The Association of Spanish Military Personnel (AME), the same one that in 2018 promoted an apologetic manifesto by Francisco Franco justifying the military uprising of July 18, 1936, has now published a letter in which 50 retired chiefs and officers question their active colleagues in the armed forces to dismiss the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez. That means they are staging a coup. The manifesto, whose existence was announced by Infolibre, which ensures that it was in the phase of collecting signatures, was in fact already published on the website of this association, which, however, does not reveal the identity of those who signed it.
However, EL PAÍS was able to confirm that the list includes three division generals, four brigadier generals, 23 colonels, four lieutenant colonels, seven commanders and nine captains. All of the signatory officers and chiefs are already retired, so they are not subject to the disciplinary regime of the armed forces, but they are damaging the image of the institution by identifying with their military tasks.
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Among the signatories are several members of the so-called XIX Air Force Promotion Chat, of which they were a member, whose contents that emerged in 2020 caused a stir as they advocated the “shooting of 26 million Spaniards”. The public prosecutor ultimately archived the proceedings in this WhatsApp group because they considered its content to be private.
According to military sources, the proponent of this new manifesto is the same one who advocated sending a letter to the king in which the retired commanders asked him to ignore his constitutional powers. This explains that despite the fact that the Air Force is much less numerous than the Ground Force, 37 of the 50 signatories of the text belong to the former. However, there are none from the Navy.
The manifesto mixes a hodgepodge of topics, from the change in the Spanish position on the Sahara conflict to the nationalist parties’ demand for the Ministry of Defense to abandon the Bardenas firing range (Navarre) or the amnesty law; and even warns of a “possible rupture of the unity of the Spanish nation, unique and indivisible, through a renewed acceptance.” [Pedro Sánchez] for the above-mentioned investiture, the holding of a referendum on self-determination”; what is wrong.
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Finally, I would like to recall that the eighth article of the Constitution states: “The tasks of the armed forces, in addition to ensuring the sovereignty and independence of Spain and the defense of its territorial unity, also include the defense of the constitutional order: which, in our opinion, is due to the lack of Independence of the judiciary, the inequality of Spanish citizens before the law and the possible collapse of the unity of the Spanish nation.” For this reason, he adds, “this group of former members of the armed forces, now retired, is concerned the future of Spain.” […]“We call on those responsible for the defense of the constitutional order, the removal of the President of the Government and the calling of general elections, which we bring to the attention of the Spanish citizens in order to prevent this and make them aware of the seriousness of the current situation”.
By recalling that the armed forces have a mandate to defend the constitutional order, immediately before addressing “those responsible for defending the constitutional order,” they make it crystal clear that the recipient of their call is none other than the armed forces themselves are those who are calling for a coup. The manifesto, which has been circulating in military circles for several weeks, is dated last Thursday, November 16, the day on which Pedro Sánchez was sworn in as government president by the House of Representatives.
The spread of the manifesto has caused unease among active military personnel. You see how commanders, some of whom have been away from the armed forces for decades, are once again portraying themselves as if they were their spokespeople. Already on the 7th, retired Major General Rafael Dávila spoke out against a manifesto against the amnesty of retired commanders in his blog, one of the most visited on military affairs. “Do not use the military to defend your interests in the face of the obvious failure of your policies,” he wrote.
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