MILLAN-ASTRAY, TOMAS-I-VALIENTE AND ETA
Rafael Pla-Lopez
University Teacher 
     The assassin of Tomas-i-Valiente, a thug of ETA according to
all the signs, is a macabre continuator of the "kill the
intelligence" of Millan-Astray.
     When death penalty has been fully abolished in the Spanish
State, after the constitutional precept were rounded off by the
reform of the military code, the repressive machines of ETA keep
in death penalty in their repertory of criminal actions.
     Very far of the dignity of the accused in the Trial of
Burgos in 1970, when they plead war prisoners and claim to be
applied the Treaty of Geneva, the killers of ETA are, according
to this same Treaty, war criminals who gorge on civil people.
Civil people which, without weapons to be defended, are more easy
victims than the members of the armed bodies.
     And now, with the assassination of a university professor in
his chair, they have overstepped a last threshold of the
barbarity. Stuck to break every code of civil socializing, they
have also broken the University Immunity. University Immunity
that, remember, the same regime of Franco only dared to break in
states of war or emergency. University Immunity under which
protection the democratic opposition to Franco was developed.
     University Immunity which, with the same forcefulness that
we before defended it against Franco, we have to defend it today
against whichever kind of terrorism.
 
Valencia, 15 February 1996

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Millan-Astray was a general who joined the General Franco in
the fascist coup in Spain in 1936. He cried "Muera la
inteligencia (kill the intelligence)" in the University of
Salamanca.

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The Trial of Burgos was an important milestone in the popular
fight against the regime of the General Franco: a Military Court
sentenced several members of ETA to death, but the strong
democratic movement (inside and outside of Spain) against these
sentences forced the regime to commute them.