear seriously flawed.The first assumption is that during the late Franco period the military hadbeen effectively removed from the day-to-day operations of the government.The rise of groups like Opus Dei accelerated the de-militarization of theFranco regime, which in turn led to an overall neglect of military institutions.As contended by Payne, one of the ironies of the Franco regime, generallycharacterized as a military dictatorship, is that it left a weak and backward set of military institutions. By 1970, the military's budget amounted

39. Id. at 140.40. Id. at 125.41. Zaverucha, supra note 28, at 283-84.42. Oddly enough, while scholars have been slow to question the notion of civilian controlof the military in post-Franco Spain, Spanish politicians have not. Narcis Serra, the Spanish minister of defense between the years of 1982-1995, has argued that civil-militaryrelations during the transition to democracy in Spain need to be reconsidered in lightof the experience of the GAL. See Narcis Serra, Threats to Democracy from the Armed

Forces, Police and Intelligence Services: Suggestions based on the Spanish case, available at www.clubmadrid.org/cmadrid/fileadmin/2-Serra.pdf.43. Felipe Ag?ero, supra note 38.



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to less than two percent of the Spanish GNP, having been outstripped bygovernment expenditures on education for the first time in Spanish history. 44Payne's assessment, however, comes with a caveat that while the militarydid not play a direct corporate role during the late Franco period, this didnot apply to the country's internal security, which remained firmly withinthe sphere of military affairs through the end of the regime.The second point that gives false support to the notion of Spain havingfull civilian control over the military by the early 1980s was the perceivedeffectiveness of the military reforms undertaken after the democratic transitionof 1977 and the military coup of 1981.45 They included the centralizationof intelligence services, the creation of a civilian-led Ministry of Defense,legislative routine hearings on defense matters, and the separation of thesecurity apparatus of the state between those forces concerned with the internal and external security of the state. These are the measures that, in theview of military analysts, distinguish Spain (where civilian control over the

military is presumed to have been attained) from those where this is thoughtto remain a work in progress, most notably Latin America. However, as seenin this analysis, military reforms in Spain did not immediately transform thelandscape of civil-military relations and the behavior of the military itself. Asthe case of the central intelligence service (the CESID) suggests, the militarysuccessfully turned this new agency into a hotbed of autonomous decision

making and an instrument for the continuation of established extra-judicialmeasures for combating terrorism. Perhaps attaining civilian supremacyover the military is a more complex and laborious process than realized,entailing not only the implementation of institutional reforms, but also thegradual passing of institutional cultures and practices.

Oddly, Spain's much praised model of transition to democracy playeda significant role in retarding attitudinal changes in the Spanish militarywith respect to counter-terrorism practices. The transition to democracy inSpain isgenerally viewed as a prototype of a pacted democratic transition.This is a type of regime change inwhich the authoritarian regime does notcollapse; instead it becomes reformed into a democratic regime throughdirect negotiations with the democratic opposition. These transitions havebeen rightly praised for their capacity to deliver safe and peaceful meansto a democracy. They provide political actors with broad assurances aboutthe final outcome of the attempt at democratization.46 However, a pactedtransition can also become the vehicle for allowing parts of the state appa

44. Payne, Modernizing the Army, supra note 29, at 181.45. See Jorge Zaverucha's analysis of military politics in Spain, Brazil, and Argentina. Zaverucha, supra note 28.46. 5ee Omar G. Encarnaci?n, Do Political Pacts Freeze Democracy? Spanish and SouthAmerican Lessons, 28 W. Eur. Pol. 182 (Jan. 2005).



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ratus to transfer its authoritarian vices and pathologies from the old regimeto the new one, a point underscored by the Spanish experience. Althoughgovernments in the post-transition era have endeavored to reform the state'sintelligence agencies, neither bureaucratic purges nor sweeping personnel

changes were ever part of such effort.47 Not surprisingly, subverting reformsand misusing new institutions and procedures intended to curb militaryautonomy were critical to the military's capacity to carry on with businessas usual in its struggle to defeat ETA.

V. DEMOCRATIZATION ND TERRORISMThe Spanish experience also yields important lessons about the interaction ofdemocratization and terrorism. First, dirty wars intended to eradicate terrorismcan have unintended consequences. These include engendering sympathy forterrorist organizations and, paradoxically, prolonging terrorist activity. Thiscontention echoes the argument commonly encountered in the literature oncontentious politics that violent opposition groups generally gain legitimacyand public support when the state employs indiscriminate violence.48 Clearly,the dirty wars waged against ETA from 1975 to 1987 were a boon for ETAsince they played directly into the organization's strategy of provoking thestate into launching a military attack on the organization. Although political loyalties in the Basque Country have not shifted away from the centralstate toward the terrorists (as has been the case in other new democraciesafflicted by terrorism), support for ETA among the Basques has been highestwhenever the state has unleashed its repressive apparatus.

By most signs, the killings of the BVE between 1975 and 1981 generatedtremendous support for ETA among the Basques at a critical juncture whenthe organization was grappling with how to survive the end of the Francodictatorship, whose violence greatly aided in the organization's growth.Throughout this period, the Basque people held large demonstrations andstrikes inmajor Basque cities, protesting the state's continued use of terrortactics to fight ETA. Not surprisingly, the highest level of support for ETAand its radical political agenda among the Basques was registered in 1981at the height of the first dirty war. That year 8 percent of ordinary Basquesagreed totally with ETA's violent strategies and political goals.49

47. This point is stressed in histories of Spain's intelligence services. For instance, see Antonio M. D?az Fern?ndez, Los Servicios de Inteligencia Espa?oles: Desde al Guerra Civil Hastael 11-M: Historia de una Transici?n (2005).48. See Charles Tilly & Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics (2007).49. Jos? Manuel Mata, The Weakness of Democracy in the Basque Country, in The Politicsof Contemporary Spain 101 (Sebasti?n Balfour ed., 2005).



