January 1977, bourgeois democracy continues to advance along its agreed
path with Franco. A few months earlier, the law for political reform had
been signed, that is, a break agreed with the dictatorship from within
Franco's own legality. This law was approved after a referendum to the
people. In June 1977, the first democratic elections were held after the
dictatorship. They were called by Adolfo Suárez, president of the
government for the Falange, the sole party. After presenting himself as
a moderate and from a supposed center, he would win the elections and
govern in democracy, relegating to oblivion his past as a procurator of
the Francoist courts or as general secretary of the Falange Española
Tradicionalista and the JONS. Months before those elections, the
Communist Party had been legalized. Carrillo had agreed with Suárez to
pay homage to Juan Carlos I and the red and yellow flag in exchange for
legalisation. In addition, in that turbulent 1977, the ill-fated Moncloa
pacts would take place, through which political parties such as the PSOE
or the PCE and unions such as Comisiones and UGT ratified the transition
agreed with the dictatorship. The CNT was the only union that did not
sign these pacts.
In this context of political changes in the streets, fierce struggles
took place, from those seeking to expand freedoms with a complete break
with the dictatorship, to those seeking to curtail any hint of freedom.
The Francoist police, which had become democratic overnight by divine
revelation, played a transcendental role at that time. They had
agreements with paramilitary groups to play dirty tricks on them, which
they could no longer exercise with the same permissiveness as years
before, although as we will see throughout the series, they did not need
to hide too much.
Thus, in January of that turbulent year, the Spanish people took to the
streets to demand amnesty for the prisoners who were still rotting in
Franco's prisons. At the end of 1977, a law would be passed that would
allow many to leave prison, although not all. With all this context, on
January 23 a pro-amnesty demonstration was called in Madrid that did not
have government permits.
During the march through the city center, the police violently dispersed
the demonstrators. As they fled, dozens of armed far-right individuals
awaited them in the adjacent streets. There were members of Fuerza
Nueva, guerrillas of Cristo Rey or members of the Triple A (Alianza
Apostólica Anticomunista). Among those fleeing from the police was
Arturo Ruíz, a student from Granada who had emigrated to Madrid with his
family, when the fascist José Ignacio Fernández Guaza shot him twice,
killing him instantly. Arturo was only 19 years old. The confessed
murderer did not hesitate to point out years later the collusion between
the extreme right groups to which he belonged and the democratic bodies
of the state. In fact, in an interview he pointed out that he had worked
for the civil guard, killing members of ETA in the French state. The
sewers of the state exude such a stench that it is impossible not to
smell it.
The student movement to which Arturo belonged did not take long to
mobilise and on the morning of Monday 24 January, called a strike in
which 100,000 Madrid students participated. The astonishing thing about
the case is that more than 30,000 joined the university assemblies that
were called that same morning in the faculties. Among the decisions
taken was the decision to take to the streets again, this time in
protest against the murder of Arturo Ruíz. Thus, thousands of students
demonstrated again on Monday, January 24, after the morning assemblies.
The police began to repress the sporadic student march with the same
harshness as the day before. Thus, on Avenida José Antonio -the Gran Via
was still called that in honor of the founder of Falange, something
significant to say the least-, a police car cut off the passage of
several students. At the intersection with Calle de los Libreros, an
agent fired a smoke canister at point-blank range that hit Mari Luz
Nájera, a third-year Sociology student, directly in the head. The young
woman was left unconscious in a pool of blood.
Given the lack of help from the state repressors, a couple of students
carried the woman's body and took the first taxi they could to take her
to a first-aid station. Mari Luz Nájera was admitted to the Concepción
clinic at 1pm in a coma and with a head injury in the parietal-occipital
region. The paramedics could do nothing, except certify her death at 4.30pm.
This is how an eyewitness recounted the crime to the press:
"There was a group of us. A police car arrived nearby. An armed
policeman came down. He fired a gun. I felt something pass by my head.
