More talk of Spain coup

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"Terrorism, insecurity, inflation, economic crisis, unemployment, pornography and above all crisis of authority."

That, according to General Jaime Milans del Bosch, is a picture of modern Spain.

In a press interview following the assassination of the military governor of Guipuzcoa province (ETA (militar)'s third high ranking victim in less than a week), the General went further than any senior officer so far in preparing the way for a military coup.

He said that the army would intervene:

"When it had become clear that the law, police and judicial action are not enough, or when ruth Park Hill, London NW5 1H1 he Post Office. it becomes necessary to guarantee the sovereignty and indepen. dence of our country."

The whole tone of the interview suggests that he, for one, sees that time as being very close.

The Suarez government was looking very jumpy indeed after these events.

Emergency cabinet meetings were called and Premier Suarez cancelled all overseas visits until after the Basque and Catalan referenda on October 25.

The regime's earnest appeals for calm are serving only to increase the atmosphere of political tension.

Under increasing attack from the right, civilian as well as military, for its weakness in dealing with ETA terrorism, the Suarez regime is being backed by the Socialist and Communist parties and the bourgeois Basque National Party (the main expected beneficiary of the proposed autonomy statute).

United

Those parties have united to issue joint ritual denunciations of ET'A violence and called for everything to be settled through the referendum vote.

But with ETA (militar)'s boycott campaign fast building up, there is a real doubt as to whether the Euskadi referendum will produce the authoritative vote of approval on which both government and opposition are now counting to outflank ETA.

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