{"id":26833,"date":"2017-10-14T10:51:18","date_gmt":"2017-10-14T15:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26833"},"modified":"2017-10-14T10:51:18","modified_gmt":"2017-10-14T15:51:18","slug":"the-spanish-civil-war-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26833","title":{"rendered":"The Spanish Civil War, revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Catalan<\/p>\n
Catalan President Carles Puigdemont signs a declaration of independence at the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona, on October Photo: Reuters\/Albert Gea<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Spanish Civil War, revisited<\/a><\/h3>\n

Puigdemont’s political twist could invoke a lethal response from Madrid: suspension of Catalonia’s government<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Call it theatre of the absurd \u2013 with a lethal subtext. Under pressure from all corners \u2013 even Donald Tusk, president of the EU Council \u2013 in his fateful date with destiny Carles Puigdemont, President of Catalonia, came up with some last-minute judo dialectics. He issued a non-denial denial Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Spain. What was declared was immediately suspended; the Republic of Catalonia lasted for six seconds.<\/p>\n

The deft political gambit left Madrid predictably bewildered. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, a.k.a. nano-Franco, issued an ultimatum; you have five days to say if you declared independence or not.<\/p>\n

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Independent of the answer, Madrid\u2019s nuclear option remains on the cards; infamous article 155 of the Constitution, which calls for the suspension of Catalonia\u2019s government and parliament from six to 12 months.<\/p>\n

Yet that may come with a twist; a 155 in slow motion<\/a>, parallel to the hazy offer of starting a process, in six months maximum, leading to Spanish constitutional reform. Madrid needs Catalonia for this reform to succeed. So, essentially, Puigdemont just needs to say \u201cno\u201d for the train to start rolling.<\/p>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s way more complex than it seems. The Catalan extreme left, up to the last minute, was trying to convince Puigdemont to proclaim unconditional independence. At the same time, those six seconds left Catalan unionists predictably furious. Moderates for their part prefer to see a faint light at the end of the tunnel.<\/p>\n

The problem is that even with discreet back channels in place, Madrid\u2019s strategy is to ultimately force a fissure in the independentist coalition; secession inside Catalonia to prevent secession from Spain.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont signs a declaration of independence at the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona, on October Photo: Reuters\/Albert Gea The Spanish Civil War, revisited Puigdemont’s political twist could invoke a lethal response from Madrid: suspension of Catalonia’s government Call it theatre of the absurd \u2013 with a lethal subtext. Under pressure from all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[15907,16413,117,920,4076,743,16495],"class_list":["post-26833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-asia-times","tag-carles-puigdemont","tag-catalonia","tag-civil-war","tag-pepe-escobar","tag-spain","tag-spanish-civil-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26834,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833\/revisions\/26834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}