Spain defies critics

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33963, 2 October 1975, Page 15

Spain defies critics

(N.Z PA -Reuter—Copyright) MADRID, October 1. A Government campaign against foreign reaction to the executions of five Spanish urban guerrillas will reach a crescendo today in a demonstration pledging Spain’s allegiance to General Francisco Franco. Similar rallies will take

place in most of Spain’s regional capitals and smaller cities.

They come after a television speech to the nation last night by the Prime Minister (Mr Carlos Arias Navarro) rejecting condemnation of the execution by firing squads on Saturday of two Basque and three Maoist guerrillas found guilty of killing policemen. Mr Arias said that his Government would not be intimidated by foreign pressure. “We do not want to be alone, but • isolation does not frighten us,” he added. The Prime Minister referred to the Helsinki European Security and Co-opera-tion Agreement, pledging

non-interference in the internal affairs of signatory States. “Hardly was the ink dry on the document when certain States who signed it, with an unlimited hypocrisy and an intolerably audacity, broke the pact by makihg judgments on matters that affect our judgment exclusively,” he said. Mr Arias singled out the Mexican Government, which has demanded Spain’s expulsion from the United Nations, for particular criticism. “The case of Mexico, which gave an indication of its concept of human rights with the shocking murders in the Three Cultures Plaza in 1968, is the clearest example of this repugnant farce,” he said. Shortly before the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, scores of students were gunned down by Mexican police during an anti-Govern-ment demonstration. Most of the Spanish media continued to present the foreign protests as aimed at Spain and not General Franco’s Government. Last night, Government supporters roamed Madrid streets spreading leaflets calling for a huge attendance at today’s demonstration in the central Plaza Oriente. One leaflet said: “What we want to cry to the four winds is that it will not be Mexican Indians, nor impoverished Portuguese, nor rich Dutchmen, nor Communist slaves

who will impose on us the path to follow.”

This referred to protests by Portugal, the Netherlands, and by the Mexican Government, and to an underlying theme of Government supporters that Communists are to blame for the anti-Spanish foreign campaign. Meanwhile, a two-day strike in the Basque country in protest against the executions of the two Basques was due to.end today. In San Sebastian, scuffles broke out when police prevented about 5000 people from attending a service for the two executed Basques, local sources said.