1981 жылғы Испаниядағы сәтсіз төңкеріс әрекеті

Failed coup d'état in Spain

A coup d'état was attempted in Spain in February 1981 by elements of the Civil Guard and the Spanish military. The failure of the coup marked the last serious attempt to revert Spain to Francoist government and served to consolidate Spain's democratization process. King Juan Carlos I played a major role in foiling the coup, and the monarchy emerged with renewed legitimacy as a result. The coup began on 23 February 1981 when Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, along with 200 armed Civil Guard officers, stormed the Congress of Deputies chamber in Madrid during a vote to swear in Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo as President of the Government. The officers held the parliamentarians and ministers hostage for 18 hours, during which the King denounced the coup in a public television broadcast, calling for rule of law and the democratic government to continue. The royal address fatally undermined the coup, and the hostage takers surrendered the next morning and all deputies were freed. A simultaneous coup attempt, executed by Captain General Jaime Milans del Bosch in Valencia, also failed. Tejero, Milans del Bosch and a third conspirator, General Alfonso Armada, were sentenced to thirty years in prison. In 1988 the Spanish Supreme Court suggested to pardon Alfonso Armada and Tejero; the government of Felipe Gonzalez pardoned the former.

Tensions came to a head on 13 February, when news emerged of the torture and murder in Carabanchel of José Ignacio Arregui, a member of the Basque nationalist movement ETA, who had been held incommunicado for 10 days in the General Security Directorate (Dirección General de Seguridad). Tejero immediately took the Speaker's platform and shouted "¡Quieto todo el mundo!" ("Nobody move! "), ordering everyone to lie down on the floor. Most of the deputies dropped to the floor, except for three: acting minister of defence and deputy prime minister, General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado; acting prime minister, Adolfo Suárez; and Communist Party leader, Santiago Carrillo, who calmly lit a cigarette and remained seated. As the highest ranking military official present, Army General (and Deputy Prime Minister) Gutiérrez Mellado refused to comply, confronting Tejero and ordering him to stand down and hand over the weapon. Outgoing Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez made a move to join Gutiérrez Mellado, who briefly scuffled with several civil guards until Tejero fired a shot into the air, which was followed by a sustained burst of submachine gun fire from the assailants. (The shots wounded some of the visitors in the chamber's upper gallery). Undeterred, arms akimbo in defiance, 68 year old General Gutiérrez Mellado refused to sit down, even after Tejero attempted, unsuccessfully, to wrestle him to the floor. Their face off ended with Tejero returning to the rostrum and Gutiérrez Mellado returning to his seat. After several minutes, all the deputies retook their assigned congressional seats. The captain of the Guardia Civil, es, strode to the Speaker's platform, demanded silence and announced that all those present were to wait for the arrival of "the competent military authority." At 19:35, acting prime minister Suárez stood up and asked to speak to the commanders. Shots were fired in response, and a guard flashed a submachine gun towards the deputies' seats, demanding silence. One of the assailants ordered, "Mr. Suárez, stay in your seat!" Suárez was about to reply when someone else shouted, "siéntate maldita sea" ("Sit down, damn it!") (Historically, this phrase is attributed to Lieutenant Colonel Tejero, although it was probably Lieutenant Ramos Rueda.) Finally, Tejero grabbed Suárez by the arm and led him forcefully to a room outside the chamber. When Suárez demanded that Tejero explain "this madness"; Tejero's only reply was "¡Todo por España!" ("Everything for Spain!"). When Suárez pressed the point, citing his authority as prime minister ("president of the government"), Tejero using the informal "tú" replied, "Tú ya no eres presidente de nada!" ("You are no longer the president of anything!") Shortly afterward, five of the parliament's deputies were separated from the rest: Prime Minister Suárez; the opposition leader, Felipe González, and his deputy, Alfonso Guerra González; Communist Party leader, Santiago Carrillo; and the Defense minister, Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún. The insurgents' hope, in taking both the executive and legislative authorities prisoner, was to create a power vacuum that would force a new political order. Almost at the same time, the Captain General of the Third Military Region, Jaime Milans del Bosch, joined the coup with a revolt in Valencia, ordering tanks to be brought out onto the streets and declaring a general state of emergency in an attempt to convince other senior military figures to align with him in supporting the coup. At 21:00 that evening, the Director of National Security, Francisco Laína, published a statement on RTVE announced that, under the instructions of King Juan Carlos I, a provisional government would be formed with the undersecretaries of different ministries in order to ensure State government in alliance with the Assembly of Military Chiefs of Staff (Junta de Jefes del Estado Mayor) and led by himself. The coup was vehemently condemned by member countries of the EEC, especially since Spain was in preliminary negotiations for membership (eventually joining in 1986). Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the UK, called the coup a "terrorist act." Alexander Haig, US Secretary of State, described the coup as an "internal affair". Meanwhile, another insurgent general, Torres Rojas, failed in his attempt to oust General Juste from the Army's Armoured Division No. 1 "Brunete", resulting in Torres Rojas having to abandon his plan to take control of key strategic points in Madrid, including State radio and television headquarters and, therefore, firsthand control of the information as events unfolded.

