Cold Weather in Spain

 

Madrid woke up last week to heavy snow as Spain suffered its coldest weather for fifty years. Indeed, a record was made and broken just 24 hours later by another, even colder measurement (in the Picos de Europa, León: minus 35.6ºC). On Monday, the weather people were saying that, in general, things were due to get even worse across Spain until perhaps Thursday 14th January. It is, of course, all the politicians fault.

The joke going around says ‘After just one year of commie-rule in Spain, Madrid is looking a lot like Moscow’. In fact, with 60cms of snow last Saturday, it looked worse than the Russian capital – no trains, buses or, barely, cars. One fellow was photographed (videos) skiing down the Avenida de la Castellana.  Reddit/Spain has lots of pictures featuring snow.

Many foreigners are surprised by these extremes, fondly imagining Spain to be warm all year round. In fact, since almost all of the country is elevated (the average height above sea level is 660m says Wiki), away from the costas, we tend to enjoy bubbling heat in the high summer and perishing cold in mid-winter.

As for Global Warming (what, with these freezing days?), it’s ‘perfectly reconcilable’ with  Climate Change says the ABC here – and anyway, just to make the point, it’s hot in Australia right now..

To make bad things even worse, the price of electric rose sharply (except in Barcelona, where the service is a publicly-owned company). Schools have to keep their windows open (Covid rules) and the army was called in to help volunteers clear the streets. Indeed, even Pablo Casado managed a brief photo-shoot in Madrid as he shovelled some snow.  

Gib Joins the Schengen Area

From Bloomberg (partial paywall) here: ‘Gibraltar Dodges Hard Brexit After Spain and UK Reach Accord. Spain and the UK struck a last-minute deal over Gibraltar that eases access to the territory and removes the threat of fresh restrictions at the border with the European Union following Britain’s departure from the bloc on January 1st.

A preliminary agreement was reached that would help build “shared prosperity,” Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya told reporters on Thursday. The territory will operate under passport-free Schengen terms, she said, adding that the final agreement is expected to come into force within six months…’. 

‘Gibraltar hails 'historic day' as last-minute deal greeted with relief’ says The Guardian here.

From the HM Govenment comes a statement from the British Foreign Secretary. 

Meanwhile, the increasingly rightist El Mundo, helpfully compares it to the fall of the Berlin Wall (!). 

It does seem a bit odd, as the United Kingdom leaves the EU, that a small corner of it goes in the other direction. Spain will henceforth be responsible for who can visit Gibraltar. 

 

Brexit Christmas

I'm dreaming of a blue passport,
Just like the ones I used to know.
Where I need a Visa,
to visit Pisa,
And there is nowhere I can go.
I am dreaming of a blue passport,
now that we've got our country back.
May our future be dreary
...and shite,
and may all our citizens be white ..

The Western Sahara, Israel and Donald Trump

 

What’s the deal with the Western Sahara? It was one of Spain’s possessions in northern Africa, and, following the peculiar Green March of November 1975 (Wiki) as Franco agonised on his death bed – when 350,000 Moroccans advanced several kilometres into the territory – the region was finally ceded, not to its inhabitants, but to two of the neighbouring countries: Morocco and Mauretania (which dropped its claims in 1989 - Wiki).

Morocco occupied most of the territory, claiming it as a Moroccan province, but was faced with both the indigenous Sahrawi population, who wanted independence; neighbouring Algeria, who supported the armed Sahrawi Polisario movement; and certain international agencies that supported the indigenous peoples, culminating in the proposal of an UN-backed referendum (rumours had the Moroccans filling up the region with somewhat unwilling settlers to help along the eventual vote), which so far, has never been held.

While Morocco claims various bits of its territory held by the Spanish and known in Spain as ‘plazas de soberanía’ (Wiki) – off-lying islets like Perejil, the Chafarinas islands and the isthmus of La Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (1.9 hectares in size, with a small military presence), and more importantly, Melilla and Ceuta and even the Canary Islands for future discord, the larger and easier prize of the rich-in-resources Western Sahara (it’s about half the size of Morocco) has kept that country distracted.

The Spanish have quietly ignored the plight of the Sahrawi people, beyond inviting many of their children to stay in private homes in Spain during the summer, as the Americans were in support of the status quo. There are sound business reasons for doing so.

Suddenly, last week, the outgoing president Donald Trump gave his nation’s official recognition of Morocco’s claim to the region (in exchange for Rabat recognizing Israel as a nation). Minutes later, the proposed meeting for Thursday December 17th between President Sánchez and King Mohammed VI to discuss illegal immigration was dropped.  

The Americans had been involved with the Western Sahara issue from the beginning, and it’s known that Henry Kissinger influenced Juan Carlos I to drop Spain’s claim on the region as ‘the Green March began and Franco slipped into a coma’ (Atalayar here).

With Trump’s ‘surprise’ recognition of the Moroccan claim, the Spanish media went into a frenzy (here).  elDiario.es says that the USA has favoured Morocco for the past 45 years, while Ejercito warns of the ‘imminent regional military supremacy’ of the Moroccans as ‘a grave problem for Spain’. The Moroccan air force, for example, is equipped with ‘better fighters’.