Then the girl fell face downwards to the ground. It could have been a
smoke bomb, but there was no smoke."
To make matters worse, according to El País, some young people placed
some bricks in a circle around the blood-stained paving stones, as well
as a cross with two sticks and a rope that the neighbours threw to them.
Once the commemorative representation was created, three members of the
riot squads removed the bricks, threw away the cross and rubbed the
blood with their boots, to the anger of the students.
One of the young men who had taken Mari Luz to the Concepción clinic
would be arrested in relation to the case, although he would be released
hours later. It was the only arrest related to the crime. To this day,
the name of the policeman who ended the life of this neighbour of
Alameda de Osuna is not known. The cover-up between members of the force
shows that duty to the law is only used in one direction. Even so, if
this unknown criminal had been prosecuted, the most normal thing would
be that he would have been acquitted of reckless homicide, either for
fulfilling his duty or for some legal stratagem that safeguards the
shock forces when the repression gets out of hand, but in this case not
even that. Another aspect that is not usually questioned in such matters
is the higher responsibility that allows these weapons to be used.
Dozens of people have died in "democracy" as a result of them, not to
mention those who have lost eyes or suffered injuries of different
kinds. It is enough to remember the murder of Iñigo Cabacas in 2012 due
to a ball hit by the Ertzainza near San Mamés in Bilbao, during the
pre-match between Athletic Club and Schalke 04.
Returning to the case of Mari Luz Nájera, the parents went to the clinic
hours later to confirm that the deceased was their daughter. On leaving
the centre they berated the police for their responsibility. In later
interviews they pointed out that their daughter did not belong to any
political party and that they did not know that she was going to attend
that demonstration. The protest had other injuries of varying severity,
including José Francisco Galera, who was admitted in a coma due to the
police repression that day.
Without confirmation of Nájera's death yet, the police headquarters
issued a note that read as follows:
"Around 500 people gathered on Calle de La Estrella, where they were
dispersed by the armed police. José Antonio, Alberto Aguilera, San
Bernardo, Calle del Pez, San Ildelfonso, the Bilbao roundabout, the Ruiz
Jiménez roundabout and the streets of Puebla and Palma have been the
scene of groups that have ranged between 100 and 1,000 people and have
forced the forces of law and order to charge and fire smoke bombs and
rubber bullets. The demonstrators threw stones and blunt objects at the
vehicles and personnel of the Riot Squad. As a result of the violence,
twenty-year-old Mrs. María Luz Nájera Julián was injured and admitted to
the Concepción clinic with a broken jaw. Another eight people were
treated in different health centres with minor injuries. The police also
reported several injuries."
The coldness of the note, which did not indicate the real reason for
Mari Luz's broken jaw, is distressing, as is the attempt to create a
story of balanced confrontations between the two parties.
Nearly 3,000 people accompanied Mari Luz's family at the young woman's
burial in the new cemetery of Barajas. During the march they sang the
Internationale with their fists raised as they advanced through
buildings covered in black crepe in memory of the young student. Among
the messages, a banner stood out that read: "Mari Luz, your classmates
have not forgotten you."
The Complutense University, where she studied, suspended classes until
January 31 as a sign of mourning, something that the Autonomous
University and the Polytechnic University joined in with. This decision
was not well received by the organized students, nor by the non-tenured
professors, who considered it a unilateral measure that demobilized the
majority of the students. In the protests in front of the rector's
office over the decision taken, the police charged again, firing smoke
bombs and making several arrests. In reference to the murder of Mari
Luz, the Complutense Board issued the following statement:
"Once again this governing Board finds itself under the sad obligation
of making itself heard by public opinion to express its rejection of the
wave of violence that seems to want to take over the country. This
governing board asks for exemplary and prompt justice for the criminals
who in an intolerable way hinder the desired political development of
the Spanish people; it wishes that the public force respect the academic
environment and not act in it without the consent of the academic
authorities; it cordially invites professors and students not to lose
their serenity and to be an example of citizenship and not to allow
themselves to be used, in the University, for foreign purposes. This
board earnestly reiterates its request that this University be lifted
from the ungrateful condition of being a field of activity for political
parties and a center of gravity for ambitions that have nothing to do
with the function that justifies us before the society we want to serve.
