Octavio Alberola Surinach, Ariane Gransac, Franco Leggio, etc., Campo Santa Margherita, Venice, September 1984
Dublin Core
Title
Octavio Alberola Surinach, Ariane Gransac, Franco Leggio, etc., Campo Santa Margherita, Venice, September 1984
Description
Stuart Christie (2011): 'IN 1962 Octavio was invited by the Defence Commission of the MLE (Spanish Libertarian Movement — the CNT-FAI-FIJL-Mujeres Libres) to come to Europe to become full-time ‘coordinator’ of ‘Defensa Interior’ (Interior Defence), the recently established clandestine planning organisation responsible for anti-Francoist actions inside and outside Spain (intended to radicalise the anti-Francoist opposition and to demonstrate to the world that resistance to the Franco regime still existed) — and for the attempts on the life of General Franco (with the objective of bringing about immediate political change in Spain).
DEFENSA INTERIOR ceased to exist as an official body of the Spanish Libertarian Movement (MLE) in October 1963. The disbandment followed the garroting in Madrid (August 1963) of two young anarchists Francisco Granado and Joaquin Delgado, and an order by the French Ministry of the Interior published in the Journal Officiel de la Republique Francaise of 20 October 1963 — a month after the arrest of 21 FIJL activists in France, which made the FIJL an illegal organisation throughout French territory. The outlawing of the FIJL had been a quid pro quo between the Gaullist and Francoist security services: in return for French government action against the Spanish anarchist activists in France, Spain cracked down on ‘pied-noir’ OAS Commando Delta operations to assassinate De Gaulle, which were planned and run from Madrid and Valencia (Petit-Clamart and Georges Watin’s plan to shoot De Gaulle at the Ecole Militaire)
The DI’s activists, however, were not so ready to abandon the struggle against the Franco regime and it was at this point that the First of May Group emerged as an independent international anarchist action grouping to carry out out a number of spectacular coordinated direct actions on a Europe-wide scale. It later played an important part in the activist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. On May 1 1965, five days after the kidnapping of a Francoist diplomat in London on 25 April, Octavio’s father, José Alberola, was found dead in his apartment in Mexico City. He had been tortured and murdered by proxy killers of the ‘Brigada Blanca’, (four of whom were seen leaving the flat), a Mexican police death squad working on behalf of Franco’s Gestapo-trained secret police, the Brigada Politico Social (BPS).
Also in the photograph is Ariane Gransac Sadori, Octavio’s partner and co-author of their book ‘Spanish Anarchism and Revolutionary Action in Spain, 1961-1974’ (Ruedo Ibérico publishers, Paris), ‘Moni’ Tellez (partner of anarchist historian Antonio Tellez), and the Sicilian anarchist publisher, activist — and ‘First of May Group’ member — the late Franco Leggio.'
DEFENSA INTERIOR ceased to exist as an official body of the Spanish Libertarian Movement (MLE) in October 1963. The disbandment followed the garroting in Madrid (August 1963) of two young anarchists Francisco Granado and Joaquin Delgado, and an order by the French Ministry of the Interior published in the Journal Officiel de la Republique Francaise of 20 October 1963 — a month after the arrest of 21 FIJL activists in France, which made the FIJL an illegal organisation throughout French territory. The outlawing of the FIJL had been a quid pro quo between the Gaullist and Francoist security services: in return for French government action against the Spanish anarchist activists in France, Spain cracked down on ‘pied-noir’ OAS Commando Delta operations to assassinate De Gaulle, which were planned and run from Madrid and Valencia (Petit-Clamart and Georges Watin’s plan to shoot De Gaulle at the Ecole Militaire)
The DI’s activists, however, were not so ready to abandon the struggle against the Franco regime and it was at this point that the First of May Group emerged as an independent international anarchist action grouping to carry out out a number of spectacular coordinated direct actions on a Europe-wide scale. It later played an important part in the activist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. On May 1 1965, five days after the kidnapping of a Francoist diplomat in London on 25 April, Octavio’s father, José Alberola, was found dead in his apartment in Mexico City. He had been tortured and murdered by proxy killers of the ‘Brigada Blanca’, (four of whom were seen leaving the flat), a Mexican police death squad working on behalf of Franco’s Gestapo-trained secret police, the Brigada Politico Social (BPS).
Also in the photograph is Ariane Gransac Sadori, Octavio’s partner and co-author of their book ‘Spanish Anarchism and Revolutionary Action in Spain, 1961-1974’ (Ruedo Ibérico publishers, Paris), ‘Moni’ Tellez (partner of anarchist historian Antonio Tellez), and the Sicilian anarchist publisher, activist — and ‘First of May Group’ member — the late Franco Leggio.'
Creator
Stuart Christie
Date
1984
Collection
Tags
Citation
Stuart Christie, “Octavio Alberola Surinach, Ariane Gransac, Franco Leggio, etc., Campo Santa Margherita, Venice, September 1984,” Stuart Christie Memorial Archive, accessed December 26, 2024, https://stuartchristie.maydayrooms.org/items/show/417.