Thirty years ago, Spain's young democracy was shaken when some 200 armed officers burst into the Congress of Deputies in the attempted coup d'état /ˌku: deɪˈtɑ:/ that turned out to be a most fortunate failure.
Where were you in the evening of 23 February 1981?
Iconic Photos: 23-F Coup
El País in English: Secret document provides detailed account of 1981 attempted coup
The Irish Times: Adolfo Suárez, Gutiérrez Mellado and Santiago Carrillo, portrayed by Javier Cercas
By this time, I was twenty-two years old and I had just finished my degree in Economics in September the previous year and I'd been working for five years. In those days, the military service was compulsory and I'd chosen to do it the special way for university students: 'milicias universitarias'. I was waiting for my destination to work as a sergeant from the next July after two previous periods as a cadet.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember exactly the time when the armed gang burst into the chamber but it should be about six or half past six in the evening. There were three of us at home: my mother, my younger sister and me and my father was still at work. The radio was, as ever, tuned into Cadena Ser. I was about to leave the gym for it was Monday and I had my karate's training session. On the radio it was being broadcast from the Congress a boring ballot when suddenly the commentator said: 'some guards are coming into the chamber, it's a lieutenant colonel ...' and these well-known words sounded 'Quieto todo el mundo!'. My blood froze. My mother, who was knitting, stopped and looked scared. She told me: Please darling, don't leave, stay at home, Dad is coming and it can be dangerous to walk in the streets. I agreed. The most important thing was to go on listening to the radio and to know as much as we could about the coup for we knew it was a coup d'etat of the right-wing. I was thinking that if nothing prevented, I was going to join the ranks immediately and this was not my scheme at all.
Fortunately, the coup failed and Spain was able to get a European democratic system as most of us had been expecting since the dictator's death.