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The GAL had similar unintended consequences. Ironically, the GAL's success in killing many ETA leaders in the 1980s ensured ETA's survival duringthe 1990s. The violent excesses of the GAL were skillfully employed by ETAto facilitate its recruitment efforts. For instance, the funerals of the innocentvictims of the GAL were useful fodder for ETA in its efforts to embarrassthe government. So were the revelations of the GAL's violent and ruthlessoperations when they began to seep through the media. They were used byETA's propaganda machine to sustain the claims that, despite the transitionto democracy, the state operated no differently than itdid under the Francodictatorship and that their own violent tactics were a mere defense to thestate's brutality.

Additionally, although the GAL succeeded in killing several ETA heavyweights and in bringing greater cooperation from the French, it promptedthe organization to shift its target from public officials to civilians. This explains why the overall level of violence sustained by ETA did not see anysignificant change during the years that the GAL was in operation. In theearly 1990s ETA developed a strategy of socialized suffering designed toextend the terror beyond state targets (most notably military officers andinstallations) and into society at large by singling out for attacks ordinary

civilians, journalists, academics, business leaders, judges, and celebrities.According to the Spanish NGO Gesto por la Paz, ETA's list of potential targetsin the Basque region alone exceeds 42,000 people, including 200 teachersand intellectuals, over 1,200 politicians and party officials, approximately15,000 entrepreneurs, over 25,000 policemen, 350 judges and attorneys,400 journalists and 800 prison officers.50 These individuals are forced tolive their lives in perpetual fear, careful to avoid company and crowds,

constantly changing their itineraries, checking their vehicles for bombs, andeven hiring bodyguards.51Less known (at least outside of Spain) about ETA's repertoire of terroristactivities is the phenomenon of Kale borraka (street struggle), youth gangsactive inmajor Basque towns on both sides of the border. The goal of theKale borraka is twofold: to sustain an environment of terror and vandalismand to serve as a foundation for the recruitment of new ETAmembers. Bothof these goals are critical to ETA's survival given the success of the government in recent years in capturing some of the organization's leadership aswell as the overall decline in support for ETA'spolitical tactics by the Basquepeople. Total support for ETA among the Basques has basically collapsed inrecent years and today stands at 1 percent.52

50. Gesto por la Paz, Violencia de persecusi?n, available at www.gesto.org/violenciapersecucion1.htm.51. Mata, supra note 49, at 100.52. This data is from Euskobarometro surveys, available afwww.ehu.es/cpvweb.



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Since embracing democracy, Spain has actually followed a two-prongstrategy to counter Basque terrorism. The most obvious is the dirty waragainst ETA that ran from 1975 to 1987 with the intention of eradicatingthe organization's leadership. Less evident is the process of state de-centralization begun in the democratic period, which resulted in the grantingof an extraordinary degree of self-governance to the Basques by the centralstate. Among Spain's seventeen regional governments, only the Basquesare accorded special privileges such as the right to have their own police(ertzaintza) and to collect local taxes.56 These provisions, in the estimate ofsome analysts, have endowed the Basque Country with the highest level ofregional self-governance in the European Union. 57 None of this has satisfiedETA, which demands nothing short of outright independence from Spain,but it has had a palpable effect in shaping the dynamics of the politics ofBasque nationalism.

Self-governance has undermined ETA's campaign to portray the Spanishstate as a colonial oppressor (a goal of ETA since its inception) and to turnthe Basque people against Spain. This, in turn, has prevented the conflictin the Basque Country from becoming one between the central governmentand ordinary Basque people rather than a conflict between the centralstate and radical Basque nationalists. A majority of the Basque electorateapproved the Basque autonomy statute in 1979 and public opinion datasuggest that the Basque public has remained supportive of this arrangementever since. This point is highlighted in the data from the Euskobarometro,a polling outfit at the University of the Basque Country that traces publicopinion polls among the Basque population. The 2003 data reveals that 30percent of Basques express to be satisfied with the present stipulations ofthe statute, 40 percent are partially satisfied, (and presumably would liketo see itexpanded), and 25 percent are dissatisfied. As to political statuspreferences, 32 percent express support for the status quo (autonomy), 35percent prefer a federal state, and 30 percent prefer independence.58 Clearly,the preference by the Basques for some sort of affiliation with the centraladministration inMadrid is overwhelming.

Ironically, the task of restoring credibility to Spanish democracy fellupon the Partido Popular (PP), an organization with deep roots in the Franco

56. The historic regions enjoy the highest degree of autonomy whereas the new regionsgenerally tend to possess the least. These imbalances have been the subject of periodicrevisions of the whole system of autonomous communities by the government in anattempt to bring some evenness to the devolution of administrative powers to the regions, such as the 1982 Organic Law for the Harmonization of the Autonomy Process(LOAPA). The special status of the Basque region may soon change with the approvalof the revisions to the Catalan autonomy charter approved in June 2006.57. Mata, supra note 49, at 82.58. Euskobarometro, supra note 52.



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to radical Islamic groups, the bombing of Atocha resulted in the death ofover 191 people and 2,050 people injured, the worst terrorist attack onEuropean soil in the postwar era. It is unlikely, however, that ETA's currentpredicament would have come into fruition had the state not abandonedits extra-judicial anti-terrorism campaign.

Democracy and Dirty Wars in Spain

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