We invite once again, and finally, all Spaniards to use their utmost
understanding to ward off the climate of moral and political violence
that seriously threatens the democratic and peaceful future that the
country desires and deserves."
And the crime against the Sociology student was not the only one that
occurred on that fateful 24th of January 1977. That night, the
well-known massacre of the labour lawyers of Atocha by three Fuerza
Nueva gunmen would take place. Five people would be killed and four more
would suffer gunshot wounds. In response to the various crimes, the
GRAPO decided to act by kidnapping General Villaescuesa, president of
the Supreme Council of Military Justice and killing two policemen and a
civil guard days later, thus closing the black week in Madrid. General
Villaescusa would be released a few weeks later.
In honour of the memory of Mari Luz Nájera, the Alameda de Osuna
neighbourhood association tried to name a park in the Barajas
neighbourhood after her, something that was rejected in 1988, although
they finally achieved their objective in 2007. In turn, the assembly
hall of the Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology of the
Complutense, where she studied, bears the name of this young woman
murdered by the police in January 1977. To this day, it remains a crime
of which only the murderer, his co-workers and perhaps some police or
political superior know the authorship.
Before closing, I would like to recommend the film Siete días de enero
by Juan Antonio Bardem, a 1979 film that recalls that black week in
Madrid. On the other hand, in 2024 the documentary Las armas no borrarán
tu sonrisa has been released, focused on the story of Arturo Ruiz,
although it also deals with other crimes of the transition such as that
of Mari Luz Nájera.
Porque eran somos, porque somos será.
Andrés Cabrera, militant of Impulso.
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/podcast/mari-luz-najera-y-la-semana-negra-de-madrid-episodio-tres/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
path with Franco. A few months earlier, the law for political reform had
been signed, that is, a break agreed with the dictatorship from within
Franco's own legality. This law was approved after a referendum to the
people. In June 1977, the first democratic elections were held after the
dictatorship. They were called by Adolfo Suárez, president of the
government for the Falange, the sole party. After presenting himself as
a moderate and from a supposed center, he would win the elections and
govern in democracy, relegating to oblivion his past as a procurator of
the Francoist courts or as general secretary of the Falange Española
Tradicionalista and the JONS. Months before those elections, the
Communist Party had been legalized. Carrillo had agreed with Suárez to
pay homage to Juan Carlos I and the red and yellow flag in exchange for
legalisation. In addition, in that turbulent 1977, the ill-fated Moncloa
pacts would take place, through which political parties such as the PSOE
or the PCE and unions such as Comisiones and UGT ratified the transition
agreed with the dictatorship. The CNT was the only union that did not
sign these pacts.
In this context of political changes in the streets, fierce struggles
took place, from those seeking to expand freedoms with a complete break
with the dictatorship, to those seeking to curtail any hint of freedom.
The Francoist police, which had become democratic overnight by divine
revelation, played a transcendental role at that time. They had
agreements with paramilitary groups to play dirty tricks on them, which
they could no longer exercise with the same permissiveness as years
before, although as we will see throughout the series, they did not need
to hide too much.
Thus, in January of that turbulent year, the Spanish people took to the
streets to demand amnesty for the prisoners who were still rotting in
Franco's prisons. At the end of 1977, a law would be passed that would
allow many to leave prison, although not all. With all this context, on
January 23 a pro-amnesty demonstration was called in Madrid that did not
have government permits.
