Carles Puigdemont Returns to Catalonia, Defying Spanish Arrest Warrant
Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s separatist leader-in-exile, returned to Barcelona on Thursday after seven years, defying an arrest warrant issued by the Spanish authorities, and potentially facing detention. Then he disappeared.
Mr. Puigdemont’s return is a turning point in the political journey of a man who has presided over one of Spain’s most fraught political issues — the independence bid of the prosperous northeastern region of Catalonia.
Wrapped in red and yellow Catalan flags, pro-independence supporters gathered by Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf, a towering brick memorial arch, to welcome him, chanting “Puigdemont is our president,” and hoping his comeback would energize a movement whose popularity has been dwindling.
“We have been persecuted for seven years for wanting to hear the voice of the people of Catalonia,” Mr. Puigdemont said from a stage below the arch as people waved photos of him, banners and tote bags bearing his name.
“Long live free Catalonia!” he said, adding, “I don’t know when we will see each other again.”
After the rally, Mr. Puigdemont fled the scene, and it was unclear where he went. The police activated a so-called cage operation to catch him, with tight checks on nearly every car entering and leaving Barcelona, a spokesman for the Catalan police said.
A member of the Catalan police force was arrested on suspicion of having helped Mr. Puigdemont escape, a police spokesman said. Memes about Mr. Puigdemont’s mysterious disappearance started circulating, some comparing the search for him to a children’s puzzle book set on Barcelona’s crowded beaches.
Mr. Puigdemont was president of the Catalan government when a 2017 referendum in defiance of the Spanish government nearly fractured the country, and he issued a sort of unilateral declaration of independence. Amid unrest and a police crackdown, two nationalist movements — Spanish and Catalan — were at odds.
Pro-independence Catalans never saw their dream of living in an independent state come so near. Other Spaniards saw an existential threat to their nationhood, reviving among conservatives the Spanish nationalism that was considered taboo in the aftermath of the Francisco Franco dictatorship, and bolstering right-wing hard-liners.
Opposition lawmakers on Thursday used the opportunity to denounce Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez over what they called the “humiliation” and “parody” of having a politician who is wanted by the authorities return, hold a rally near Barcelona’s Parliament and then flee without being detained.
Despite the summer heat and vacation period, during which Barcelona empties out of its residents and fills up with tourists, supporters of Mr. Puigdemont walked en masse toward Parliament after the rally, then clashed with the police outside the gates while trying to push through.
As police officers surrounded the entrance, the crowd shouted and chanted, “Out the occupation forces!” and “Open the doors to our president!”
Still, the crowd was much smaller than seven years ago, when Mr. Puigdemont drove the independence referendum that provoked Spain’s most severe constitutional crisis in decades. His hard-line separatist party, Together for Catalonia, played the kingmaker in last year’s Spanish election, obtaining in return an amnesty law for alleged crimes linked to the 2017 failed bid for independence. The law, which passed earlier this year, partly paved the way for Mr. Puigdemont’s return.
It is still unclear whether Mr. Puigdemont will be caught, detained and whether the amnesty law, which would potentially affect many separatists, would apply to him. From the start, judges have criticized the amnesty law, saying that it infringes on the separation of powers.
Mr. Puigdemont is also still facing trial on accusations of embezzlement, even though judges dropped the terrorism investigation against him.
What is for sure, experts say, is that his return is a last-ditch effort to remain relevant in Spain and in Catalonia, where pro-independence support has dwindled and where for the first time in decades separatist parties did not win an outright majority in Parliament in May.
“It’s Mr. Puigdemont’s last dance,” said Ignacio Lago, a professor of political science at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.
The Republican Left of Catalonia — a more moderate separatist party — has backed a Socialist leader as the regional government’s next president, and experts said Mr. Puigdemont was hoping his return could push the party to pull its support from the coalition, and potentially have new elections.
It didn’t, and the Socialist, Salvador Illa, was voted in on Thursday night.
Even so, inside Catalonia’s Parliament, an 18th-century pink-and-stone building with a stained glass ceiling, lawmakers from Mr. Puigdemont’s party said that the morning’s crowd had given them hope that the pro-independence movement would be energized by the leader’s return.
“Barcelona normally is a desert in August,” said Laura Borràs, the president of Mr. Puigdemont’s party. “It’s a sign that we are here and we are not giving up.”
Before his arrival, Mr. Puigdemont, formerly a mayor from the Spanish hinterland, said that he was aware he could be arrested, but that it was the only solution to what he called a democratic crisis in Spain. During his time in exile, Mr. Puigdemont was summoned by the authorities in several European countries and detained in Italy and Germany.
He also continued to insist on “the necessity of independence as the only alternative” for the “survival of Catalonia.”
Even as his 2017 secessionist bid failed, and after years in self-imposed exile in Belgium, Mr. Puigdemont returned to relevance when the Spanish prime minister sought his support last year and offered the polarizing amnesty law in return.
Experts said the amnesty law made it harder for Mr. Puigdemont to remain abroad.
“The amnesty law has created the conditions for him to return,” said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Carlos III University in Madrid. “Returning is the only thing he can do in order to continue to play the victim.”
The secessionist parties have for years accused judges of being politically motivated, and in a letter he wrote on Saturday, Mr. Puigdemont said that his return would provide more evidence that “amnesties do not amnesty,” and that “there are judges willing to disobey the law.”
The grievances of the pro-independence movement are centuries-old and deep rooted. They were bolstered by the victory of independence parties in the region’s Parliament and kept alive by a severe clampdown by the Spanish government.
Catalans already enjoy a level of autonomy on security, language, health and education, and can manage part of their tax revenue. But many have vowed to keep more of the region’s tax money.
Catalans are evenly divided between pro-and anti-independence feelings, with both sides of the debate ranging from 40 to 50 percent of popular support in recent years.
But in since 2017, pro-independence sentiment has declined, partly because of disillusionment with the separatist movements, and because global events, including the pandemic, have given Catalans other things to worry about, and perhaps a reason to stick together.
Many protesters on Thursday acknowledged that.
“People are disillusioned,” said Enric D’Armengol, 70.
Jaume Primer, 18, climbed up a pole, wearing a Catalan flag as a cloak. He said he thought it was important to defend Catalonia’s independence, because his grandmother had suffered repression under Franco. “She couldn’t show her flag or sing her songs,” he said.
But now, he said, it was only “grandpas and grandmas and people with white hair” at the rally.
When Spain won the European soccer cup last month, he said, many young people went to celebrate with Spain.
“Probably Catalonia won’t ever be independent,” he said. “But we are here because it’s important.”
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