When Canaries Sing Rebel Songs

Spain's awkward squad has just got bigger. The latest member to join the rebel souls of Catalonia and the are-they-aren't-they's in the Basque Country is the Canary Islands which, cast adrift in the Atlantic, originally Berber African rather than Spanish, were not fully brought under the control of Castile until 1495, a necessity to facilitate the use of the islands as a stopover for Columbus's voyages. The distance from Spain makes the Canaries a curiosity of colonialism contemporised within a framework of nationhood; it's as though Iceland were a part of the UK or was still a dependency of Denmark. Far away, there is none of the geographical umbilicism that hauls the Balearics towards Barcelona and Valencia while the political cord - the current one - has been twisted; accord between Santa Cruz and Las Palmas and Madrid has been ruptured, whereas the bond between Palma and Madrid remains, generally, harmonious.

One says generally, but the Balearics have their disagreements with Madrid. Financing and oil are the two most prominent, but presidential protests are ones that play to a Balearics gallery with a plot hidden behind the act; Bauzá's ambitions to tread the corridors of Madrid power may still exist, even if they have been weakened by too much hamming it up to his Balearics audience and by his being Brutus to the Madrid-admired Caesar of Mateo Isern. By contrast, the president of the Canaries, Paulino Rivero, has no such need for the duplicitousness of the staged political plot as he owes no debt to masters in Madrid. Paulino, his party - the Coalición Canaria - indeed the whole of Canaries politics at present are symbolic of the islands' remoteness; they are as though there has been a separate development.

Rivero's political interests were initially pursued within Adolfo Suarez's post-Franco democratic union coalition. He then moved on to something called the Agrupación Tinerfeña de Independientes (Tenerife independents), a party that had links to Francoism. This then became part of a Canaries-wide independence party and ultimately became what it now is - the Coalición Canaria, an unlikely conglomeration of Canaries' nationalists, ex-commies and right-wingers. Notwithstanding the former communist element, the coalition can best be described as centre-right with its unifying theme being that of Canaries' nationalism. If one were to look for a Mallorcan comparison, it would be that of the now defunct Unió Mallorquina.

Remote from the Spanish mainland, the Canaries find themselves divorced from the political mainstream in a similar fashion to Catalonia. But unlike Catalonia, there is no agitation for independence. Instead, Paulino and his nationalist coalition seek specific rebel causes. One of these had been the oil prospecting, until Repsol discovered that the oil was far from being black gold and ceased its exploration. The coalition were not left as rebels without a cause, though. They had another one. AENA.

The government in the Canaries has taken the matter of AENA's privatisation to the Supreme Court, and it has accepted the Canaries' request to look into a Canaries' demand that the privatisation is suspended. The justification for this is two-fold. One, was an acknowledgement of a lower court that a meeting of the commission overseeing affairs between the Canaries and the state had not been called to address the management of airports in the Canaries. The second was the notice that the Canaries Government had issued in July last year of a widening of powers under its statutes of autonomy in the event that the state ceases to have direct management of airports. What this all boils down to is the fact that the Canaries Government wants to have management of its eight airports, two of which - Gran Canaria and Tenerife South - are treated by AENA in the same way as Palma in that their taxes are the same.

It is difficult to see how the privatisation could be suspended given that shares are now on the market, but the court could, in principle, agree with the Canaries' argument. AENA, for its part, says that direct state management hasn't ceased because national government still holds a majority of shares. But whatever the outcome, there is a marked difference between the Canaries and the Balearics. The Bauzá government has mumbled about having management of the airports, and especially Palma, but has done absolutely nothing about it. Rivero has, and one can attribute this to the fact that, unlike Bauzá and the Balearics PP, he and his coalition are independent of Madrid. As such, one can argue that Rivero is genuinely sticking up for regional interests, whereas Bauzá merely alludes to them.

Even if the court dismisses the Canaries' claim, the point will have been made, and it is one that goes to the heart of state-regions' relationships and political associations. The Canaries can sing rebel songs, while the Balearics hum, not having the courage to sing the words.

