Word: madrid
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...support of the Basques, and other terrorists kidnapped West German Diplomat Eugen Beihl. Soon, outraged army officers were meeting to plan a counterattack. Well before Hostage Beihl's release last week on Christmas Day, the army's strategy became clear, as "spontaneous" pro-Franco rallies spread from Madrid to Santander and other cities...
...shops and banks shut down all over Madrid. Government offices closed, loosing a flood of loyal bureaucrats onto the streets. They joined blue-shirted youths carrying the black-and-red banners of the Falange, aging veterans proudly sporting their Spanish Civil War ribbons, and thousands of ordinary men and women. By high noon, an estimated 500,000 Madrileños had crowded into the broad Plaza de Oriente, which faces the imposing 18th century royal palace. For two hours, the mob waved banners-one read GOD SAVE US FROM WEAK GOVERNMENT-sang hymns, chanted Falangist slogans, and shot their right...
...focal point of the crisis was not in Madrid, but 130 miles away in Burgos. There in a military court 16 young radicals from Spain's northern Basque country are on trial on charges of assorted "separatist-terrorist-Communist activities." The 16 are members of the E.T.A. (for Euskadi at Askatusana-"Basque Land and Liberty" in Basque), a small, militant group of terrorists who profess to be fighting for local autonomy...
Hard-liners v. Technocrats. Never in Franco's rule had Spain's divisions been so deep or so public. The issue was not so much the Basques as the shape of post-Franco Spain itself. A rash of campus protests in Madrid and Barcelona nearly two years ago was all the excuse the generals needed to demand that Franco scuttle his five-year experiment in "liberalization" of state controls on the press, the labor unions and the universities-or face a military coup. There were signs last week that the hard-liners had summoned up the fading Falange...
Death sentences have been demanded for the six defendants who are charged with direct involvement in the 1968 case. The others face prison terms ranging from six to 80 years. Protests against the trial have poured into Madrid from Spain's bishops, from the Vatican, even from the commander of the Burgos military region. Some of Franco's own ministers are known to feel that the case, which is being tried in a military court and prosecuted on exceedingly slim evidence, can only lend credence to E.T.A. charges of "oppression against a people who were born...