Terra Lliure
Leaders
Dates of operation1978-1995
  • 1979 (start of operations)
  • 1985 (arrest of major leaders)
  • 1992 (Operation Garzón)
  • 1995 (dissolution)
Split fromPSAN[1]
Group(s)MDT (political wing)
Active regions
Ideology
Allies
OpponentsSpain Spain

Terra Lliure (Eastern Calatan: [ˈtɛrə ˈʎiwɾə], "Free Land"), sometimes referred to as TLL, was a Catalan nationalist[6] far-left[5] Marxist-Leninist[3] paramilitary group. Formed in 1978, the group carried out hundreds of attacks that left many people injured and five dead (four of them members of the organization after the explosion of the artifact they were manipulating in three separate incidents).[7][8][9]

Terra Lliure, became known to the public with a protest at a mass meeting at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona in 1981. An important police raid in 1991 and the renunciation of violence by some of the group members led to the dissolution of Terra Lliure in 1995. After disbanding, many members joined the political party Republican Left of Catalonia.[10] During the most active period of its activity it was considered a terrorist organization by Spanish[11][12] and European courts,[13] Spanish press, and at least parts of the Catalan press.[14][11][15]

Ideology

Terra Lliure was described as a Marxist, nationalist and a separatist organization that sought to establish an independent Catalan state.[3] Founded during the period of Spanish transition to democracy, Terra Lliure decried what it considered to be a persistence of anti-Catalan discrimination and state violence.[16] It was placed on the far-left fringe of Catalan political forces and sought to be an imitiation of Basque Euskadi Ta Askatasuna and became a bridge between Catalan anarchists and nationalists.[5] In its 1981 Declaration of Principles, Terra Lliure described itself as a movement that "fights to defend the land, the language, national sovereignty, the interests of workers and against the Spanishization of Catalan society".[1]

Politically, Terra Lliure emerged from a split in the Socialist Party of National Liberation (Catalan: Partit Socialista d’Alliberament Nacional dels Països Catalans, PSAN), a pro-independence party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology created in 1969 and based in Catalonia and the Valencian Community, and the Independentists of the Catalan Countries (Catalan: Independentistes dels Països Catalans, IPC) party, which emerged in Catalonia and was the result of a split in the PSAN in 1979. In July 1984, the Movement for Defence of the Land (Catalan: Moviment de Defensa de la Terra, MDT) was formed, another Catalan pro-independence left-wing party that integrated these two parties and became the political arm of Terra Lliure. Terra Lliure's objectives, made explicit and explained in its internal bulletins called Alerta, were: independence, socialism and the reunification of the "Països Catalans", a cultural entity comprising the Principality of Catalonia, the Valencian Country, the Balearic Islands, as well as its bordering areas (the so-called Catalunya Nord to the north and the Franja to the west).[4] Terra Lliure argued that only Catalan independence can protect its culture and bring about socialism, while rejecting autonomismo (autonomism) and sucursalismo ("sectionalism", a regional political party's dependence on the central party).[2]

History

In the 1960s, a new generation of anti-Franco activists reshaped Catalanism and separatism. In 1968, the Socialist Party of National Liberation (Catalan: Partit Socialista d’Alliberament Nacional dels Països Catalans, PSAN) was founded, which combined Marxist revolutionary ideology with Catalan separatism. PSAN took anti-colonial struggles and third-world anti-imperialist nationalism as its model for Catalan separatism. The party grew increasingly divided during the Spanish transition of democracy, with many left-wing radical, revolutional socialist, but also moderate and reformist currents emerging. Terra Liure was founded in 1978 by a small faction of PSAN that endorsed violent tactics despite the end of Francoism, arguing that a "symbolic" damage is necessary in order to assist and bring about national and class liberation.[1]

