Terra Lliure

Terra Lliure (Eastern Calatan: [ˈtɛrə ˈʎiwɾə], "Free Land"), sometimes referred to as TLL, was a far-left, Marxist-Leninist and separatist paramilitary group active in Catalonia, Spain. Formed in 1978, the group carried out hundreds of attacks that left many people injured and five dead (four of them members of the organization after the explosion of the artifact they were manipulating in three separate incidents).
Terra Lliure, became known to the public with a protest at a mass meeting at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona in 1981. An important police raid in 1991 and the renunciation of violence by some of the group members led to the dissolution of Terra Lliure in 1995. After disbanding, many members joined the political party Republican Left of Catalonia. During the most active period of its activity it was considered a terrorist organization by Spanish and European courts, Spanish press, and at least parts of the Catalan press.
Terra Lliure was described as a Marxist, nationalist and a separatist organization that sought to establish an independent Catalan state. Founded during the period of Spanish transition to democracy, Terra Lliure decried what it considered to be a persistence of anti-Catalan discrimination and state violence. It was placed on the far-left fringe of Catalan political forces and sought to be an imitation of Basque Euskadi Ta Askatasuna and became a bridge between Catalan anarchists and nationalists. In its 1981 Declaration of Principles, Terra Lliure described itself as a movement that "fights to defend the land, the language, national sovereignty, the interests of workers and against the Spanishization of Catalan society".
Similarly to Basque ETA, Terra Lliure was also influenced by the far-left liberation theology and had a faction directly dedicated to it. This is in line with the Basque ETA that Terra Lliure aspired to become a Catalan equivalent of; ETA was founded in the Benedictine seminary in Lazkao and was supported by Basque clergy, which harboured separatist and nationalist tendencies, especially at local level. Pro-ETA Basque priests accepted violent actions of ETA, considering it justified as part of the oppressed people's aspiration for freedom and independence. One of the most prominent supporters of ETA amongst the Basque clergy was José María Setién, the Archbishop of San Sebastián. In case of Catalonia, despite the fact that Catalonia was a heavily anti-clerical nation prior to WW2, the nationalist movement became increasingly "Catholicized" between 1940s and 1960s, as the Catholic Church became the only institution that the Francoist regime was unable to persecute for its usage and promotion of the Catalan language. Following Vatican II, Catalan clergy would increasingly emerge as a vocal opponent of the Francoist regime, and many parishes provided refugee and aid to anti-Francoist groups. In 1963, Catalan abbot Aureli Maria Escarré went as far as arguing that the Francoist regime "does not obey the basic principles of Christianity". The commitment of the Catholic Church to preserve the Catalan language and aid anti-Francoist resistance earned the respect of Catalan Communists who abandoned the traditional Catalan anti-clericalism and instead "began to see the Church as a potential ally". Terra Lliure sought to continue the link between Catalan socialists and the Catholic clergy, seeing the post-Francoist Spain as merely a continuation of Francoism and its repressive structures.
Politically, Terra Lliure emerged from a split in the Socialist Party of National Liberation (Catalan: Partit Socialista d’Alliberament Nacional dels Països Catalans, PSAN), a pro-independence party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology created in 1969 and based in Catalonia and the Valencian Community, and the Independentists of the Catalan Countries (Catalan: Independentistes dels Països Catalans, IPC) party, which emerged in Catalonia and was the result of a split in the PSAN in 1979. In July 1984, the Movement for Defence of the Land (Catalan: Moviment de Defensa de la Terra, MDT) was formed, another Catalan pro-independence left-wing party that integrated these two parties and became the political arm of Terra Lliure. Terra Lliure's objectives, made explicit and explained in its internal bulletins called Alerta, were: independence, socialism and the reunification of the "Països Catalans", a cultural entity comprising the Principality of Catalonia, the Valencian Country, the Balearic Islands, as well as its bordering areas (the so-called Catalunya Nord to the north and the Franja to the west). Terra Lliure argued that only Catalan independence can protect its culture and bring about socialism, while rejecting autonomismo (autonomism) and sucursalismo ("sectionalism", a regional political party's dependence on the central party).
