Atocha Massacre (1977)
Mon Jan 24, 1977
On this day in 1977, the Atocha Massacre took place when Spanish fascists assassinated five labor activists from the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) and the workers' federation "Comisiones Obreras".
The night of January 24th, three fascists entered a legal office run by the PCE in support of workers' rights. Their target was Joaquín Navarro, the general secretary of the transport union of the Comisiones Obreras, who at that time was leading a transport strike in Madrid. The attackers searched the office, found the eight remaining staff, and, discovering Navarro had departed earlier, decided to kill all present.
Told to raise their "little hands up high", the remaining eight people present were lined up against a wall and shot, killing four people (the fifth victim was killed earlier) and injuring four more. One of the injured, Dolores Ruiz, was pregnant and lost her child as a result of the attack.
The assassinations took place within the wider context of far-right reaction to Spain's transition to constitutional democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco two years prior.
Intended to provoke a violent left-wing response that would provide legitimacy for a subsequent right-wing counter coup d'état, the massacre had an immediate and opposite effect, causing mass popular revulsion against the far-right and accelerating the legalization of the long-banned Communist Party.
The trial took place in February 1980 and the defendants were sentenced to a total of 464 years in jail. A number of them escaped custody, however, fleeing to South America. After more than 20 years on the run, one the perpetrators, García Juliá, was arrested in Brazil in 2018. Juliá was extradited to Spain in February 2020, and transferred to Soto del Real prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.
- Date: 1977-01-24
- Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, libcom.org.
- Tags: #Communism, #Labor, #Assassinations, #Massacre, #Fascism.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org