After the anniversary of October 1, another celebration awaits the independence movement from which several parties and platforms hope to gain media coverage: the sixth anniversary of the proclamation of independence, materialized by the approval of a motion in Parliament declaring Catalonia a republic. independent. The date of that event was October 27, 2017 and, two days later, Carles Puigdemont fled to France to later go to Belgium, in order to not have to give criminal explanations for his actions.. This episode is now remembered as an element of pressure on Puigdemont in the midst of negotiations for the investiture, with the DUI as a starting point..
Radical anti-Spanish circles pressure Puigdemont not to give in, unless Pedro Sánchez recognizes the results of the referendum of October 1 and assumes the unilateral declaration of independence of October 27, 2017. The most belligerent secessionist segments threaten the former president with ostracism and dropping him if he succumbs to the charms of the acting president of the Government..
The truth is that pro-independence platforms are preparing for a series of actions aimed at revitalizing a movement that is not only deflated and with little popular support, but also mired in uncertainty and without a well-defined north.. The celebrations that will take place until the end of the month have two fundamental axes: celebrating the sixth anniversary of the DUI and putting pressure on Puigdemont not to invite Pedro Sánchez.
One of the first movements is to hold a joint assembly of anti-system groups and secessionist groups in the Nabat squatted social center, in Hospitalet, to prepare for the 2023 Torch March, an event that they want to be spectacular.. It will be on October 27 at 8:00 p.m. in the center of Barcelona, it will begin in the Parliament and end in the Plaza de Sant Jaume. Likewise, the assembly will take place on October 22 and will issue a mandate to reject the amnesty as it is intended to be agreed upon.. “We will not settle for a partial amnesty, we want it complete, we will not leave any colleague behind,” they warn in the call sent this week. In addition, they want the amnesty to be effective before next Christmas so that those who are already convicted or those whose resolution is pending can leave prison..
That same weekend there are “self-defense” days against police infiltrations, where slogans will be taught on how to hunt down police snitches among activist circles.. The Alerta Solidaria platform also presents a study of 83 “criminal cases against anti-fascists in all Catalan countries”. On October 26, the ANC has also planned an event in Premià de Mar with the former vice president of the ANC Jordi Pesarrodona and with David Budria, one of those arrested in 2019 in the operation against the CDR command. In fact, Budria reported in a Basque blog this week that JxCAT is carrying out the negotiations with Sánchez “secretly” and that the party “is armored, they don't give up anything,” so much so that “not even its own militancy knows about them.”.
Declaration of independence
The day before the unilateral declaration of independence, a group close to Puigdemont tried to influence the then president. Given the possibility that he would call early elections instead of declaring independence, he received at the Palau de la Generalitat the then international head of Convergència, Víctor Terradellas, and several of his friends (just a few days before he had received the group, accompanied by two supposed emissaries from Moscow who promised Vladimir Putin's support for independence). In the chats seized by Judge Joaquín Aguirre, head of the investigating court number 1 of Barcelona, the intricacies of this unique and crazy story are narrated..
“They had guaranteed us a statement this afternoon from Gorbachev,” said one of the messages addressed to Puigdemont.. And money from China. We asked you to hurry up. At five o'clock Putin's emissary came. We are at the doors of the Palau. You must receive us. Delay it and give us time,” said a desperate message to the president. “I now have an appearance [before the press],” Puigdemont responded. “Well, you delay it. And we talked. Carles, Miquel and I are here, 50 meters from the Palau.”. And then he gave up: “Go up Canonges [one of the entrances to the Palau]”.
One of the people who were at the Palau de la Generalitat that afternoon relates that they were not the only visits that Puigdemont received.. Jordi Turull and Josep Rull also went to his office.. “Both were completely opposed to calling early elections and pressured Puigdemont to declare the independence of Catalonia,” says this source, who saw the two politicians in the Palau.
The not very epic escape
The president allowed himself to be guided by the siren songs of the independence movement and gave way, allowing independence to be approved in Parliament, in a vote in which only the independence parties voted in favor and in which PSC, Ciudadanos and PP They were absent from the chamber. Two days later, on October 29, Terradellas sent a letter to Puigdemont. “After your speech yesterday, now it's time to play and win the game of legitimacy, demonstrate our sense of State and control of the political moment. It is necessary to continue on this path and maintain leadership and command. Tomorrow, in Palau, it would be necessary to lower the Spanish flag and shield the building with a peaceful appeal to the population. It is necessary that you appoint the best Trapero again and order the Mossos to be there and this way we will also know their level of loyalty (many will be loyal to you and Trapero). Normal activity includes the signing of decrees and the dismissal of councilors who do not go to the department, as well as the appointment of substitutes as ministers.. Along these lines, we must appoint the attorney general of the republic of Catalonia (one name could be Santiago Vidal) and allocate 400 mossos to his service. The population is loyal to you and demands guidelines: above all, the associative fabric and the CDR”. Puigdemont, apparently, read the letter on his WhatsApp. But his legs became weak and he decided to flee Spain..
Despite the epic nature of these events, the story is periodically updated by groups, parties, entities and platforms with the aim of creating a heroic story of those fateful hours.. The Catalan National Assembly itself, radicalized in recent years, has taken a step forward and demands the “lifting of the declaration of independence”, which they consider “legitimate”.
ANC onslaught
The ANC itself participated this week in the 2023 Warsaw Human Dimension Conference of the OSCE, in which its representative, Jordi Vilanova, denounced “fabricated accusations and investigations into crimes related to terrorism by peaceful Catalan activists, which have become a practice usual of the Spanish authorities”. He was referring to the CDR command that was arrested in September 2019 and whose members seized manuals, political records, materials to make homemade explosives and a list of possible targets.. He emphasized the “criminalization of the Catalan independence movement”.
On October 1, the entity chaired by Dolors Feliu demanded “to make independence effective, frozen since October 2017.”. His strategy involves “lifting the DUI [unilateral declaration of independence] and making independence effective,” and into that corner he tries to drag Puigdemont to block any vote in Madrid..
The most radical ones attack, at the same time, against the leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, for speaking by telephone with the leader of the PSOE. “This character is pathetic. If you don't get in the way, it will burst,” an active militant criticized in a forum near Puigdemont.. “They negotiate among themselves to say what they should vote for. What a group of fakers,” responded another. But they brought up the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, for having commissioned an opinion on the possibilities of holding a referendum. Aragonés is described as “useless” and “retrograde”. “These characters are crazy… It seems like a farce of the worst quality,” said another activist, who was answered bluntly: “That's like asking the colonists if they want to lose the right to conquest.”. Do you know of any oppressed nation in the history of humanity that has freed itself from the colonists? With these enlightened ones they will even tear away all the stones from us.”
A well-known activist with several tens of thousands of followers remembered this week. “I don't know if we are aware that we are in the aperitif… and the entire tasting menu and desserts are missing,” he predicted, referring to the negotiations on the investiture and the PP counterattack against Sánchez.