MONTBLANC, Spain: He spent three years and eight months behind bars for his involvement in Catalonia’s 2017 failed independence bid. But Jordi Cuixart says he has no regrets, days after being pardoned by Spain.
One of nine Catalan separatist leaders freed on Wednesday as a gesture of “reconciliation,” Cuixart says the olive branch will not resolve the separatist crisis in this wealthy northeastern region of Spain.
“These pardons don’t reflect a desire to resolve the political conflict,” says the 46-year-old who heads Omnium Cultural, one of the region’s biggest grassroots pro-independence groups.
Speaking to AFP, Cuixart pointed to widespread criticism of their imprisonment from NGOs like Amnesty International as a factor behind the release of the separatists, but said what tipped the balance was that “our being in prison was creating problems for the Spanish state.”
Cuixart was arrested on October 16, 2017 after a demonstration outside a regional government building during which several police vehicles were destroyed.
In 2019, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for sedition.
The image of Cuixart addressing protesters while standing on a police vehicle remains one of the enduring images of the failed independence bid which sparked Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.
The prisoners were serving between nine and 13 years each for their role in holding a referendum banned by Spain’s courts and that was marred by police violence.
Several weeks later, Catalonia’s separatist regional parliament made a short-lived declaration of independence, prompting Madrid to sack the regional government and suspend its autonomy.
And after much thought while in prison, Cuixart says he has almost no regrets.
“I don’t regret anything except the violence that was inflicted (by police) on ordinary citizens,” he said, blaming the Spanish state for all the unrest.
Others have been slightly more self-critical.
Oriol Junqueras, deputy head of the Catalan government at the time of the crisis and the prisoner serving the longest sentence of 13 years, recently admitted the separatists made mistakes back in 2017.
Even so, Cuixart believes that the talks between Madrid and Catalonia’s separatist leadership, which are to resume soon, may end up being a “turning point.”
“I don’t see Spanish society as being ready for progress on autonomy, but politicians are responsible for engaging in dialogue,” said Cuixart, who has a salt-and-pepper beard and wears his hair in a longish curly mullet.
A fervent advocate of the right to self-determination, a key separatist demand, he is nonetheless aware that the central government remains categorically opposed to such an idea.
While he missed his children, the youngest of whom was born while he was behind bars, Cuixart said he has fond memories of prison — although he was held in a semi-open regime and able to leave regularly.
Now totally free, he is enjoying his first days of real freedom in a small village about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Barcelona, where his family has a house and where all the locals recognize him, his face being very well-known within Catalan society.
He says his time in jail has made him stronger.
“They wanted me to lose everything but the only thing I lost was fear. I am not afraid of the Spanish state,” he said defiantly.
“Will we ever have a Catalan Republic? If that’s what Catalans want, it’s very likely it will happen one day.”
‘No regrets’ says pardoned but defiant Catalan separatist
https://arab.news/9h7xp
‘No regrets’ says pardoned but defiant Catalan separatist
- ‘These pardons don’t reflect a desire to resolve the political conflict’
- Jordi Cuixart was arrested on October 16, 2017 after a demonstration outside a regional government building
Trump says US could run Venezuela and its oil for years
- US president made the comments less than a week after Washington seized Maduro in a raid on Caracus
- Oil has emerged as the key to US control over Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven reserves
WASHINGTON: The United States could run Venezuela and tap into its oil reserves for years, President Donald Trump said in an interview published Thursday, less than a week after toppling its leader Nicolas Maduro.
“Only time will tell” how long Washington would demand direct oversight of the South American country, Trump told The New York Times.
But when asked whether that meant three months, six months or a year, he replied: “I would say much longer.”
The 79-year-old US leader also said he wanted to travel to Venezuela eventually. “I think at some point it’ll be safe,” he said.
US special forces snatched president Maduro and his wife in a lightning raid on Saturday and whisked them to New York to face trial on drug and weapons charges, underscoring what Trump has called the “Donroe Doctrine” of US hegemony over its backyard.
Since then Trump has repeatedly asserted that the United States will “run” Venezuela, despite the fact that it has no boots on the ground.
Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodriguez insisted that no foreign power was governing her country. “There is a stain on our relations such as had never occurred in our history,” Rodriguez said of the US attack.
But she added it was “not unusual or irregular” to trade with the United States now, following an announcement by state oil firm PDVSA that it was in negotiations to sell crude to the United States.
‘Tangled mess’
Oil has in fact emerged as the key to US control over Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven reserves.
Trump announced a plan earlier this week for the United States to sell between 30 million and 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude, with Caracas then using the money to buy US-made products.
On the streets of Caracas, opinions remain mixed about the oil plan.
“I feel we’ll have more opportunities if the oil is in the hands of the United States than in the hands of the government,” said Jose Antonio Blanco, 26. “The decisions they’ll make are better.”
Teresa Gonzalez, 52, said she didn’t know if the oil sales plan was good or bad.
“It’s a tangled mess. What we do is try to survive, if we don’t work, we don’t eat,” she added.
Trump, who will meet oil executives on Friday, is also considering a plan for the US to exert some control over Venezuela’s PDVSA, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The US would then have a hand in controlling most of the oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, as Trump aims to drive oil prices down to $50 a barrel, the paper reported.
Vice President JD Vance underscored that “the way that we control Venezuela is we control the purse strings.”
“We tell the regime, ‘you’re allowed to sell the oil so long as you serve America’s national interest,’” he told Fox News host Jesse Watters in an interview broadcast late Wednesday.
‘Go like Maduro’
Vance, an Iraq veteran who is himself a skeptic of US military adventures, also addressed concerns from Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” saying the plan would exert pressure “without wasting a single American life.”
The US Senate is voting Thursday on a “war powers” resolution to require congressional authorization for military force against Venezuela, a test of Republican support for Trump’s actions.
Caracas announced on Wednesday that at least 100 people had been killed in the US attack and a similar number wounded. Havana says 32 Cuban soldiers were among them.
Trump’s administration has so far indicated it intends to stick with Rodriguez and sideline opposition figures, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado.
But Rodriguez’s leadership faces internal pressures, analysts have told AFP, notably from her powerful Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.
“Her power comes from Washington, not from the internal structure. If Trump decides she’s no longer useful, she’ll go like Maduro,” Venezuela’s former information minister Andres Izarra told AFP in an email.
The US operation in Venezuela — and Trump’s hints that other countries could be next — spread shockwaves through the Americas, but but he has since dialed down tensions with Colombia.
A day after Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro spoke with Trump on Wednedsday, Bogota said Thursday it had agreed to take “joint action” against cocaine-smuggling guerrillas on the border with Venezuela.
