Spanish leaders keep their heads down

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"Todos al suelo!" (Everyone on the ground!) was the order issued to the Spanish members of parliament when he invaded the Cortes at the start of the attempted military coup d'etat on February 23.

And, politically speaking, that's where they have stayed ever since.

Ever since the coup attempt, Spain's 'democratic politicians, whether of the right wing government party, the Centre Democratic Union, or the opposition Socialist and Communist Parties have reacted: to the coup by making one concession after another to reaction and to the military.

Despite revelations of the wide extent of the plot made by the Spanish bourgeois press still only 33 military and Guardia Civil (paramilitary police) officers are under arrest. And they are allowed to hold political court and make public political statements from their places of detention.

Everywhere in the country the powers of the military, armed police and civil guard have been strengthened, especially in the Basque country which is under virtual military occupation.

The bank seige in Barcelona four weeks ago was one example among many of the way in which fascist and right wing military and police forces are on the rampage in Spain.

The government's official explanation of the seige as non political work of criminals is universally regarded as laughable.

In the face of government weakness and the abject surrender of the opposition workers' parties, Spain has become more than ever the fief of the Francoist armed forces and police to behave as they please.

It is against that context that the arrests of last week must be seen. Three officers were arrested for i being implicated in a new military plot-one of them was, along with Col. Tejero, part of a previous much publicised plot, Uperation Galaxy.

La mr throp rivil Guards The Barcelona bank siege were arrested in Almeira and charged with manslaughter.

This was in connection with a case which has become a national scandal. Three youths were killed when, according to the Civil Guard, the car they were travelling in went off the road after their arrest for suspected terrorism. It was, said the police authorities, a tragic accident.

A later autonsv showed that the youths had been tortured and had died from bullet wounds in the head and chest. When arrested they were on their way to their first communion.

Although the Civil Guards indicted for their 'manslaughter' are the first to be arrested on criminal charges for many years, this move is not a decisive step against the criminal activities of the police and military.

Contract' Because it pales into insignificance in the face of the rapidly growing examples of 'manslaughter' such as happened in Almeira.

The UCD government has lost all ability to control this. And the opposition though it has been forced into public protest at the Almeira case, maintains its sycophantic position about the institutions of the Spanish state, including the army and the monarchy.

And in the economic sphere the two main unions have just signed a new 'social contract with government accepting in effect major wage cuts as a solution to the growing economic crisis.

Inflation is expected to be at least 12% and is now running at 16%. In the Social Contract the unions (Communist and Socialist) accept a limit on wage increases for the next year of 9-11%.

In exchange they get the vaguest of promises from the government to create more jobs.

But in fact in the last year officially registered unemployment has gone up to over 1.7 million which makes it at 13.5% one of the highest rates in Western Europe.

Unable to answer any of the economic problems, the government led by Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo tries to present itself as the defender and extender of democratic rights.

The only achievement it can point to however is the law passed last week, against Catholic Church opposition, permitting divorce, completely banned by The law however has produced a significant split in the UCD itself and almost certainly brings to an end even the apparently reforming intentions of the government. It has no intention for example of legalising abortion which remains completely illegal in Spain.

Paralysed

The "democratic' politicians who dropped to the floor of the Cortes on February 23 have become paralysed long before they have brought even bourgeois democratic rights to Spain.

And around them the power of the military and in Italian history.

The hour, however, could easily be cut to a minute, because the major partiesthe Communists and the Christian Democrats-though tharr hath want Snadnlini to be Premier today, both just Licy wull want uper police and fascists is grow. ing and so are the economic problems.

Only a courageous and decisive lead from the workers organisations could avert the trend towards military dictatorship and a renewal of full blooded. Francoist rule.

But the Socialists, the largest opposition party, are now hardly distinguishable from the UCD in their official policies. They merely promise to do the same things (prosecute 'terrorists' investigate the coup and pursue economic austerity) with more energy than the UCD.

Events in France do not appear to have made the Socialist: leader Felipe Gonzalez want to become even the Spanish Mitterand He appears more set on being the Spanish • Dennis Gonzälez