03.08.07
De Juana Chaos
Over the last few weeks, a political confrontation has been brewing in Spain, and yesterday it exploded. The saddest of it all is how poorly the political class, if it might be called that in Spain, stood up to the challenge.
Iñaki de Juana Chaos is a cold-blooded murderer of the most despicable kind. I believe he has 25 assassinations to his name, shows no repentance, and, after many years in prison, has picked up another three for threatening to carry on once free. Then he went on hunger strike.
As he became emaciated and began to appear close to death, the Spanish authorities were posed with a problem. There is no death penalty in Spain (thankfully) and there is, furthermore, implicit in the law the notion that no one should die in custody of the state while it can be avoided.
With this notion in mind, the Supreme Court advised the Ministry of the Interior that De Juana Chaos should released to a clinic, while still under preventative custody. The Ministry of the Interior accepted this advice.
Still stinging from lost the elections of 2004, having been caught out as barefaced liars over who they believed to be the authors of the 11 March train bombings, the “Popular” Party (“PP”) saw an opportunity to exploit at the expense of the government of Rodriguez Zapatero.
I am no fan of Zapatero – I am not a socialist in European sense – and I do not believe that De Juana Chaos should have been given a different treatment from any other prisoner for his decision to stop eating. I do not believe in the death penalty, and I do not believe in the encouragement of suicide, but I do believe in the allowing sane adults to be responsible for their actions. For that reason, I believe that De Juana Chaos should have been allowed to fulfill his mission to starve himself to death.
Nonetheless, the Spanish state does not, and has not acted that way since the beginning of democracy. The Court advised that the life of De Juana Chaos was in danger and that measures should be taken to save that life. Few would have lamented a decision that allowed him to carry on. Nonetheless, that is not the practice of the Spanish State. That the current government should have followed the advice of the Court on this matter is not the issue, and certainly not reason for the public to take the streets, rallied by an opposition that demonstrably followed this policy during its time in government. The correct reaction would be to debate how the penal system should react in such cases in future.
The leader of the opposition, Mariano Rajoy, has pushed the right buttons to put Mr. Zapatero on edge over the decision, and Mr. Zapatero has shown himself to be, as on other occasions, a political midget. That Mr. Zapatero has acted in such a defensive manner – so reactive, so defensive, apologetic – is disappointing. Having said that, I prefer him a hundred times to the alternative. Mr. Rajoy is more fluent in speech and body language than the Prime Minister. But in allowing himself to follow the bullyboy tactics into which he his pushed by his henchmen (and his rivals), by his clear hypocrisy (he used to be Minister of the Interior and moved ETA’s prisoners wherever he liked for whatever excuse, freeing at least one future murderer prematurely), he is not someone for whom anyone should want to vote. He has replaced policy with lies, because his supporters within his party and within the press are prepared to back him up. He accuses the government of giving concessions to ETA without a single piece of evidence, and when the bombing in Barajas provided evidence to the contrary he continues. The De Juana Chaos case would seem finally to support his case if it weren’t for the fact that he conceded more as minister to exactly the same prisoner.
The political panorama in Spain is depressing. There is no policy or leadership on the economy, on education, on health or on immigration. There is only the sound of politicians, a vapid bunch of intellectual dwarfs and outright crooks.