During the march through the city center, the police violently dispersed
the demonstrators. As they fled, dozens of armed far-right individuals
awaited them in the adjacent streets. There were members of Fuerza
Nueva, guerrillas of Cristo Rey or members of the Triple A (Alianza
Apostólica Anticomunista). Among those fleeing from the police was
Arturo Ruíz, a student from Granada who had emigrated to Madrid with his
family, when the fascist José Ignacio Fernández Guaza shot him twice,
killing him instantly. Arturo was only 19 years old. The confessed
murderer did not hesitate to point out years later the collusion between
the extreme right groups to which he belonged and the democratic bodies
of the state. In fact, in an interview he pointed out that he had worked
for the civil guard, killing members of ETA in the French state. The
sewers of the state exude such a stench that it is impossible not to
smell it.
The student movement to which Arturo belonged did not take long to
mobilise and on the morning of Monday 24 January, called a strike in
which 100,000 Madrid students participated. The astonishing thing about
the case is that more than 30,000 joined the university assemblies that
were called that same morning in the faculties. Among the decisions
taken was the decision to take to the streets again, this time in
protest against the murder of Arturo Ruíz. Thus, thousands of students
demonstrated again on Monday, January 24, after the morning assemblies.
The police began to repress the sporadic student march with the same
harshness as the day before. Thus, on Avenida José Antonio -the Gran Via
was still called that in honor of the founder of Falange, something
significant to say the least-, a police car cut off the passage of
several students. At the intersection with Calle de los Libreros, an
agent fired a smoke canister at point-blank range that hit Mari Luz
Nájera, a third-year Sociology student, directly in the head. The young
woman was left unconscious in a pool of blood.
Given the lack of help from the state repressors, a couple of students
carried the woman's body and took the first taxi they could to take her
to a first-aid station. Mari Luz Nájera was admitted to the Concepción
clinic at 1pm in a coma and with a head injury in the parietal-occipital
region. The paramedics could do nothing, except certify her death at 4.30pm.
This is how an eyewitness recounted the crime to the press:
"There was a group of us. A police car arrived nearby. An armed
policeman came down. He fired a gun. I felt something pass by my head.
Then the girl fell face downwards to the ground. It could have been a
smoke bomb, but there was no smoke."
To make matters worse, according to El País, some young people placed
some bricks in a circle around the blood-stained paving stones, as well
as a cross with two sticks and a rope that the neighbours threw to them.
Once the commemorative representation was created, three members of the
riot squads removed the bricks, threw away the cross and rubbed the
blood with their boots, to the anger of the students.
One of the young men who had taken Mari Luz to the Concepción clinic
would be arrested in relation to the case, although he would be released
hours later. It was the only arrest related to the crime. To this day,
the name of the policeman who ended the life of this neighbour of
Alameda de Osuna is not known. The cover-up between members of the force
shows that duty to the law is only used in one direction. Even so, if
this unknown criminal had been prosecuted, the most normal thing would
be that he would have been acquitted of reckless homicide, either for
fulfilling his duty or for some legal stratagem that safeguards the
shock forces when the repression gets out of hand, but in this case not
even that. Another aspect that is not usually questioned in such matters
is the higher responsibility that allows these weapons to be used.
Dozens of people have died in "democracy" as a result of them, not to
mention those who have lost eyes or suffered injuries of different
kinds. It is enough to remember the murder of Iñigo Cabacas in 2012 due
to a ball hit by the Ertzainza near San Mamés in Bilbao, during the
pre-match between Athletic Club and Schalke 04.
Returning to the case of Mari Luz Nájera, the parents went to the clinic
hours later to confirm that the deceased was their daughter. On leaving
the centre they berated the police for their responsibility. In later
interviews they pointed out that their daughter did not belong to any
political party and that they did not know that she was going to attend
that demonstration. The protest had other injuries of varying severity,
including José Francisco Galera, who was admitted in a coma due to the
police repression that day.