MALLORCA TODAY - Electricity prices going up again

Thanks to a Supreme Court ruling in favour of electricity providers Endesa and Iberdrola, a freezing of electricity prices, as applied to the TUR (which translates literally as the tariff of last resort and is one that a majority of households have), has in effect been judged unlawful (it was the government that insisted on it). This means invoices for the last quarter of last year will have to be recalculated and will result in a 6% rise in the price of electricity.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Garzón acquitted on Franco investigation charge

The Spanish Supreme Court has, by a majority of six to one, absolved Judge Baltasar Garzón of being guilty of an abuse of position in seeking to open investigations of war crimes committed during the Franco era. The case had been driven by the far-right union Manos Limpias. The decision does not mean Garzón can return to office as he was found guilty of exceeding his powers in respect of the wire-tapping of suspects and lawyers to do with the corruption case, "caso Gürtel".

Here Come Da Judge: The Garzón affair

In a café - Spanish - the other afternoon, the television was on. Nothing unusual in this. What was, was what was on. There was a platform of serious-looking speakers. Sounds dull? A party conference maybe? No. It transfixed me. This was an event in support of a judge. It is difficult to imagine a conference either taking place, let alone being televised, in support of "m'lud" in England. But this is Spain.

The event was organised by two of the main unions. Those from the world of the arts and culture were on hand as well to show support for Baltasar Garzón, the most celebrated of Spain's investigating judges.

Back in October 2008, Garzón announced that he was ordering an investigation into crimes committed by the Franco regime. As part of this investigation, graves were due to be dug up. The Spanish attorney-general opposed the investigation, and ultimately Garzón was ordered to call it off. But it didn't stop there. He is now being investigated by the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (supreme court) in Madrid, accused of "prevaricación" (that word again), manipulating the course of justice and even of some financial wrongdoing. Under the terms of the amnesty of 1977, it is argued (with justification), that Garzón had no right to go around digging up the past.

That he may have exceeded his powers, for which a formal slap on the wrist might have been thought sufficient, has not stopped a process of bringing him to book, one inspired mainly by the far-right in Spain, including the Falange. Didn't know that the Falange still existed? Well they do. The leader of the centre-right Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, called the conference in support of Garzón "anti-democratic". The actions of the supreme court have been described, by the left, as "fascist". Forces across the political spectrum are adopting their positions in respect of a judge who, in theory at any rate, acts independently of politics.

For some, Garzón is getting his rightful comeuppance. Others will be revelling in the schadenfreude of a judge with such international celebrity being investigated. Yet more will see the case as an attack on judges' independence. Garzón has not exactly been reticent in courting his celebrity, which, in itself, may be a problem with the system of investigating judges. His attempt to extradite Pinochet was, and remains, his best-known moment in the international spotlight, and international is apt as he seems wedded to the notion of international jurisdiction, something that the Spanish Government has acted to limit.

There is a line of argument that Garzón, in seeking to investigate Franco's crimes, was acting in accordance with law on human rights. The amnesty of 1977 not only heralded a period of collective national amnesia it also undermined any attempt at indicting those who had committed atrocities. This may have suited the immediate post-Franco Spain, but it can also be argued that it left a festering sore, one that has been opened - politically - by the current administration's law on historic memory. An amnesty, so one view has it, cannot rule out a requirement to investigate when the issue of human rights is at stake.

But more than anything, and notwithstanding the accusations against Garzón that he exceeds his powers and is over-zealous, the current case against him highlights the hold that the Franco period still has over Spain. Additionally, one can set the Garzón affair within the context of the spate of corruption allegations. Despite claims that these have been politically motivated, independent investigators are crucial to the exercise of Spanish democracy. If politicians, by their indiscretions, cannot adequately support that democracy, then the judges have to do it for them. A curb on their powers, and this is how one can assess the Garzón affair, might be welcomed in certain quarters, but those powers have never been more important than at present in rooting out the malaise that weakens democratic institutions.

Garzón did go too far. That is the problem. Perhaps he felt emboldened by a political atmosphere, one created by the law on historic memory and not averse to rummaging through the Francoist past. This would have been his first mistake, as it would have politicised, albeit indirectly, his investigation. It may sound unpalatable to those who seek to right the wrongs of the Franco period, but his second mistake was in choosing the wrong investigation and in lining himself up against some still powerful, one might even say dark, forces. And for this, he may end up stripped of his powers. A question will be, will others?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.