Despite calling for "Països Catalans", Terra Lliure envisioned that Greater Catalonia would be further separated, either through federalization or subsequent separatism, into regions "with different languages", with the Valencian language being cited as an example. According to Terra Lliure, these languages were forced to communicate in Spanish, and Spanish assimilationist policies resulted in fragmentation of Catalan society, where the "Catalan working people" (poble treballador català) were now alienated in their own homeland by privileged Spanish speakers. In its program, Terra Lliure also decried the decline of traditional Catalan industries, environmental destruction, and state-sanctioned repression. Through this, the organization also had protectionist, environmentalist and anarchist overtones (with anarchism being represented by some of the factions within Terra Lliure). It also called for the defence of Catalan territory, language and national sovereignty from espanyolistas and anti-nationalist, along with "protecting the interests of workers" against "the forces of occupation".
In a 1982 letter released by Terra Lliure, the organization wrote: "Ever since the French and Spanish states conquered the Països Catalans, we have walked towards our destruction as a people." Terra Lliure described Catalonia as "subject to continued aggression from the Spanish and French oligarchies and the regional bourgeoise, that endanger everything that constitutes our national heritage: land, work, language, customs. Not only do they call into question our national identity, but also our survival as [the] people who [make up] Catalan society." Terra Lliure argued that class and national liberation were inextricable from each other and could only be achieved through armed struggle. The party accused Spain of "attempted annihilation of the Catalan nation" and warned of the loss of national consciousness and replacement of Catalan cultures through the hegemonic culture of Spain. It warned that disappearance of Catala language from public use meant that the "Catalan culture was reduced to catacombs". Terra Lliure also argued that democratized Spain continues "attempts at cultural and national genocide" and stated its belief that the prevalence of Spanish language in Catalonia must be prevented and fought against, writing: "We do not accept the existence of two communities or two languages as a perpetual fact, as this can only lead to the disappearance of our language and our community and to an artificial division of our working people."
In the 1960s, a new generation of anti-Franco activists reshaped Catalanism and separatism. In 1968, the Socialist Party of National Liberation (Catalan: Partit Socialista d’Alliberament Nacional dels Països Catalans, PSAN) was founded, which combined Marxist revolutionary ideology with Catalan separatism. PSAN took anti-colonial struggles and third-world anti-imperialist nationalism as its model for Catalan separatism. The party grew increasingly divided during the Spanish transition of democracy, with many left-wing radical, revolutional socialist, but also moderate and reformist currents emerging. Terra Liure was founded in 1978 by a small faction of PSAN that endorsed violent tactics despite the end of Francoism, arguing that a "symbolic" damage is necessary in order to assist and bring about national and class liberation.
As small Catalan terrorist cells coalesced around Terra Liure and started its activities in 1979, the movement struggled with lack of support and popularity as the sociopolitical conditions were no longer favorable to violent tactics. The exiled regional government of Catalonia officially returned in late 1977 and was the transitional Catalan government until the 1980 Catalan regional election. Unlike in Basque Country, in Catalonia voters overwhelmingly approved of the new constitution in 1978, with 61% voting in favour with a turnout of 68% - in comparison, only 31% of Basque voters voted in favour with a turnout of 45%. The 1979 Spanish local elections showed that the Catalan movement had great potential to become a powerful force in Spanish politics and take power in the upcoming regional elections, leading many Catalan nationalists to embrace reformist and Spanish democracy. The Catalan statute of autonomy also proved popular, with 53% of voters supporting it in October 1979 (with a 60% turnout).