Without confirmation of Nájera's death yet, the police headquarters
issued a note that read as follows:
"Around 500 people gathered on Calle de La Estrella, where they were
dispersed by the armed police. José Antonio, Alberto Aguilera, San
Bernardo, Calle del Pez, San Ildelfonso, the Bilbao roundabout, the Ruiz
Jiménez roundabout and the streets of Puebla and Palma have been the
scene of groups that have ranged between 100 and 1,000 people and have
forced the forces of law and order to charge and fire smoke bombs and
rubber bullets. The demonstrators threw stones and blunt objects at the
vehicles and personnel of the Riot Squad. As a result of the violence,
twenty-year-old Mrs. María Luz Nájera Julián was injured and admitted to
the Concepción clinic with a broken jaw. Another eight people were
treated in different health centres with minor injuries. The police also
reported several injuries."
The coldness of the note, which did not indicate the real reason for
Mari Luz's broken jaw, is distressing, as is the attempt to create a
story of balanced confrontations between the two parties.
Nearly 3,000 people accompanied Mari Luz's family at the young woman's
burial in the new cemetery of Barajas. During the march they sang the
Internationale with their fists raised as they advanced through
buildings covered in black crepe in memory of the young student. Among
the messages, a banner stood out that read: "Mari Luz, your classmates
have not forgotten you."
The Complutense University, where she studied, suspended classes until
January 31 as a sign of mourning, something that the Autonomous
University and the Polytechnic University joined in with. This decision
was not well received by the organized students, nor by the non-tenured
professors, who considered it a unilateral measure that demobilized the
majority of the students. In the protests in front of the rector's
office over the decision taken, the police charged again, firing smoke
bombs and making several arrests. In reference to the murder of Mari
Luz, the Complutense Board issued the following statement:
"Once again this governing Board finds itself under the sad obligation
of making itself heard by public opinion to express its rejection of the
wave of violence that seems to want to take over the country. This
governing board asks for exemplary and prompt justice for the criminals
who in an intolerable way hinder the desired political development of
the Spanish people; it wishes that the public force respect the academic
environment and not act in it without the consent of the academic
authorities; it cordially invites professors and students not to lose
their serenity and to be an example of citizenship and not to allow
themselves to be used, in the University, for foreign purposes. This
board earnestly reiterates its request that this University be lifted
from the ungrateful condition of being a field of activity for political
parties and a center of gravity for ambitions that have nothing to do
with the function that justifies us before the society we want to serve.
We invite once again, and finally, all Spaniards to use their utmost
understanding to ward off the climate of moral and political violence
that seriously threatens the democratic and peaceful future that the
country desires and deserves."
And the crime against the Sociology student was not the only one that
occurred on that fateful 24th of January 1977. That night, the
well-known massacre of the labour lawyers of Atocha by three Fuerza
Nueva gunmen would take place. Five people would be killed and four more
would suffer gunshot wounds. In response to the various crimes, the
GRAPO decided to act by kidnapping General Villaescuesa, president of
the Supreme Council of Military Justice and killing two policemen and a
civil guard days later, thus closing the black week in Madrid. General
Villaescusa would be released a few weeks later.
In honour of the memory of Mari Luz Nájera, the Alameda de Osuna
neighbourhood association tried to name a park in the Barajas
neighbourhood after her, something that was rejected in 1988, although
they finally achieved their objective in 2007. In turn, the assembly
hall of the Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology of the
Complutense, where she studied, bears the name of this young woman
murdered by the police in January 1977. To this day, it remains a crime
of which only the murderer, his co-workers and perhaps some police or
political superior know the authorship.
Before closing, I would like to recommend the film Siete días de enero
by Juan Antonio Bardem, a 1979 film that recalls that black week in
Madrid. On the other hand, in 2024 the documentary Las armas no borrarán
tu sonrisa has been released, focused on the story of Arturo Ruiz,
although it also deals with other crimes of the transition such as that
of Mari Luz Nájera.
Porque eran somos, porque somos será.
Andrés Cabrera, militant of Impulso.
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/podcast/mari-luz-najera-y-la-semana-negra-de-madrid-episodio-tres/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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