After the death of two Civil Guards protecting the southern Spanish coast of Cadiz from drug smugglers, the Socialist Party’s Catalan chapter has refused to hold a minute of silence in the country’s parliament.
They have likewise rejected proposals by VOX and the centrist Ciudadanos party to make a joint condemnation of the murders.
It would seem that signalling their non-alignment with the Right and any sort of Spanish unionism takes precedence over defending law enforcement in a clear cut case of egregious criminal activity.
This reinforces the sense that the Socialist party is more or less tacitly separatist and, in any case, aligned with whatever happens to contribute to the breakdown of the country.
Of course, the substance of the Left’s inability to join with its political rivals in parliament is that the ruling coalition does not want to get roped in by calls to increase the resources available to the Civil Guard, especially as concerns policing the border.
Borders, even when drugs stream in and officers are murdered, must remain un-policed.
The nation’s wounds must remain open; Spain must bleed.
This is not merely the fruit of petty dislike for one’s political opponents: it is the heart of the Spanish socialist party’s project of national deconstruction.
They refuse to engage with what happened. We should not:
On the 9th of February, drug traffickers transporting their illegal cargo from Morocco to Spain rested their six vessels in the southern Spanish port of Barbate to wait out some stormy weather, demonstrating the extent of their sense of impunity.
When Civil Guards came to stop the delivery hours later, they were confronted with the reasons for the criminals’ confidence: utter material superiority compared to law enforcement.
As Pedro Carmona, spokesman for the AUCG (Unified Association of Civil Guards) has since said, “our ships should at least match those of the narco-gangs. They have considerable economic means, they can buy whatever they want.”
And “what they want” would seem to include loyalty, even to the point of murdering law enforcement. A pilot for one of these drug runs reportedly makes up to 30,000 to 40,000 euros per trip.
As several law enforcement professionals steered their barely five-meter-long “zodiac” boat to block the criminals, they were surrounded by the gang’s ships until their boat capsized. Once the officers were in the water, they were run over by a 12- to 15-meter-long boat with a reported horsepower of 900.
Two were killed, and a third injured.
The fact is that material capacity determines who controls what, and the Spanish coast belongs to the Moroccan drug gangs, whose membership is also local, counting on a well-organized distribution network.
This is not only because they happen to be better funded and better equipped than Spanish law enforcement, but because they now act with impunity, as if they know that Spain will not react.
During the funeral of one of the Civil Guards, David Pérez Carracedo, which the Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska attended, Pérez Carracedo’s widow refused to allow him to place a medal of honor on her husband’s coffin, stating later “My husband would not have wanted it.”
Indeed, the government, and Marlaska in particular, are responsible for dismantling the anti-drug-trafficking unit of the Civil Guard in 2022, despite warnings of what it could lead to.
The idea that the government is culpable was also expressed earlier by the Anti-Drug Prosecutor in Cadiz, Ana Villagomez:
We’ve been saying this for a long time. What we don’t want is for the government to come here and give their condolences when they don’t provide the necessary resources. Things move so slowly … and people are set free [while their legal case is processed] and they continue committing the same crime.
Indeed, of the eight detainees implicated in the Barbate tragedy, two have already been released provisionally. Their ages range from early twenties to far older, and several are Spaniards, with at least one gang member of Moroccan origin with a Spanish passport.
Augustin Leal, spokesman for JUCIL (the “Justice for the Civil Guard” association) told El Pais newspaper:
Well it’s a hard blow, but it’s something we’ve been warning about for years. In [this area] the fight against drug dealers is being lost.
The feeling we have is that the Ministry of Interior and administration is derelict [in its duties]. This area needs to be declared a zone of special insecurity, so that more resources can be committed, and the Civil Guard needs to be declared a high-risk profession. They can’t send us to stop a 12-15 meter long, 900 horsepower narco-boat, with a 3 meter long boat.
We may wonder if the government’s consummate lack of interest in stopping the drug trade from Morocco is related to its general willingness to acquiesce to that country’s interests.
It certainly does seem in line with PM Pedro Sánchez’s general desire to break the country down, from promoting transgenderism in school, to advancing the separatist cause, to sinking the purchasing power of Spaniards and prohibiting exploration of new natural resources.
This story, however, is being picked up by outlets throughout the Spanish political spectrum, drawing attention to the loss of control over Spain’s southern maritime border and degrading whatever scraps of respectability the government still commands in the minds of its electorate.