España 2000: Spain's Fascist Movement Is Backed By Money and Pedigree
España 2000 aren't just a bunch of loud thugs, they are well-organised and well-funded by their shadowy backers.
Last Monday evening was a public holiday in Spain, Hispanic Day, or the Fiesta Nacional de España, which commemorates the day Christopher Columbus set off for the Americas. I had set off on a smaller journey, riding my bike through the lanes which separate the orange fields outside Valencia, and it was on my way back into the city when I saw an ominous-looking police helicopter hovering over my area of the city, Benimaclet. Naturally, I assumed someone had been murdered and the killer was fleeing across the rooftops. Twenty minutes later I had showered and begun cooking dinner, and the helicopter was still circling, motors whining and lights penetrating the darkening sky.
It turned out the source of the commotion was actually a march by far-right extremists who had bussed their members into the area, and the rather larger counter-protest by a crowd of locals. The police had sealed off the centre of Benimaclet where the march was taking place to keep the counter-protesters away while the fascists had their fun. Benimaclet is a fairly alternative, left-wing part of the city, full of students during term time, and is probably the area you’re most likely to hear Valencian spoken on the street, in a city which mostly speaks Castilian. Not exactly a breeding ground for neofascism.
The name of the group was España 2000, and they came to Benimaclet to provoke. As they made their way through the neighbourhood’s narrow streets, residents came onto their balconies shouting and whistling their disapproval and banging pots - a popular form of protest in Spain called a cacerolada. But the marchers, with their drums and burning torches, were ready. “All of these residents are supporting us! We thank the residents of Benimaclet for supporting us!” the cameraman howls repeatedly in a 40-minute livestream of the march. A girl shouts something from a balcony, her fist raised, and the cameraman quickly jumps in; “Ay, ay, ay, she is saying ‘government out, government out!’”
España 2000 is a political party. Founded in 2002 by José Luis Roberto Navarro, it says on its website that the name symbolises how the party aims to look forward instead of backwards, though amid the forest of nostalgic pre-constitutional and falangist flags at their demonstrations that message gets lost. Their policies are the usual combination of rot about uncontrolled immigration and a form of anti-globalisation which sees only white people as victims, rather than the entire global working class. As a party, they participate in elections and have occasionally won representation in towns around Valencia and Madrid. In one village near Madrid, Los Santos de la Humosa, they actually run the local government - though their election there seems to have been more about reopening the local bullring and reviving local traditions than anything more nefarious.
Above, party founder José Luis Roberto
Roberto, the party’s founder and current leader in Valencia, is a wealthy man whose money has allowed España 2000 to become well-organised and open local headquarters across the country. He’s been accused of funnelling money to other extremist groups in the past and taking part in terrorist acts against Catalan independence supporters during the Spanish transition to democracy. His money comes from the diverse array of businesses under his control: a legal firm, Roberto & Salazar, which has offices in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia; several gyms in Valencia and Catalonia - sometimes used by España 2000 to give free classes in self-defence to locals; military surplus stores, some of which supply equipment for local police forces; and one of Valencia’s largest private security firms - Levantina de Seguridad - which, curiously, provides security for the Valencia Islamic Centre. They have also been employed by the Catalan government to guard public monuments and buildings. Their numbers are mainly made up of ex-police, and their uniforms are more like those of a paramilitary group than a security force. With one’s paranoid hat on, it’s not hard to see how every one of these businesses could be used to further the goals of a fascist militant and political organisation such as España 2000. Until 2011, Roberto was also chair of Asociación Nacional de Empresarios de Locales de Alterne - an organisation defending the interests of brothel owners.
Another interesting character involved with España 2000 is a man by the name of Ernesto Milá. Milá, born in Barcelona, is considered one of the best-connected members of Europe’s fascist old-guard, though he was most active in the 70s and 80s, and has kept mainly to making occasional speeches and writing articles since then. In the 1970s, Milá was part of the terrorist groups which worked to threaten and destroy Spain’s burgeoning democratic movement during Franco’s final years; attacking Catalan bookshops and public centres in Valencia. Milá never faced prosecution for his involvement, as members of the police and secret services themselves were members and co-ordinators of these groups.
Above, Ernesto Milá
However, in 1980, Milá went a step too far when, as a member of the violent Frente de la Juventud, he led an attack on the Barcelona headquarters of the Union of the Democratic Centre - the governing party at the time. He fled Spain for France, where he soon found himself sent to prison for using forged documents and was questioned in relation to a bombing of a synagogue. From France, he travelled to Bolivia, where he ended up working with the ultraconservative dictatorship, dubbed ‘cocaine-dictatorship’ - of General Luis García Meza.
Meza’s regime, which was closely involved with and indebted to South America’s narcotraffickers - with soldiers even acting as enforcers and bodyguards for drug lords - enlisted Milá as an advisor. General Meza aspired to govern in the vein of Chile’s Pinochet and signed up fascist fugitives from Europe to help him do so. Milá found himself working with the Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie and former Nazi Klaus Barbie. Stefano Delle Chiaie, a sort of fascist equivalent of Che Guevara and a real nasty piece of work, had a long track record of working to bring down left-leaning governments and assassinate left-wing activists all over South America. Klaus Barbie, a former Gestapo officer and torture expert thought to have been responsible for over 14,000 deaths, had ended up in Bolivia with the help of the USA. The CIA had run out of uses for him, having recruited him immediately after the end of World War Two to help with their anti-Marxist campaigns. Milá worked with these two, allegedly advising the Bolivian regime on PSYOPS and torture techniques.
Above, General Garcia Meza, soon after seizing power in Bolivia
Bolivia’s dictatorship lasted barely a year, and by 1983 Ernesto Milá was back in Spain, where he was eventually imprisoned. Years later he began appearing at España 2000 rallies, and was included on their electoral list for the 2008 elections. He gave a speech at a rally in Ruzafa, Valencia, where a Tunisian immigrant had recently been murdered by Valencian neo-nazis. Last year he popped up in a strange YouTube video accompanied by a man with an open shirt who asks him to sit at his computer and explain who he is - there’s not much more context than that. He claims to be retired from any political activity.
I once had a conversation with a woman who works in counter-terrorism with the Spanish police. When I told her about a skinhead with nazi tattoos who I’d seen walking around the port area of Valencia, she told me about how people like him are only the foot-soldiers of Spain’s fascist movement. Those who run the operation, who have the real power in the movement, are careful to stay hidden, like Roberto and Milá. The outskirts of Valencia and the provincial villages, she said, contain more than their fair share of these people. They pop up every so often at rallies, like the one in Benimaclet, before heading back to their gated homes to run their businesses, their flag of the Spanish Falange safely folded and stowed away in a drawer.
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