Word: coupes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Spain's rightists hope to provoke a coup by the military
...suspense drama. A band of hooded, heavily armed terrorists invaded the ground-floor offices of Barcelona's Banco Central, taking some 200 hostages and demanding the release of four army and Civil Guard officers who were under arrest for their roles in last February's attempted military coup. They threatened to kill the hostages and blow up the bank if their demands were not met. After a 37-hour siege, crack squads of special police moved in to capture the terrorists and free the hostages...
Thus did political violence return to Spain last week at a critical moment for the country's beleaguered young democracy. Ever since an abortive military coup last February, the army and the government have coexisted in an uneasy truce. Last week's attacks clearly seemed to be aimed at undermining that shaky stability. The targets were exclusively military-men and police officers, and their funerals attracted hundreds of right-wing demonstrators who angrily denounced the government and called for the army to seize power...
...Carlos has denied the charge, but most political analysts agree that the leaked testimony will put additional pressure on Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo to avoid a full-dress court martial of Tejero. Such an exercise would almost certainly embarrass the throne, infuriate the army and possibly precipitate another coup...
...well, odd. The conspirators included a gay vigilante, a mystery-man gunrunner with the novelish name of Sydney Burnett-Alleyne, a nurse cum spy with Irish Republican Army connections, and an ousted Prime Minister with alleged ties to South African industrialists. The gang, it appears, was intent on a coup to capture the impoverished Caribbean island of Dominica (pop. 81,000), a true banana republic (70% of exports) that is physically no bigger than Lexington...