Savater and Vargas Llosa: stop the dictatoriship in Catalunya!

We reprint the full text of the letter that Fernando Savater and other Spanish intellectuals addressed
October 3th, 2017, to Europen Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker. The letter clarifies several of the
ambiguities that were circulated in the European press.
After that, we publish the text of the speech that Mario Vargas Llosa gave Sunday, October 8, 2017
in Barcelona.

Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker
President of the European Commission
Rue de la Loi / Wetstraat 200
1049 Brussels

3rd October 2017

Dear Mr President,

We address you as founding members of the Civic Initiative Basta Ya!, awarded the Sakharov Prize in 2000 for its commitment to freedoms in the Basque Country. As Spanish and European citizens, we are very concerned about the confusion regarding what is happening in Spain in relation to Catalonia. We do not want to remain in silence while facts are being replace by propaganda and the emotions are being manipulated by a pro-independence regional government which stands in open rebellion against the Spanish democracy and the European Treaties.

Let us start by listing a number of obvious facts:

1. Citizens in Catalonia, as well as in the rest of Spain, regularly vote in accordance with democratic rules; in Catalonia, six times in the last five years. It is completely false that they are prevented from voting.

2. The Catalan authorities have violated their own laws: in the parliamentary sessions of 6 and 7 September 2017 prevented the opposition parties to exercise their parliamentary rights to submit amendments and discuss the, unconstitutional, Ley Express (“Express Law”), to hold a referendum of self-determination.

3. Education in Catalonia, under regional control, has been used systematically to indoctrinate in hatred of Spain, to spread Catalan supremacism and to discriminate against Spanish-speaking students (more than 50%). The schoolchildren have been used by the Catalan government for demonstrations and public events in favor of independence, and schools and universities have even been closed by decision of the regional government in order to encourage their attendance in certain demonstrations.

4. Catalonia is one of the most prosperous regions in Spain and its citizens enjoy a high standard of living and one of the highest levels of self-government out of any region in Europe. The region of Catalonia has never been an independent political entity. It was a set of counties that formed part of France, and then of the Kingdom of Aragon until it was dynastically merged with the Kingdom of Castile in 1492, creating the current Kingdom of Spain.

5. The party that has traditionally ruled Catalonia (formerly CiU; now PDCat) has spent 30 years using public money, coming from tax-payers from entire Spain, to promote its separatist agenda while blaming Spain for its cuts in social policies, education and health with the accusation “Espanya ens roba” (“Spain is stealing us”).

6. Some of the most important leaders of that same party -including two former presidents, Jordi Pujol and Artur Mas – are currently accused in trials for political corruption, and have been continuously financing their party with a corrupt system known as 3%, as that percentage was the minimum that public providers had to pay to access any public contract. Parallel to the judicial investigation of this corrupt plot, and not coincidentally, the separatist process has been accelerated, hoping to save those responsible from the action of Spanish justice.

7. Spain is a parliamentary monarchy and its Constitution can be amended by the procedures provided for the case by the text itself. This changes may even contemplate the right to self- determination of parts of the territory, which is nowadays as unconstitutional in Spain as it is in all EU member states, without exception.

8. A vote on a territorial secession as the one illegally promoted by the Catalan government would require, to be democratic, the participation of all Spaniards. What belongs to everyone, as the State and the territory, must be decided among all.

9. Separatism undermines democracy: it has unilaterally and violently broken (rupture of the constitutional order necessarily is) with Spanish and regional legality. And it has embarked on a campaign to present the central government as “evil” by not allowing an illegal referendum which, we should keep in mind, has been declared unconstitutional by our highest court.

Regarding the events taken place last Sunday 1st of October, we cannot agree to consider a “mistake” or “inability” that the police complies with judicial orders to prevent the holding of a referendum which has been declared illegal. The suitability of judicial instructions can be discussed, but the police actions were proportional and the usual ones in all European member states in similar cases.

The Catalan regional police, the Mossos (with 17,000 officers and holistic police powers), actively boycotted the enforcement of judicial orders, facilitated public disorder and, in some cases, even clashed with the National Police and Civil Guard, who have had 431 injured members. Last Sunday was far from being “a peaceful day of national demonstration”, as stated by the separatist leaders. Information networks and media groups subsidised by the Catalan regional government have systematically disseminated false images of violence and misrepresented the facts. We find of great concern as well that media networks related to the Russian government have actively supported the illegal referendum.

The Catalan regional government has acted, and continues to do so, as an organisation committed to a coup d’état in Spain. The autonomous administration has provided political coverage and material support to organised groups that act in open rebellion against the constitutional order, including occupation of schools, blocking roads and motorways, or attacks on Spanish police officers. And a widespread intimidation to a majority of Catalan society which is dissatisfied with this state of affairs.

The so called “brutal repression” has resulted in the total of two people in hospital, one of them an elderly man who suffered a heart attack. With respect to the “wounded,” which separatists number at about 800, they are actually “persons who received medical assistance” by public health services, including those affected by lipothymia, anxiety attacks and irritations caused by inhalation of smoke. Propaganda manipulation, based on scandalizing the good feelings of people who ignore what actually happened, is unprecedented in democratic Europe and takes us back to the history of totalitarian regimes during the 30s and 40s.