In the 1980 Catalan elections, the centrist Convergence and Union (CiU) unexpectedly won with 28% of the vote, ahead of the socialist PSC and communist PSUC. This allowed Terra Lliure to gain some support for its tactics and to escalate violence as radical nationalists grew disillusioned with CiU governments, resulting in some support for terrorism. The foundation of the Movement for Defence of the Land in 1984 marked the best period in the history of Terra Lliure, as a known political front and terrorist organization shifted towards more radical actions. The organization was then severely weakened in late 1985 as its leadership was arrested and its political front suffered splits along strategic issue. The separatist Republican Left of Catalonia (Catalan: Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, ERC) also attracted the members of Terra Lliure into its ranks by negotiationg individual solutions for jailed activists, resulting in separatist voters and militants embracing ERC, which became the third largest party in Catalan parliament.
In May 1981, Terra Lliure kidnapped Spanish cultural activist and teacher Federico Jiménez Losantos who helped organizing and then signed the Manifesto of the 2,300, which decried legal protections given to the Catalan language. The manifesto alleged that Spanish speakers are discriminated against in Catalonia, and warned against "Catalanization" of Catalan schools and public spaces. After verifying his identity and locating him, Terra Lliure members tied Jiménez to a tree and shot him in the knee, but allowed him to be rescued. Terra Lliure called their attack a "retaliation for activities against the Catalan language".
Despite struggling to gain widespread approval for its radical militancy amongst the Catalan public before, Terra Lliure's attack on Jiménez was not met with outrage as the overwhelming majority of Catalans were strongly critical of the Manifesto of the 2,300 signed and organized by Jiménez. The Catalan public vehemently rejected the claim that Spanish speakers were discriminated against, and Catalan newspapers unanimously condemned the manifesto. The University of Barcelona organized a counter-declaration "in defense of the Catalan language, culture, and nation", which was endorsed by over 1300 Catalan institutions and voluntary associations. This sparked the foundation of a Catalan organization Crida a la Solidaritat en Defensa de la Llengua which organized a rally at Camp Nou in June 1981, with the slogan “Som una nació” (Catalan: We are a nation). The rally had around 100,000 attenders and sparked a political and cultural movement in favor of Catalanization and Catalan autonomy, and against Spanish centralization. Terra Lliure also attended the event and distributed its leaflets, gaining recognition and new recruits.
In the autumn of 1982, in September and November, the first assembly was held in the south of France. It established the strategy of "armed propaganda" to achieve its objectives, consisting of violent actions, not with the intention of causing personal injury, but rather with the aim of provoking fear and intimidation, as well as seeking maximum media coverage. In its documents, the Terra Lliure organisation always described its activity as "armed propaganda". This concept was used as a euphemism to express the low intensity of the organisation's actions, implying that it did not seek to attack human lives or carry out indiscriminate armed actions. Shortly after this assembly, the police discovered a cache of explosives and weapons in the Collserola mountain range outside Barcelona, which led to the imprisonment of Terra Lliure members Carles Benítez and Xavier Monton. These arrests provoked a crisis in the organisation's leadership that led to the expulsion of some dissident militants who questioned the armed route as a tool for political and social change.
The third assembly was held in July 1988, at which Terra Lliure's leadership wanted to assess the social support that the organisation really had in Catalan society. It also approved a plan of action in view of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, which was not approved by all members of the organisation due to the deep crisis that already existed within the Catalan pro-independence movement and which led the organisation to enter a period of less combativeness from the 1990s onwards, carrying out very few armed actions. The year 1987 was a turning point because of the actions of ETA and Terra Lliure itself - that year, Terra Lliure caused its only civilian fatality in an attack on 10 September 1987, when the explosion of a device in the courthouse in Les Borges Blanques (Lleida) caused a wall of an adjacent house to collapse, killing a 62-year-old woman, Emilia Aldomà, who was sleeping at the time. The second reason was the attack by Basque ETA in the garage of the Hipercor shopping centre in a predominantly working-class neighbourhood of Barcelona on 19 June 1987, which killed 21 people and injured 45, making it the bloodiest attack in the history of ETA and the second most serious in the history of Spain after the attack of 11 March 2004 in Madrid. The Hipercor attack, together with the subsequent attack on the Civil Guard barracks in Vic (Osona) on 29 May 1991, in which 10 people died, had a double effect for Terra Lliure. ETA's car bombings made it increasingly difficult to continue justifying the 'armed struggle' and reduced social and political support for home-grown violence.
