Word: franco
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Franco rally and an abortive plot stir concern for democracy...
...renaissance of the life and spirit of Spain, much like a fresh spring that follows a long and miserable winter, began on Nov. 20, 1975. On that day, Francisco Franco died, and on that day began the flowering of Spanish democracy...
That this fragile shoot requires watchful nurturing was dramatized last week when 150,000 shouting Spaniards flooded Madrid's Plaza de Oriente to pay tribute to the late dictator Franco on the third anniversary of his death. Blue-shirted members of the Fuerza Nueva (New Force), an extreme right-wing group, marched to the site in military formation and mingled with grizzled Civil War veterans and youths with Nazi swastika armbands. Others who crowded into the square were simply ordinary conservatives, nostalgic for days long gone when life seemed more disciplined and predictable...
...FRANCO GAVE US PEACE, JUSTICE AND WORK, proclaimed one of the many signs held aloft by demonstrators. Waiting for the ceremonies to begin, the crowd began to chant, "You notice it! You can feel it! Franco is here!" Then the Spanish national anthem boomed over the loudspeakers, and the Franquistas snapped to attention and put their palms forward in the straight-arm Fascist salute. Bias Piñar, 60, a former Franco appointee to the Cortes and now the leading activist of Spain's diehard rightists, stepped forward from his place beside the dictator's 52-year...
Spanish officials tended to dismiss the importance of the plot, but there was no question that the government was concerned about the restiveness of the right-as well as by terrorist activity by Basque separatists. Over the past two months, Basque gunmen have killed 23 people, including onetime Franco Judge José Francisco Mateu, 58, who was shot down on a Madrid street. Last week three carloads of terrorists roared up to a police barracks outside Bilbao and machine-gunned 30 men who were playing soccer. Two were killed and eleven wounded...