Finally, we would like to highlight that the whole Europe would be very negatively affected if the separatist plans ended up being imposed. Spain is not the only EU member state with separatist tensions. Opening the possibility of repealing the Constitution and territorial integrity by means of fait accompli – following a script that reminds of the explosion of former Yugoslavia – would affect sooner or later many other member states, ending with the magnificent project of a Europe free of destructive and xenophobic nationalism within its own borders.

We believe it is time for European institutions to support Spain to restore the constitutional order and the rules of democracy in a region, controlled by a seditious administration and a corrupt political class, which is not only part of Spain, but also part of the European Union.

Yours sincerely,

Fernando Savater, Carlos Martínez Gorriarán, María San Gil, Rosa Díez and Maite Pagazaurtundua

The text in pdf: 

The text of the speech given by Mario Vargas Llosa in Barcelona, Sunday October 8^th:

“Queridos amigos. Todos los pueblos modernos o atrasados viven en su historia momentos en los que la razón es barrida por la pasión. Y es verdad que la pasión puede ser generosa y altruista cuando inspira la lucha contra la pobreza y el paro. Pero la pasión puede ser también destructiva y feroz cuando la mueven el fanatismo y el racismo.

La peor de todas, la que ha causado más estragos en la historia, es la pasión nacionalista. Religión laica, herencia lamentable del peor romanticismo. El nacionalismo ha llenado la historia de Europa y del mundo, y de España, de guerras, de sangre y de cadáveres. Desde hace algún tiempo, el nacionalismo viene causando estragos también en Cataluña.

Para eso estamos aquí, para pararlo. Para eso han salido miles y miles de catalanes de sus casas en esta mañana soleada del otoño catalán. Son catalanes democráticos, que no creen que son traidores quienes piensan distinto a ellos. Son catalanes que no consideran al adversario un enemigo, que no ensucian sus puertas, ni destruyen sus vitrinas. Catalanes que creen en la democracia, en la libertad, en el Estado de derecho, en la Constitución.

Y además de catalanes, hay aquí, esta mañana, miles de hombres y mujeres venidos de todos los rincones de España —e incluso del Perú—, a decirles a los amigos catalanes que no están solos, que estamos con ellos, que queremos dar juntos con ellos la batalla por la libertad. Estamos armados de ideas, de razones y de una convicción profunda de que la democracia española está aquí para quedarse. Y que ninguna conjura independentista la destruirá.

No queremos que los bancos y las empresas se vayan de Cataluña como si fuera una ciudad medieval acosada por la peste. No queremos que los ahorristas catalanes retiren su dinero por la desconfianza, por la inseguridad jurídica que les merece el futuro de Cataluña. Queremos, por el contrario, que los capitales y las empresas vengan a Cataluña para que vuelva a ser, como tantas veces en su historia, la capital industrial de España, la locomotora de su desarrollo y su prosperidad.

Queremos que Cataluña vuelva a ser la Cataluña capital cultural de España, como era cuando yo vine a vivir aquí, en unos años que recuerdo con enorme nostalgia. Eran los últimos años de la dictadura franquista. La dictadura se deshilachaba y hacía aguas por todas partes. Y ninguna ciudad española aprovechó tanto como Barcelona esos resquicios de libertad para volcarse al mundo y traer del mundo las mejores ideas, los mejores libros, todos los grandes logros de la vanguardia. Por eso venían los españoles a Barcelona. Porque aquí los aires eran ya los de Europa. Es decir, los de la democracia y la civilización.

Aquí, en esa Cataluña se reunieron, después de haberse dado la espalda desde la guerra civil, los escritores españoles y los escritores latinoamericanos. Aquí, yo he visto llegar a Barcelona a muchachas y muchachos de toda América Latina, con vocaciones artísticas y literarias, que venían porque aquí había que estar si uno quería triunfar en el mundo de las artes, del pensamiento, de la literatura. Venían aquí como nosotros en las generaciones anteriores íbamos a París. Queremos que Barcelona, que Cataluña, vuelvan a ser la capital de la cultura de España.

Queridos amigos. España es un país antiguo. Cataluña es un país antiguo. Hace 500 años sus historias se juntaron y se juntaron con las historias de vascos, de gallegos, de extremeños, de andaluces, etcétera. Para crear esa sociedad multicultural y multilingüística que es España. Ahora, desde hace 40 años, además de recuerdo de un pasado grandioso y a veces trágico, España es también una tierra de libertad, una tierra de legalidad. Eso el independentismo no lo va a destruir.

Se necesita mucho más que una conjura golpista de los señores Puigdemont y Junqueras, y de la señora Forcadell, para destruir lo que han construido 500 años de historia. No lo vamos a permitir. Aquí estamos ciudadanos pacíficos, que creemos en la coexistencia, que creemos en la libertad. Vamos a demostrarles a esos independentistas minoritarios que España es ya un país moderno, un país que ha hecho suya la libertad y que no a va a renunciar a ella por una conjura que quiere retrocederlo a país tercermundista.

Esta manifestación supera todo lo que los más optimistas organizadores consideraban. Es la demostración maravillosa de que en Barcelona, de que en Cataluña, como en el resto de España, están por la democracia, por la legalidad y por la libertad.

¡Viva la libertad! ¡Visca Catalunya! ¡Viva España!”