One of the last surviving fighters from the guerrilla war waged against Franco's dictatorship in the 1940s is suing the Spanish government for €1 million in compensation.
João Busquets, 96, born in Barcelona, was subjected to torture, forced labor and 20 years in prison at the hands of the Franco regime. The case was brought against Spain's Democratic Memory Law (passed in 2022), which provides “moral compensation” to victims of the regime.
“The law provides for assistance to victims of torture, forced labor and exile under the dictatorship, but the small print says they are not entitled to financial compensation,” Busquets said. said. “It's symbolic, but my incarceration wasn't symbolic.”
After the fascist victory in the 1939 civil war, thousands of republicans fled to France, many of whom continued to fight with the French Resistance, also known as the Resistance. Maquisunder Nazi occupation.
At the end of World War II, many of them returned to Spain, where they founded guerrilla groups (also called guerrilla groups). Maquis – Dedicated to weakening the Franco regime.
He joined a group led by Busquets, who was 20 years old at the time. marcel li massana Belgueda, in northern Catalonia, smuggled weapons and explosives across the Pyrenees on foot.
They traveled overnight from France to the town of Manresa for six days, carrying 40 kg of luggage on their backs. “I bought a pair of boots, but they were both for the same foot, so I spent two and a half days walking barefoot over the mountain,” Busquets said. “My legs were falling apart.”
His life as a guerrilla was short-lived. After a year in the mountains, he was arrested and taken to Barcelona's notorious torture center on Calle Laietana.
There he and his comrades were subjected to three weeks of sleep deprivation before being sentenced to death by a military tribunal. Busquets' sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, but for unknown reasons the others were executed by firing squad at Camp de la Bota, now the site of the Primavera Sound music festival.
In 1956, Busquets failed to escape from a prison in Valencia and broke his leg. When two Guardia civilian officers encountered him, they assumed him dead and one of them kicked him in the face, splitting his nose in two.
Two inmates then took him back to the prison, where he was denied medical care and left on a concrete floor for seven days until he was finally taken to a hospital. As a result, he believes he has suffered from various health problems throughout his life.
After serving 20 years in prison, he was released in 1969 and found work at a publishing company in Barcelona, but he says the police made his life unbearable.
“I secretly went to France, where I was granted political asylum,” he said. “My old comrade Marcel Li Massana was in Paris. It took him a while to get used to normal life. On the contrary, he didn't have any psychological help, but I was lucky. We have found the perfect partner to help us integrate.”
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The Democratic Memory Act of 2022 is the first to recognize guerrillas who continued to fight the Republican cause even after the civil war was defeated. Busquets' claim, supported by the CGT trade union, is based on a 2005 (non-legally binding) UN resolution calling for reparations for victims of international human rights violations.
“We believe that if the death sentence was later commuted to 20 years in prison, followed by five years of forced labor, persecution, and torture, followed by years of exile, and all this was declared illegal and unlawful. If it was committed by a state since then, then we say: “According to the UN reparation resolution, the Spanish state is responsible,'' said Raul Milo, a lawyer representing Busquets.
During the transition to democracy after Franco's death in 1975, amnesty was granted to those who committed crimes on behalf of the regime. Subsequent laws exempting victims of the regime have amounted to nothing more than symbolic reparations.
Chairman Emilio Silva, Historical Memory Recovery Association (ARHM) states that the state “chooses its victims.” “The state will pay compensation to the families of Eta victims.” [the Basque terror group]I’m not saying no one should do it, but the victims of dictatorship have nothing,” he said.
To Maillot's knowledge, no such case has ever been successful, but Busquets, a lifelong anarchist syndicalist, was undeterred.
“It's not about the money,” he said. “It's about justice. This country has not compensated the victims. Many years ago, I wrote to the then President of Catalonia José Montilla about my case. He replied I wrote a letter to former Spanish President Felipe González, but he didn't respond either. This gave me the strength to keep fighting.”
He added: “Being an anarchist today is no different than it was 50 years ago. It is a philosophy, a search for truth. What I want is a unity without borders, of Europe and preferably of the whole world. And a world where we can all understand each other.”
