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| Europe |
| Spain arrests top general |
| 2006-01-11 |
| Spanish Defense Minister Jose Bono has ordered the arrest of the commander of the army after he suggested using military force against the region of Catalonia. Lt. Gen. Jose Mena Aguado was placed under house arrest over the weekend after he said that the military would step in if the government granted greater autonomy to the northern region. Mena said there would be 'serious consequences' to such a move, El Mundo newspaper reported Monday. In September, Catalan regional government approved a new statute referring to Catalonia as a country and gives the province greater control of its judiciary and tax collection. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #7 My feeling is that if there's a coup, the Euro's going to be bouncing around a little. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2006-01-11 18:12 |
| #6 Don't know why my post was cut. I was going to tell that Allende was going to create a dicatorship sinxce he had not one chance in thousand to be reelected. He had agressions against opponents, violations of the Constitution, hostile newspapers closed (more exactly they got no paper), violations of the private ptoperty, ministers who no longer responded to Parliament. Zapatero is doing all of it, only thing lacking for now is Cuban coucelors. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-01-11 17:59 |
| #5 Spain is really fractured, and has been for a very long time. If you know a Catalan, he is not "Spanish" to his face. Nor are Basques. Others are more or less regional. BS: You should change your sentence to if you know a Catalan from the MSM To begin with, half of people in Catalonia originate from the rest of Spain. Why they don't vote for the PP? Because they are blue collars so they vote for the "party of the workerman" and this is controlled by the separatists. Then between the others there are many who are either don't share the separatist dream of politicians and the hate they try to induce or are< lucid enough about the real costs of catalanism: Barcelona was the first place for book edition for the whole of Spain+South-America, no longer and it has becaome poorer than Madrid. About what the general said, he spoke only about defending the constitution and the laws who is more or less wht he is sworn to defend just like American servicemen are sworn to defend the Constitution of the Unied Staers again all of its ennemies internal and external. And in Spain Constitution it is under attack. In fact Zapetero is legislating to control the press, to curb private property and to place Spanish economy under control of his friends. It happens that the Catalan separatists are threatening to tumble the Zapatero governement if they don't get what they want: a virtual independence: independent judiciary system (ie a Catalan supreme court would take final decisons not the Spanish supreme court) or the fact that Catalonia would decide how much it would contribute to the central governemnt. All of this is unconstitutional and because he doesn't have the majority needed to modify the Constitution Zapatero is trying to still have it approved without modifying the Constitution. Now Zaapptero is also doing other moves like putting the energy sector in hands of his good friends and having a law who would allow to close any radio or TV not liked by the Governmnt. And there are projects to force opinion web sites (ie blogs) to employ "real journalists" ie people owning a licence issued by the government, a licence who can be withdrawn. Zapatero has also legislated to force owners of vacant houses to give them for rent to a public organism otherwise they are fined. You also have agressions against acts organized by the opposition where police remains passive or ministers who refuse to answer questions of the Parlament despite mandated by the Constitution. Now just remember Chile just before Allende's |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-01-11 15:27 |
| #4 This just in - Generalismo Franco is still dead. |
| Posted by: Speretle Thitle4440 2006-01-11 12:22 |
| #3 Spain is really fractured, and has been for a very long time. If you know a Catalan, he is not "Spanish" to his face. Nor are Basques. Others are more or less regional. Only the dread of another hideous civil war keeps most of the Spanish people nationalistic, at least as far as "preserving the union". |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-01-11 08:30 |
| #2 They still remember the 1981 coup attempt, TW. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2006-01-11 08:09 |
| #1 This does not strike me as A Good Thing. But, in my ignorence, I can't decide whether it's because a general suggested making war on part of his own country, or because the government arrested him for voicing an opinion. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-01-11 07:42 |