The British quickly backed the American view (‘to isolate Spain on the Sahara question’ says El Español), while Russia (and Sweden) just as quickly rejected the policy.  

De Verdad Digital explains here that the American master-plan is to ease tension between Israel and the Arab nations while trampling on the rights of the powerless (‘…the Sahrawis and the Palestinians are twinned in ignominy…’).

In Morocco, ‘Jewish history and culture have both returned to the school-books’ says Israel Hayom here, and the ‘great plan’ of Mohammed VI to bring fertile growth back to the dry desert with Israeli technology is the subject of an article in El Español here.

The American ambassador to Rabat gave a framed map of the expanded Morocco to the Moroccan king last Saturday (here) and we end with an article from the Spanish-language Sahrawi newspaper EcSaharaui titled ‘Noam Chomsky: Trump makes the criminal occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco, official’. 

 

Later: The Americans announced over Christmas that they will shortly be opening a consulate in the Western Sahara (here).  Meanwhile, the Moroccan President Saadeddine Othmani is now openly claiming Melilla and Ceuta as theirs, to the firm indignation of the Spanish Government.

‘26 million sons of bitches’

Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.

—

Herman Melville 1819-1891

Perhaps a ‘nobody’ – a person who doesn’t run a company or have a high position or is not a teacher, a priest or an ‘influencer’ – can get away with making outrageous claims in public or on the Social Media, but can a retired Air force brigadier?

On the one side, we have two open letters sent to King Felipe VI by a number of senior retired members of the military (112 of them in all) complaining about the ‘social-communist’ government and the threat to national unity, on the other, there’s the WhatsApp chat of their circle which includes some over-the-top suggestions, like ‘executing 26 million Spaniards’ (i.e., those who support the current Government).

‘Spain’s Defence Minister, Margarita Robles, has sent prosecutors at the Madrid regional High Court information about the chat group that supports military uprisings and mass executions’. El País in English has the story here. No doubt it’s all just a jocular and high-spirited discussion without any evil intent. The problem being that the subscribers are all senior military, retired perhaps, but certainly influencers.

While this might be a storm in a tea-cup, it has certainly attracted a lot of interest from the media.

The Guardian, commenting on Sunday’s Constitution Day celebrations, leads with ‘Spain marks 42 years since return of democracy as retired officers dissent’. The subheading says ‘…Some former armed forces members rue the demise of Franco dictatorship’.

Again, influencers, by their very nature, influence (especially those who naturally tend towards this kind of talk).

InfoLibre broke the WhatsApp story last week. Quotes from their article include the comment from an air-force general ‘There's no alternative but to start shooting these 26 million sons of bitches’ and another says ‘I woke up this morning totally convinced. I don't want these scoundrels to lose an election. No. I want them all and their descendents to die. That is what I want. Is it too much to ask?’ and another ‘Just give me the order… and that’s what I want to say to the king’ then there’s an audio from Santiago Abascal: ‘They tell me that it is mandatory to greet this group. A hug to all and Long live Spain!’.

How about this: ‘I prefer the Republic because we would have more opportunities to repeat the manoeuvres of 1936’?

The RTVE, leading with ‘The retired servicemen had called to "join forces with Abascal" against that "son of a bitch with pigtails" (Pablo Iglesias) and "that Sánchez bastard", has a video and more clips from the conversation here.

LaSer has a copy of a manifesto signed by 400 retired senior servicemen which begins ‘Declaration of Retired Military Figures Facing the Current Situation in Spain’.

This is what happens when you move General Franco’s remains from the Valle de los Caídos (Wiki).   

The first letter to the king – who hasn’t either answered or apparently reacted to date – warns of the annihilation of democracy (we must thank Okdiario for this) with the explanation that ‘The latest government attacks on the pillars of Spanish democracy have mobilized a large group of soldiers in the reserve…’.

Something called Brave New Europe has an article called: ‘Proud Fascists of the Spanish Army’s Officers Corp’. As one might expect from the headline, it pulls no punches.

El Español on the other hand, considers the events as ‘sabre rattling’ and without more importance (while introducing the general reader to two of the ringleaders). We read that ‘The Defence Minister Margarita Robles indicated this Friday that the members of these groups "are not active in the military, [but] they want to sow hatred and endanger the monarchy."’. The Spanish Chief of Staff (JEMAD), General Miguel Ángel Villarroya, also spoke on Friday, saying "the opinions of these people cannot be considered representative of the military community".

A radio editorial from Àngels Barceló (LaSer) says that ‘They are not military nostalgics, they are supporters of the extreme right. There’s no joking with this. Neither with flirting with executions, bombings or military coups nor with encouraging these calls or identifying these soldiers as “our people”, as a Vox politician did’.

‘Pablo Casado: "The function of the king is a function of absolute impartiality as a symbol of the State and in the case of Don Felipe that impartiality has been absolutely scrupulous", says the leader of the PP’ here.

(El País in English again): ‘…Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias has played down the relevance of the statements. “What a few retired gentlemen might say in a chat group after too many drinks does not pose any kind of threat”, he said in a TV interview, adding that the letters put Felipe VI in “an absurdly uncomfortable situation” and that he will surely not even bother to read them’.

 

Then, on Sunday, a third letter attacking the Government arrived at the Zarzuela Palace, this time sent by reservists from Mallorca…