As on every 15th of October, we come together to honour President Lluís Companys. No matter how many years have gone by since his assassination, no matter how many generations have passed, his presence will remain at the heart of Catalan society as an example of a free man, to the ultimate consequences, for the ideals of the Republic, of social justice and of the nation’s liberty.
The people of Catalonia have been through countless vicissitudes since the dawn he was slain at Montjuïc castle by a Spanish army firing squad; after being handed over to fascist Spain by the collaborationist French authorities, accomplices of Nazi Germany; after being tortured in Madrid and being sentenced to death in Barcelona in a sham trial meant to instil fear in the Catalan people. The Catalans have been through decades of resistance of individual, anonymous heroes to regain our democratic freedoms and to safeguard our national identity, decades during which we were able to maintain the testament of our martyred president.
The women and men of Esquerra Republicana are proud of how their leader has become embedded in the minds of our citizens as an example of the commitment taken by Catalan society throughout the twentieth century in favour of the socialization of wealth and the building of a nation of progress and culture, of Catalan ideals. Ideals shared with millions of human beings throughout the world who raise the republican banner, that none is more worthy than any another. Today we renew our acknowledgment of that President who occupies the foremost place in the pantheon of illustrious patriots, proven by the fact that in every city and town in our country there is a place, an amenity or a road named that reminds us of him.
That is why, in 2017 the Parliament of Catalonia passed a law that declared the court martial that sentenced him to death illegitimate. The bill was introduced by my colleague and then Minister of Justice Carles Mundó in response to the refusal of the Spanish administration to proceed with the annulment of the sentence, despite the fact that on October 15, 2004 at the Fossar de la Pedrera [memorial], alongside President Pasqual Maragall the Spanish government had publicly committed to doing so. Lamentably, in 2021 the Spanish government still refuses, as evidenced in the recently presented [Democratic Memory] Bill which does not recognize the illegitimacy of the Franco regime.
The fate of President Companys and his sacrifice likewise betray the truth of the Spanish model of impunity that began with the pre-constitutional Amnesty Law of 1977, thanks to which those responsible for the crimes committed during the forty-year dictatorship and their accomplices have avoided accountability, and have even been promoted to positions of authority in the democratic state. This model of impunity that the current Spanish government does not question, has further debased the democratic quality of the state, distancing it from others that have also suffered dictatorial pasts, but have known how to make Truth, Justice and Reparation prevail as an antidote to the threat of a resurgence of fascist ideas and the trivialization of Human Rights. This democratic anomaly has corrupted the Spanish constitutional bodies, it has attacked the democratic guarantee of separation of powers and has extended corruption to the point of normalizing the thievery committed by members of the Royal Household.
This is the same state that in the middle of the 21st century refuses to recognize that Catalonia cannot be retained without the consent of its citizens, that the will of a people cannot be subjugated. That is why, despite the sufferance of unbridled repression, we reaffirm our commitment to continue pursuing the fight for the democratic conquest of the exercise of the Right to Self-Determination and we commit to attain such sufficient majorities as to make independence a reality.
The pain and sacrifice of the struggle will not erase our republican ideals of social justice, equality and fraternity among peoples, the greatest cause of humankind, indeed reviving the words of the president: “All just causes in the world have their defenders, Catalonia only has us.”
- Joan Tardà i Coma