"By SAM RUSSELL

sing nationwide State
rgency, Spain's fascist-

' General Franco has
ca ‘confessed that, 30 years
Wer he imposed his dictator-
ip, the Spanish people hate
his regime as much as

» Madrid law student,
Ruano, was arrested on
12 by agents of Fran-

"Social-Political Brigade,”
ten to its headquarters.

| 48 hours of interroga-

included electric

and beating up, he was

ed to another police

| to “confirm some evi-

, the Franco police an-
d that Enrique Ruano
itted suicide” by jumping
'a seventh-floor window.
iow students quickly
rated, and Gen. Franco
© gang of fascists who
enslaved the Spanish peo-
the past three decades,
tely declared a State of

or two years now, Spain's
| public relations officer,
of Information and

in risn Fraga-Iribarne, has
to present a picture

to the Outside world of a Spain
‘has become “liberal”
pa new measures enacted

4 hand-picked Cortes.

‘The 76-year-old dictator has
‘trying hard to ensure the
luation of fascism in Spain
rooming the 30-year-old
ice Juan Carlos, grandson of
nt who was kicked

by the people in
1931, y peop:

By maintaining all the fascist

apparatus and making cooing

S about “liberalization,”
Franco hoped to encourage the
tet that action to bring down
his © was not necessary
ind that it would in some way
into a_ benevolent

me eclaration of the State
ency — which brings
tec te the full fury of the fascist
, including mass secret ar-
banishment to distant
tees of exile, seizure of books
ind publications at the whim of
I-Political Brigade, clos-
(8 Of universities — shows’ the
Oody, fascist fist inside Fran-
*S grubby white gloves.
; AS part of the public relations
ico receives foreign cor-
endents in his El Pardo Pa-
Cin Madrid and croaks:
at is happening in this coun-
not be a reason for
ation in the world.”

| The senile dictator wants to
“istite that the flow of foreign
from tourism will not
Stop—so the world has to be
bamboozeled into believing that
| Franco in his Palace all's
the world. So Fran-
‘0p tourist tout Fraga-Iri-
Id have us believe.

Taga-Iribarne, announc-

Franco

ing the decree imposing the State
of Emergency, let the cat out of
the bag when he chose to recall
the May and June days last year
in France and declared: “We are
not going to wait for a May day,
because afterward things would
be more difficult.”

What Fraga and Franco both
fear is the massive workers’
movement in Spain, which, for
the past two or three years, des-
pite savage repression, has in-
creased its power to such an
extent that it is estimated that
up to a million workers are now
represented in one way or an-
other by the officially illegal
Workers’ Commissions,

In these commissions, Com-
munists and Catholics, Socialists
and Anarchists, have united to
defend the workers in their fac-
tories against the attacks of the
regime.

Faced with the growing power
of this movement, the increasing
number of strikes and the dan-
ger that the regime may be
faced with a national strike,
Franco has made repeated at-
tempts to behead the commis-
sions.

Over two years ago the leader
of the Workers’ Commissions in
Madrid, Marcelino Camacho,
with a number of other leaders
like Julio Ariza, was arrested
and has since been held without
trial.

Not so long ago these leaders
went on hunger strike and were
removed from the notorious Ca-
rabanchel Jail in Madrid to the
prison in Soria under vile con-
ditions.

They went on hunger strike
again, and their wives in Madrid
and elsewhere staged a series of
sit-ins in churches which had the
regime foaming at the mouth
with rage.

Since the declaration of the
State of Emergency a number of
these brave women have been
arrested too, and the latest news
from Madrid is that Julia Cama-
cho has been taken to an un-
known place of detention,

The regime is trying to allay
alarm abroad about the State of
Emergency by. attempting to
claim that it is directed only
against a few “hot-headed stud-
ents,” and that it is only for
three months.

Last August, a similar State
of Emergency was declared for
only three months in the Bas-
que province of Guipuzcoa. But
when the three months expired
it was extended by a further
three months, and the reign of
terror in the province has been
increased.

The Spanish people have not
been cowed by the Franco ter-
ror, however.

The regime today is faced not
only by the opposition of work-
ers and students. An outstand-
ing feature of the movement
against Franco has been the
growing participation of prog-
ressive priests as ‘well as of wri-
ters and other intellectuals.

Most recently the Bar Coun-

Spanish people
are not cowed by

crackdown

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cil of Madrid demanded an in-
quiry into the tortures inflicted
daily by Franco's Social-Political
Brigade.

When last Christmas it became
known that the 43 political pri-
soners in Soria, including Marce-
lino Camacho and Spanish Com-
munist Party Central Committee
member Jose Sandoval, had gone
on a hunger strike it was the
Madrid lawyers who broke the
conspiracy of silence which the
jailers tried to establish.

Despite the backing which the
Church hierarchy has given the
regime, the Catholic protests
against the inhumanity of the re-
gime now include not only parish
priests in places like the Cata-
lonia and the Basque country,
but also a number of bishops.

Even in the armed forces, con-
sidered hitherto by Franco as the
mainstay of his regime, there
have been moves which were
recently called “subversive” by
the high command.

While the gang of Spanish
generals who, together with
Franco, led the conspiracy
against the legally elected Gov-
ernment of the Spanish Repub-
lic in 1936, seek to maintain the
fascist regime in power, there
are growing indications that they
no more represent the armed
forces than they do the people
as a whole.

Franco and his fellow generals
have for years sought to main-
tain their power by claiming that
only they could save Spain from
chaos and another civil war.

The declaration of the State
of Emergency has shown the
basic weakness of the regime,
and has exposed the fact that it
is the Franco regime that is res-
ponsible for the disorder that
exists in Spain, the repression
and the terror.

There is the danger that at-
tempts will be made to bolster
Franco and support his plans for
a continuation of the fascist re-
gime by foreign intervention,
notably the U.S.

American bases in Spain —
above all the base at Rota—are
one of the main elements of the
American military presence in
Europe, and Franco expects U.S.
backing for his regime as the
quid pro quo for allowing them
to maintain their bases.

Already it is being rumored
that the Americans are aiming
at establishing in Spain a re-
gime similar to the one they im-
posed on the people of Greece

at the other end of the Mediter-
ranean, but with a puppet mon-
arch whose courtly trappings, it
is hoped, will conceal the fascist
reality.

PACING TRIBUNE FEBRUARY 28? 1969 Page}'-h”

The working people of Spain,
students and intellectuals, pro-
gressive priests and all sections
of the growing opposition to the
regime have already made it
clear, however, that they will
not be taken in by such a hoax.

Despite the savage censorship,
it has already become known
since the declaration of the State
of Emergency that there have
been protest strikes all over the
country.

The strikes in Bilbao’s largest
steelworks of Altos Hornos, em-
ploying over 6,000 workers, and
in many of the city’s other fac-
tories and shipyards, are signs
of a much wider action against
the regime.

The Bilbao strikes began when
members of the local Workers’
Commissions were arrested on
the eve of the declaration of the
State of Emergency.

The people of Spain can be
counted on to show Franco that
they will not continue to toler-
ate.a regime which is keeping
their country in medieval con-
ditions.

It is up to progressive people
everywhere to show Franco that
they loathe his regime and sup-
port the Spanish people in their
struggle.

(Morning Star)