Antonio Tejero Molina, the Spanish Civil Guard officer who led a failed 1981 coup that ended up strengthening Spain’s fledging democracy, has died aged 93, his household’s lawyer mentioned Wednesday.
“Lieutenant Colonel Don Antonio Tejero Molina has handed away. A person of honour, unwavering religion, and nice love for Spain. Could God grant him the peace that males denied him,” Luis Felipe Utrera Molina wrote on X.
The announcement of his dying got here on the identical day that Spain’s leftist authorities launched labeled paperwork associated to the February 23, 1981 coup try, a key second in fashionable Spanish historical past.
The failed putsch got here six years after the dying of Basic Francisco Franco and was orchestrated by army officers nostalgic for the privileges they loved throughout greater than 4 a long time of his dictatorship.
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Spain’s budding democracy got here to a shuddering halt that day when rebellious civil guards, led by Tejero Molina, stormed parliament and held lawmakers at gunpoint for nearly 24 hours.
Bellowing “Silence, everybody!” to terrified parliamentarians, the person with a bushy moustache and glossy tricorn shortly caught the general public’s consideration in a picture engraved on the nation’s collective reminiscence.
The siege solely ended when it grew to become clear that King Juan Carlos, Franco’s designated successor, wouldn’t assist the rebellion.
‘Do the identical once more’
Born on April 30, 1932 in Alhaurin el Grande, a city close to the southern metropolis of Málaga, Tejero noticed his early childhood marked by the 1936-1939 civil warfare which led to 36 years of authoritarian rule beneath Franco.
On the time of the coup, Tejero was 48 and had spent his whole grownup working life within the Civil Guard, Spain’s army police.
In November 1978, Tejero had been linked to a different failed bid to overthrow the federal government, often known as Operation Galaxy, for which he was sentenced to seven months behind bars.
Nevertheless it was the later coup, led by senior army commanders, that became “the founding fable of Spanish democracy”, mentioned Javier Cercas, whose e-book “Anatomy of an Instantaneous” particulars the occasions of February 1981.
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“On 23 February 1981, 200 years of army interventionism in Spain got here to an finish,” he wrote in El País newspaper, saying that was the second that democracy “actually started in Spain”.
Throughout his trial, Tejero justified his actions, saying: “Initially of 1981, the state of affairs in Spain… was worse than in 1936,” when insurgent troops rose up and overthrew the elected republican authorities.
And if given the possibility, Tejero mentioned he would “do the identical once more”, press stories on the time mentioned.
Sentenced to 30 years for army insurrection, he was expelled from the Civil Guard and stripped of his rank.
Painter and politics
Whereas serving time he grew to become a candidate to fill a seat within the very parliament he had tried to overthrow.
Had he managed to win a seat within the chamber, he may have appeared up and seen the bullet holes left within the ceiling by the gunshots he fired and whose marks are nonetheless there.
However the excessive proper Spanish Solidarity occasion he based did not win a single seat within the 1982 elections.
Throughout his time in jail, Tejero additionally swapped his pistol for a paintbrush, taking over artwork courses that noticed him produce practically 300 artworks, El Pais newspaper reported.
After being launched on parole in December 1996, he carried on portray, at one time reportedly promoting his canvases to supporters for as much as €2,400 a chunk, though they later fell to round €600, El Mundo every day reported in 2016.
Fiercely protecting of his privateness, Tejero evaded the press and by no means revealed his memoirs.
“I did what I assumed I needed to do to save lots of Spain,” he mentioned some two months after the failed coup in an interview from jail with journalist Pilar Urbano, who was in parliament’s press gallery when the putschists stormed in.
“I’m now not a colonel, nor a member of the Civil Guard. I’ve misplaced my profession however I’ll by no means lose my patriotism,” she quoted him as saying.