Originally, Armada, one of the coup's conspirators, had advocated a "milder" course of action, which he then proceeded to implement. Arriving at the Palace of Zarzuela, the royal residence, Armada offered the monarch a trade off: the king would head a new "government of salvation" that would replace the democratically elected one in the hopes of appeasing Tejero and his forces and thereby avoiding a return to the full military dictatorship the conspirators were demanding. The King, however, refused to receive Armada, who, shortly before midnight, entered the Congress of Deputies alleging that the King had ordered him to assume leadership of the government. As Armada was not the "competent military authority" that Tejero had been waiting for, the latter rejected Armada's claims with "My general, I didn't assault Congress for this" and, after that, ignored him.

A simultaneous rebellion in eastern Spain fizzled. Shortly after Tejero took control of the Congress, Jaime Milans del Bosch, Captain General of the III Military Region, executed his part of the coup in Valencia. Deploying 2,000 men and fifty tanks from his Motorized Division as well as troops from the port of Valencia onto the streets and into the city center, they occupied the Town Hall (Ayuntamiento) and the Valencian judicial court building (Las cortes valencianas). The revolt, known as Operation Turia, was considered key if other military regions were to become involved in the coup. By 19:00, Valencian radio stations began broadcasting the state of emergency declared by Milans del Bosch, who was hoping to convince others to endorse his military action. Well into the night, Valencia was surrounded by armored military trucks and other troop units called in from the Bétera and Paterna army bases. Police snipers took their places on rooftops, military marches were played on loudspeakers and a curfew was imposed on the citizens. An armored convoy was dispatched to the Manises Air Base in order to convince the commander there to support the coup; however, the Colonel of the 11th Wing in charge of the base not only refused to comply, he threatened to deploy two fighter jets armed with air to ground missiles (which he claimed to have standing by with their engines running) against the tanks sent by Milans del Bosch, thereby forcing the latter to withdraw. This setback hinted the impending failure of the Madrid coup. For his part, Milans del Bosch, alone and thereafter isolated, abandoned his plans at 5:00 that morning and was arrested. Scores of civil guards clad in military fatigues attempted to jump out of the first floor window trying to flee. Others ran out the front door into the arms of officers who had surrounded the building through the night. The deputies were freed that morning after emerging one by one from their all night ordeal shouting "Long Live Freedom". Tejero resisted until midday on 24 February and was arrested outside the Congress building.

The event was made into a motion picture by Warner Bros. entitled 23F (Spanish nomenclature for 23 February, when the coup took place). Variety reviewer Jonathan Holland said the period detail of the film was good, but the film followed the officially sanctioned version and failed to scratch beneath the surface of what really happened.