MADRID — A national breakup that was barely avoided a year ago is back with a vengeance as Catalonian separatists take another serious crack at breaking their ties with Spain.
Tensions between Catalonia’s secessionists and Spain’s central government are boiling over as Catalan regional authorities threaten to empty the jails and press for the release of independence leaders imprisoned by Madrid last year.
Spain’s central government has rushed hundreds of police reinforcement to the troubled region after Catalan President Quim Torra renewed calls for an “independent republic.” Hundreds of thousands of Catalans are expected to flood the streets of Barcelona on Tuesday, a traditionally fraught day on the calendar when independence-minded Catalonians mark the 1714 capture of Barcelona by Spanish forces.
“Our government has committed to making the republic a reality,” Mr. Torra told supporters in a televised address. “Long live free Catalonia!”
Pro- and anti-independence activists clashed the center of Barcelona in recent days. In one clash, a man suffered head injuries from beatings by truncheon-wielding militants. Fights have broken out regularly between secessionist supporters and Spanish unionist groups.
The revived tensions are all the more worrying, analysts say, because recent leadership changes in both the central and regional governments led to hopes for a negotiated settlement.
In Madrid, hard-line anti-secessionist Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was replaced in May by center-left socialist Pedro Sanchez, whose minority government relies in part on Catalan nationalist representatives in congress.
Mr. Torra took office this year after regional elections in which Catalan pro-independence parties held on to a precarious majority in the local parliament. He replaced Carles Puigdemont, who led last year’s independence bid and took asylum in Belgium to escape sedition charges brought by Mr. Rajoy’s government in October.
Mr. Sanchez has made concessions to Catalonia’s secessionists, lifting direct-rule provisions imposed by Mr. Rajoy and returning control of regional finances to the Catalan regional parliament. He transferred imprisoned independence leaders, including former Vice President Oriol Junqueras and regional police chief Joaquim Forn, to institutions in Catalonia to be closer to their families. He said he would allow a new referendum on broadening Catalonia’s regional autonomy.
But his efforts to find common ground have been met by a torrent of criticism from all sides.
Albert Rivera, leader of a rising conservative grouping called Ciudadanos (Citizens), which has a major following among pro-Madrid unionists in Catalonia, has accused Mr. Sanchez of seeking a “negotiated secession” by which the Spanish state would be reduced to an empty shell in Catalonia.
Conservatives are not alone in pressuring Mr. Sanchez to reassert the central government’s authority. Socialist leaders of Spain’s poorer regions who would be most affected by diminished revenue from Catalonia — one of the country’s most prosperous regions — have called on the prime minister to reactivate constitutional measures to seize back regional control.
Mr. Torra has said he will no longer accept rulings from Spain’s constitutional court. He has called on Catalans to start forming their own republic and is demanding the “free absolutions” of jailed pro-separatist officials awaiting trial on charges of rebellion.
Yellow ribbon battle
A campaign to saturate Catalonia’s streets with yellow ribbons — the symbol of regional resistance — to protest the detention of independence leaders has been countered by unionist groups, which have been ripping the ribbons off of lamp posts, trees, verandas and other public property.
Anti-independence activists in Catalonia say they are under continued harassment from the regional police and from Committees for the Defense of the Republic (CDRS). The group has waged social media campaigns against individuals and businesses considered hostile to independence.
In one shocking incident last week, a woman who was removing ribbons from a public park was punched in the face in front of her small children. A restaurant owner who ripped off yellow ribbons pinned on his windows and doorway found himself at the center of a social media bullying campaign accusing him of serving “rotten food.”
“Support for independence may not be growing, but the tendency of independence supporters to engage in violence has,” said Erik Encinas, publisher of the Catalan digital newspaper Mediterraneo. He said threats targeting independence opponents circulated on social media often are accompanied by personal information to indicate that they are being watched.
“Torra’s room for maneuver is very limited,” said Mr. Encinas, who sees the Catalan president as a “hostage” to radical left-wing separatists of the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) party, whose four representatives in the Catalan parliament provide the razor-thin majority for the ruling separatists.
According to Spain’s security services, documents linked to the CUP and the CDRS and intercepted phone conversations indicate that militant separatist groups are planning to paralyze Barcelona with a “permanent mobilization,” kicked off with Tuesday’s hoped-for massive pro-independence march.
Planned acts include a general strike and blocking access to airports, train stations, ports and border crossings.
“On 11 September, we fill The Diagonal” — one of the longest and widest avenues in the city — “and won’t move from there until obtaining liberty for prisoners and the return of exiles and the declaration of our independent republic,” according to a CDRS document obtained by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
Members of Spain’s Civil Guard say they don’t trust the capacity of the Catalan regional police to cope with a major uprising or outbreak of violence.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska announced that the Catalan regional police were being incorporated into Spain’s national anti-terrorist center after a meeting with Mr. Torra last week. Security analysts have blamed a lack of intelligence exchange for the deadly Islamic State attacks in Barcelona last year.
CUP and CDRS have denounced anti-immigrant movements from other parts of Europe such as Italy’s Northern League, which offered to join this week’s pro-independence march.
But CUP officials look to the socialist regime in Venezuela, where one of its leaders fled to escape arrest last year. CDRS militants have also said that their organization is modeled on neighborhood Committees for the Defense of Revolution first seen in Fidel Castro’s Cuba.
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