As small Catalan terrorist cells coalesced around Terra Liure and started its activities in 1979, the movement struggled with lack of support and popularity as the sociopolitical conditions were no longer favorable to violent tactics. The exiled regional government of Catalonia officially returned in late 1977 and was the transitional Catalan government until the 1980 Catalan regional election. Unlike in Basque Country, in Catalonia voters overwhelmingly approved of the new constitution in 1978, with 61% voting in favour with a turnout of 68% - in comparison, only 31% of Basque voters voted in favour with a turnout of 45%. The 1979 Spanish local elections showed that the Catalan movement had great potential to become a powerful force in Spanish politics and take power in the upcoming regional elections, leading many Catalan nationalists to embrace reformist and Spanish democracy. The Catalan statute of autonomy also proved popular, with 53% of voters supporting it in October 1979 (with a 60% turnout).[17]

In the 1980 Catalan elections, the centrist Convergence and Union (CiU) unexpectedly won with 28% of the vote, ahead of the socialist PSC and communist PSUC. This allowed Terra Lliure to gain some support for its tactics and to escalate violence as radical nationalists grew disillusioned with CiU governments, resulting in some support for terrorism. The foundation of the Movement for Defence of the Land in 1984 marked the best period in the history of Terra Lliure, as a known political front and terrorist organization shifted towards more radical actions. The organization was then severely weakened in late 1985 as its leadership was arrested and its political front suffered splits along strategic issue. The separatist Republican Left of Catalonia (Catalan: Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, ERC) also attracted the members of Terra Lliure into its ranks by negotiationg individual solutions for jailed activists, resulting in separatist voters and militants embracing ERC, which became the third largest party in Catalan parliament.[17]

In the autumn of 1982, in September and November, the first assembly was held in the south of France. It established the strategy of "armed propaganda" to achieve its objectives, consisting of violent actions, not with the intention of causing personal injury, but rather with the aim of provoking fear and intimidation, as well as seeking maximum media coverage. In its documents, the Terra Lliure organisation always described its activity as "armed propaganda". This concept was used as a euphemism to express the low intensity of the organisation's actions, implying that it did not seek to attack human lives or carry out indiscriminate armed actions. Shortly after this assembly, the police discovered a cache of explosives and weapons in the Collserola mountain range outside Barcelona, which led to the imprisonment of Terra Lliure members Carles Benítez and Xavier Monton. These arrests provoked a crisis in the organisation's leadership that led to the expulsion of some dissident militants who questioned the armed route as a tool for political and social change.[4]

The third assembly was held in July 1988, at which Terra Lliure's leadership wanted to assess the social support that the organisation really had in Catalan society. It also approved a plan of action in view of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, which was not approved by all members of the organisation due to the deep crisis that already existed within the Catalan pro-independence movement and which led the organisation to enter a period of less combativeness from the 1990s onwards, carrying out very few armed actions. The year 1987 was a turning point because of the actions of ETA and Terra Lliure itself - that year, Terra Lliure caused its only civilian fatality in an attack on 10 September 1987, when the explosion of a device in the courthouse in Les Borges Blanques (Lleida) caused a wall of an adjacent house to collapse, killing a 62-year-old woman, Emilia Aldomà, who was sleeping at the time. The second reason was the attack by Basque ETA in the garage of the Hipercor shopping centre in a predominantly working-class neighbourhood of Barcelona on 19 June 1987, which killed 21 people and injured 45, making it the bloodiest attack in the history of ETA and the second most serious in the history of Spain after the attack of 11 March 2004 in Madrid. The Hipercor attack, together with the subsequent attack on the Civil Guard barracks in Vic (Osona) on 29 May 1991, in which 10 people died, had a double effect for Terra Lliure. ETA's car bombings made it increasingly difficult to continue justifying the 'armed struggle' and reduced social and political support for home-grown violence.[4]

Reflecting on the failure of the organization, Terra Lliure leader Jaume Fernàndez argued that a resilient Catalanist challenge to Spanish government was dependent on the nationalist constituency turning away from the transition process. Because most nationalist Catalans remained loyal to the new regime and trusted the electoral process, Terra Lliure was unable to gain strength.[17] The organization declined further in 1992 following the Operation Garzón, a preventine manhunt that was criticized for human rights activists for "indiscriminate arrests and extensive tortures that brought back the ghost of Francoist repression in Catalan society". Terra Lliure was officially disbanded in 1995, and most of its former members joined the ERC.[1] On 8 March 1996, the Spanish government pardoned the 18 members convicted in the 1995 trial and ordered their immediate release from prison.[4]

