-Caveat Lector-
Sunday Telegraph
International News
Sunday, 15 August 1999
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et/99/8/15/wspain15.html
By Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Twenty-four years after the death of General Francisco Franco, Spain is
facing a revival of violent Right-wing extremism led by young skinheads
seeking a return to the racial purity and social exclusivism practised by
the late dictator.
Far-Right gangs, which recruit in school playgrounds, on football terraces
and via the Internet, are believed to be responsible for the murders of at
least 21 people in the past eight years. Most of the victims have been
immigrants, tramps or prostitutes. The number of youths in organised
violent xenophobic groups has increased five-foled over the past four
years to at least 20,000 mainly grouped together in poorer city areas,
according to a government report.
The groups are characterised by their youth, by their propensity towards
violence, and by their use of the symbols of the old Franco regime. Among
their most treasured possessions, the old Spanish flags of the Franco era,
which feature a black eagle in place of the shield on today's flag. Some
gangs also learn the traditional Franco anthem, Cara al Sol (Face the
Sun).
New gang members are often in their early teens. Their political
education is initially limited to information about the social groups they
are meant to hate. "The first thing they have to do is go out on 'a
hunt,'" said Esteban Ibarra, of the Social Affairs Ministry's immigration
task force. This involves finding immigrants or vagrants to assault.
Attacks carried out in the past month include the stabbing of a Moroccan
immigrant near Barcelona, arson at a mosque in the north-eastern
city of Girona and the burning down of a house occupied by three Gambian
families in the nearby town of Banyoles. Mohammed, a 23-yuear-old
Moroccan, was knifed by a gang of youths after more than 1,000 people took
part in an anti-immigrant march in a poor quarter of Terrassa, an
industrial city outside of Barcelona.
"Iwas surrounded by 40 people who started kicking and beating me,"
Mohammed said from his hospital bed. "I'm still scared, so I will leave
town as soon as I am well." Priests in Terrassa, many of whom were
involved in the anti-Franco movements of the Sixties and Seventies, said
there was a direct link between the new far-Right and the late dictator.
Manuel Saliva, a parish priest, said: "These people are actively
encouraged by the old local fascists. They are the ideological children
of the same people who used to denounce us to Franco's police."
Immigrants comprise less than two percent of Spain's population. But
claims that people among these new communities--particularly
Moroccans--are boosting the drug trade have helped to spread racial
hatred.
The new fascists are fully aware of the potency of two propaganda channels
that did jnot exist when Franco began his 36-year rule in 1939: rock music
and the Internet. Fascist or racist bands with names that translate as
Klan, Punishment Brigade, Division 250 and Imperial Order decorate their
stages with Francoist and Nazi paraphernalia.
"Zionism has been cornered...the war is starting, it's the revolution of
the white race," Division 250 declaims in one of its records. Internet
sites dedicated to these bands and to skinhead groups help to promote the
racial hatred which, according to Mr. Ibarra, is rapidly spreading from
the cities to smaller towns.
Police have used new anti-racism laws to shut down websites. One
Barcelona-based site, which was closed last month, had received 5,000
visits in two days. It had threatened a massacre of local immigrants.
A number of radical Right-wing groups associate themselves with leading
football clubs. Seventy Real Madrid fans belonging to the "Ultra Sur"
group were recently sent back to Spain when they travelled to Germany for
a match and started giving fascist salutes there.
Fans from another Right-wing group that follows Atletico Madrid are
currently being tried over the killing of a young Basque. His only crime
had been to come from a region whose separatist ambitions have always been
anathema to Spain's fascists. Some skinheads are followers of Ricardo
Saenz de Ynestrillas, 33, the most visible leader of the new Right.
He is the son of a former Franco army officer who plotted a coup attempt
against the democratic government and was later murdered by the Basque
separatist group Eta. His party, the Alliance for National Unity, has
held violent demonstrations across Spain. He is about to begin a seven
year prison sentnece for attempting to kill a drug dealer who refused to
supply him with cocaine. In 1993, he was freed by a court that dismissed
charges that he had murdered a Basque parliamentary deputy, Jose Moguruza.
Police say that many of the new skinheads are more interested in violence
than in the ideology of Spain's traditional and fractured extreme Right
wing, led by the Falangists. Although they have been in decline in recent
years, the Falangists have little time for Ynestrillas or for the
Falangists. Although they have been in decline in recent years, the
Falangists have little time for Ynestrillas or for the skinhead groups
whom they consider are "not serious" about politics. The far-Right
doubled its vote in June's European elections, but still polled only
60,000 votes across Spain.
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