Reflecting on the failure of the organization, Terra Lliure leader Jaume Fernàndez argued that a resilient Catalanist challenge to Spanish government was dependent on the nationalist constituency turning away from the transition process. Because most nationalist Catalans remained loyal to the new regime and trusted the electoral process, Terra Lliure was unable to gain strength. In 1991, Terra Lliure announced a ceasefire with the Spanish government and stated that its members would join the Catalan Republican Left to fight for independent Catalonia through non-violent means. Despite this, the Spanish government continued to hunt members of the organization, and Spanish authorities organized Operation Garzón in 1992, a preventine manhunt that was criticized for human rights activists for "indiscriminate arrests and extensive tortures that brought back the ghost of Francoist repression in Catalan society". Terra Lliure was officially disbanded in 1995, and most of its former members joined the ERC. On 8 March 1996, the Spanish government pardoned the 18 members convicted in the 1995 trial and ordered their immediate release from prison.
Most of Terra Lliure's original members converged into the group around 1980, arriving from other armed organizations such as the Catalan People's Army (EPOCA), the Catalan Liberation Front (FAC) or political organizations such as the Socialist Party of National Liberation (PSAN) and Catalan Countries' Independentists. In 1979, Terra Lliure started its armed activities and two of its members died that year, one in a shootout with Civil Guard members and another one blew up himself.
Terra Lliure's best known action was the kidnapping of journalist Federico Jiménez Losantos on 21 May 1981 in Barcelona, for having signed the "Manifesto of the 2,300". This manifesto was a document signed by more than 2,300 intellectuals and professionals living and working in Catalonia and published on 25 January 1981. In it, they defended the co-official status of Catalan and Spanish as the vehicular languages of public education in Catalonia; expressed their concern about the exclusive use of Catalan as the "only official language"; and criticised the policy of the Catalan government to progressively introduce education only in Catalan. After being shot in the knee by Terra Lliure member Pere Bascompte and left tied to a tree, Jiménez Losantos was found by the police the same day. In June, the group published its first statement, called Free Land Calling, in a mass meeting at the Camp Nou stadium.
In 1982, Terra Lliure held its first assembly, while it continued its armed campaign against Spanish and French interests, bank offices and other administrations. A second assembly was held in 1984 and the group started publishing official statements and claimed actions that they carried out through the Alerta magazine. In 1985 and 1985, two more members died while carrying explosive devices.
Between 1984 and 1989 some of Terra Lliure's leaders were arrested, nevertheless the group maintained its structure and capacities and a parallel political movement was developing, the Solidarity Committee with the Catalan Patriots (CSPC) and the Movement for the Defense of the Land (MDT). During these years, starting from 1985, both the MDT and Terra Lliure would receive bomb attacks from Milícia Catalana (MC), a right-wing Spanish nationalist armed group. In 1987, the group committed its only killing, with a bomb attack in Les Borges Blanques, Lleida. Terra Lliure admitted the killing was an error. The group also committed several attacks, mainly against American interests, together with the Catalan Red Liberation Army. In 1988, Terra Lliure held its third assembly and developed three documents to describe the theoretical framework and analyze the social reality of the Catalan National Liberation Movement.
In July 1991, Terra Lliure announced it was declaring a ceasefire and that some of its members would start joining the Republican Left of Catalonia. Despite that, some cells kept carrying out attacks, especially due to the proximity to the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. Also in 1991, a former member of Terra Lliure, who had joined ETA, was killed in a police raid after a bomb attack in Vic, Barcelona.
In July 1992, under an order of judge Baltasar Garzón, police arrested around 40 of members of the group. Years later, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Spanish government to compensate some of the arrested people for failing to investigate allegations of torture during the raid. The following years, the group did not commit any attack and announced its dissolution on the 1995 National Day of Catalonia.