1978–1990

Terra Lliure graffiti
JERC mural in Sabadell honouring Martí Marcó, killed in a police shootout

Most of Terra Lliure's original members converged into the group around 1980, arriving from other armed organizations such as the Catalan People's Army (EPOCA), the Catalan Liberation Front (FAC) or political organizations such as the Socialist Party of National Liberation (PSAN) and Catalan Countries' Independentists.[18] In 1979, Terra Lliure started its armed activities and two of its members died that year, one in a shootout with Civil Guard members and another one blew up himself.[19]

Terra Lliure's best known action was the kidnapping of journalist Federico Jiménez Losantos on 21 May 1981 in Barcelona, for having signed the "Manifesto of the 2,300". This manifesto was a document signed by more than 2,300 intellectuals and professionals living and working in Catalonia and published on 25 January 1981. In it, they defended the co-official status of Catalan and Spanish as the vehicular languages of public education in Catalonia; expressed their concern about the exclusive use of Catalan as the "only official language"; and criticised the policy of the Catalan government to progressively introduce education only in Catalan. After being shot in the knee by Terra Lliure member Pere Bascompte and left tied to a tree, Jiménez Losantos was found by the police the same day.[4][20] In June, the group published its first statement, called Free Land Calling, in a mass meeting at the Camp Nou stadium.

In 1982, Terra Lliure held its first assembly, while it continued its armed campaign against Spanish and French interests, bank offices and other administrations. A second assembly was held in 1984 and the group started publishing official statements and claimed actions that they carried out through the Alerta magazine.[21] In 1985 and 1985, two more members died while carrying explosive devices.[22][23]

Between 1984 and 1989 some of Terra Lliure's leaders were arrested, nevertheless the group maintained its structure and capacities and a parallel political movement was developing, the Solidarity Committee with the Catalan Patriots (CSPC) and the Movement for the Defense of the Land (MDT).[6] In 1987, the group committed its only killing, with a bomb attack in Les Borges Blanques, Lleida. Terra Lliure admitted the killing was an error. The group also committed several attacks, mainly against American interests, together with the Catalan Red Liberation Army.[24] In 1988, Terra Lliure held its third assembly and developed three documents to describe the theoretical framework and analyze the social reality of the Catalan National Liberation Movement.

1991–1995

In July 1991, Terra Lliure announced it was declaring a ceasefire and that some of its members would start joining the Republican Left of Catalonia.[10] Despite that, some cells kept carrying out attacks, especially due to the proximity to the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. Also in 1991, a former member of Terra Lliure, who had joined ETA, was killed in a police raid after a bomb attack in Vic, Barcelona.[25][26]

In July 1992, under an order of judge Baltasar Garzón, police arrested around 40 of members of the group. Years later, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Spanish government to compensate some of the arrested people for failing to investigate allegations of torture during the raid.[27] The following years, the group did not commit any attack and announced its dissolution on the 1995 National Day of Catalonia.

