Resuscitating old ghosts

The interview recently given by the former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González to EL PAÍS, published on Sunday, is being used by the Popular Party (PP) to attack the Zapatero government, and in particular the deputy prime minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. The PP's arguments rest on an interpretation of Gonzalez's words that falsifies what he really said. At no point in the interview did he admit, implicitly or explicitly, to having been ultimately responsible for the dirty war against ETA, as the PP leaders argue, in order to serve their own interests. He admits, rather, to having been the one who tried to prevent the war from taking place.

As the courts established at the time, individuals occupying posts in the administration were responsible for crimes, for which they were convicted. But this does not mean that the state as such, in its institutional chain of command, had anything to do with the crimes.

To ignore this important qualification is not only to twist the meaning of what the courts then considered proven, but also to disregard the complex conditions prevailing in the transition from Franco's dictatorship to our present system of liberties. A dirty war existed before the González governments, and onward until 1986. If there were no episodes of it under the subsequent PP governments, this was simply because they found the sinister problem solved, not because their civic virtues were any greater than those of their predecessors.

The spurious reasons for which the PP now wishes to resuscitate the old ghosts of the dirty war, have to do with the only thing that seems to motivate it: the anxiety to attain power at any price. It did this when the courts began to investigate the dirty war (having remained silent when the war was going on), and its present intention is to do so once more.

But one essential circumstance has changed. At this moment the terrorist organization which - from the opposite side to that which attempted a right-wing coup in 1981 - unsuccessfully aimed at putting an end to the democratic system, is now in a situation of extreme weakness. To hark back to these old episodes is to give ETA a boost free of charge, all the more so when they are being used merely on the political level. If the PP is so certain that the remarks of ex-Prime Minister González are tantamount to a confession, it ought to take the matter to the courts, and not make hypocritical noises in front of microphones and cameras.

In view of the critical point at which the anti-terrorist struggle now stands, mere civic responsibility calls for recognition of the fact that the killers profit, among other things, from dissensions between the democratic political parties. The dissension that the PP is now trying to arouse benefits no one, except the terrorists.

It would seem unacceptable if, for the sake of electoral mileage, the Spanish democratic system were to lose this new opportunity to eliminate a blight that has plagued it since its origin, and has more than once placed it in tight corners in the course of its existence. It is in this sense exactly, and in no other, that the remarks of Felipe González were intended.