Word: madrid
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...motorcycle toss a bomb at an army staff car and speed away through the streets of Madrid: three people are killed in the blast, and a fourth, Lieut. General Joaquin Valenzuela, head of King Juan Carlos' personal guard, is badly wounded. Another high-ranking officer, General Andrés González de Suso, is gunned down at pointblank range outside his apartment in the capital, and a policeman dies in the ensuing chase. Almost simultaneously, two Civil Guards are murdered by terrorists in a Barcelona bar. The final toll: seven dead and 14 injured, most of them innocent...
...that fateful encounter. Far from being totally discredited after the coup, the country's ultra-conservative armed forces-unchanged and unbending since Francisco Franco's day-seem hardly affected. "Zero percent of the people here believe that the putsch failed," says a moderate politician in Madrid. "Some think it is still going on, and many believe it actually succeeded...
Unquestionably, the aborted coup attempt has transformed Spanish politics. Old issues-institutional reform, regional autonomy-have been swept aside for the time being; the balance of power among the parties has shifted. The government has launched an investigation into the coup conspiracy, but almost no one in Madrid expects major purges to follow. However dubious its loyalties, the army is too powerful to be punished and shunted out of political life. Instead, Spain's wary civilian leaders are seeking to pacify the generals, giving them, in effect, a silent veto in many areas of national policy. "We now have...
Prosecuting the coup leaders will probably change little. Currently, 29 officers are being held on charges of "armed rebellion"; conviction carries a 30-to 40-year sentence. According to leading lawyers in Madrid, however, most will be tried for the lesser crime of disobedience, mainly because they have threatened to drag King Juan Carlos into the proceedings by claiming that he had implied his approval of their attempted coup. The one exception is Tejero, whose actions in the Cortes were recorded by television cameras. Yet he too has managed to pull a triumph of sorts from his debacle...
...repression over the coming months, and they expect the generals to respond in character, probably by demanding some form of martial law. The resulting strains may be too much for the civilian government. "Everyone said we would have a difficult time when Franco died," says a senior official in Madrid, "but we have had a relatively comfortable time so far. Perhaps the real transition to democracy begins now." -By John Nielsen...