Attacks

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1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Illas, Edgar (November 2014). "Is Catalan Separatism a Progressive Cause?". Dissidences. 5 (10).
  2. ^ a b Casanellas, Pau (2023). "Entre el marxismo y el patriotismo: El independentismo catalán en el ciclo global de violencia política del largo 68". Historia Social (in Spanish). Fundacion Instituto de Historia Social. 105 (1): 65–86. JSTOR 48708552.
  3. ^ a b c d Chriswell, Kaitlyn (30 April 2014). Cross-cutting cleavages: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, Terra Lliure, and the centrality of social networks (PDF) (Honors in Political Science thesis). Northwestern University. p. 28.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Muro, Diego; Vall-Llosera, Simon (2016). "¿Cuándo fracasa el terrorismo? El papel de la política antiterrorista, la fragmentación organizativa y los costes individuales en el final de Terra Lliure". Revista española de ciencia política (in Spanish). 40 (1): 39–61. ISSN 1575-6548.
  5. ^ a b c d Gutiérrez, José A.; Font, Jordi Martí (8 September 2022). "October 2017 in Catalonia: The anarchists and the procés". Nations and Nationalism. Wiley Online Library. 29 (1): 209–228. doi:10.1111/nana.12896.
  6. ^ a b "La escalada del independentismo callan ha propiciado la escalada de violencia protagonizada por Terra Lliure". elpais.com (in Spanish). April 17, 1988. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  7. ^ "TV3 s'atreveix amb la història de Terra Lliure". ee-noticies.com (in Catalan). 2007.
  8. ^ a b Visa, Lluís (10 September 1987). "Atentado mortal de Terra Lliure en vísperas de nacional catalana protagonizada por los independentistas". El País.
  9. ^ "36è aniversari de la mort del lluitador independentista Fèlix Goñi "Bruc"". Llibertat.cat. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  10. ^ a b "Terra Lliure renuncia a la violencia y anuncia que sus militantes ingresarán en Esquerra Republicana". elpais.com (in Spanish). July 6, 1991. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  11. ^ a b "El TS eleva a 23 años la pena de cárcel para un ex miembro de Terra Lliure condenado por colocar bombas en bancos". 24 July 2007.
  12. ^ TS Penal
  13. ^ "El caso Terra Lliure dirigido por Garzón y la sentencia del TEDH". Archived from the original on 2014-04-28.
  14. ^ http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1987/04/26/pagina-36/32988026/pdf.html>
  15. ^ "La policía hace estallar un paquete bomba dirigido al abogado Gómez Rovira". El País. 25 December 1987.
  16. ^ Chriswell, Kaitlyn (30 April 2014). Cross-cutting cleavages: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, Terra Lliure, and the centrality of social networks (PDF) (Honors in Political Science thesis). Northwestern University. pp. 26–27.
  17. ^ a b c de la Calle, Luis (2015). "4 - The Basque Country vs. Catalonia: prior mobilization and differences in responsiveness". Nationalist Violence in Postwar Europe. Cambridge University Press. pp. 62–109. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139162258.004. ISBN 9781316348895.
  18. ^ "EPOCA: l'exèrcit a l'ombra". llibertat.cat (in Catalan). May 15, 2010. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  19. ^ "Vic acoge un homenaje a Terra Lliure tras el de las víctimas de ETA". elmundo.es (in Spanish). June 13, 2009. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  20. ^ "Solicitan 86 años para los militantes de Terra Lliure que dispararon contra Jiménez Losantos". elpais.com (in Spanish). July 7, 1983. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  21. ^ "1984 Aparició del núm. 1 del butlletí Alerta, portaveu de Terra Lliure". llibertat.cat (in Catalan). 1984. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  22. ^ "22è Aniversari de la mort de Quim Sànchez". llibertat.cat (in Catalan). December 15, 2007. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  23. ^ "25è Aniversari de la mort de Toni Villaescusa". llibertat.cat (in Catalan). July 19, 2009. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  24. ^ "American Sailor Dies in Barcelona After U.S.O. Blast That Hurt 10". The New York Times. December 28, 1987. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  25. ^ "Los terroristas fueron descubiertos al cometer una cadena de 'errores de aprendiz'". elpais.com (in Spanish). June 1, 1991. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  26. ^ "Los principales dirigentes históricos de Terra Lliure han abandonado la organización terrorista". elpais.com (in Spanish). November 19, 1985. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  27. ^ "Garzón, un jutge contra les cordes". elpunt.cat (in Catalan). February 11, 2010. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  28. ^ "Un presunto miembro de Terra Lliure, herido por una explosión en Gerona". El País. 20 March 1990.
  29. ^ "Edición del Lunes 28 de Diciembre de 1987 - página 003 - Canal Hemeroteca".

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