The innocence (and secrets) of the last executed man of Franco's regime

BarcelonaThere have been many silences in Spain's recent history. The journalist Roger Mateos (Barcelona, ​​​​1977), who has dedicated many years to investigate and explore the greyest and darkest areas of Franco's regime, decided to uncover new secrets after learning of a conversation. Xosé Humberto Baena, a member of the Revolutionary Anti-Fascist and Patriotic Front (FRAP), had it with his father shortly before he was shot on September 27, 1975, fifty years ago. The father needed the truth, and asked his son to tell him, although if he told him they had shot an innocent man, it would be more painful. "I'm sorry, Father, but I can't give you that consolation. It wasn't me who killed him," was the response of the young Galician anti-Francoist who was about to turn 25. Mateos believes in Baena's innocence; he has the information to prove it. The Summer of the Innocents: The Secret of the Last Man Executed During the Franco Regime (Anagrama) is a years-long investigation into what happened on the day of the murder of police officer Lucio Rodríguez, for which Baena was convicted and killed.

There was Baena's statement and the witness of a former FRAP member who claimed that the young Galician man could not have been the actual perpetrator of the shots that killed the police officer. "I had a great journalistic curiosity, and it broke my mental taboo that I had to touch in 1975," says Mateos, who has been researching this political organization for twenty years. "I've always been interested in the FRAP because of the eccentricity of having as its political matrix the Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist), the PCE (ml) whose only sponsor was Enver Hoxha's Albania, who imposed the most isolationist regime of the Cold War, and because of Mateos. "The FRAP became one of the most powerful anti-Franco forces, in number of militants and, above all, with greater visibility and hyperactivity in the streets, in factories and in universities. They exposed themselves a lot and attracted the most combative," explains the journalist.

Take up arms

1975 was a slippery year, because the FRAP decided to create armed commandos to kill uniformed agents of the dictatorship: police, Civil Guards, military personnel... It did so in the spring of 1975 and for just three months, from July to September. "They didn't have many resources or means," Mateos asserts. "They made a dramatically erroneous reading of how the political situation in Spain would evolve. Their diagnosis was that, upon Franco's death, the elites would make a pact and there would be a parliamentary monarchy that would apparently be a democracy, but which would actually be a disguised continuation of Francoism, to avoid repression, and the people would respond to its call," summarizes the journalist, who believes that the FRAP "overestimated its strength."

In 1975, Baena found himself in a rather vulnerable situation. He had had to flee Vigo and took refuge in Madrid, at the time when the FRAP had decided to organize armed groups. "In Madrid, Baena felt helpless and depended on the hiding places provided by the party," explains Mateos. On the other hand, the young Galician was an idealist who believed the dictatorship should be fought. "I'm not at all convinced that he approved of armed struggle or that he considered the right conditions existed for it, but we're talking about a vertical organization in which obedience and discipline were very strict. And he was a disciplined militant," he adds.

Baena's girlfriend, Maruxa, who was with him until shortly before his arrest, explained to Mateos that Baena didn't agree with taking up arms. "I have many doubts about how Baena ended up in an armed commando. Did he do it because of the vulnerable situation he found himself in?" Mateos asks. Be that as it may, the journalist is convinced that Baena wasn't the one who pulled the trigger. All the research—he has hundreds of documents at home and has conducted countless interviews—leads him to believe that there weren't three FRAP members in the car Baena was riding in, but four. And that fourth, who managed to escape to France, is the one who killed the police officer.

The pacts of silence

Why did the police arrest Baena? He was the last person to be arrested, and Francoist agents came looking for him after he had already interrogated and savagely tortured two militants allegedly linked to the events: Pablo and Manolo. Mateos went to speak with these two militants on several occasions, and in the book, he describes how the conversations unfolded. Baena was tortured in every possible way until the police obtained his signature. It was a quick way to close an investigation and avoid admitting that they might have made a mistake. "The dictatorship is solely responsible for all the deaths, because it was the one that ordered the executions after trials that were a farce," Mateos says emphatically, to whom not all doors have been opened. "I asked what happened because I wanted to rewrite events that occurred half a century ago and that are time-barred. I also wanted to do it for Baena's family, because there are questions that torment them. I think it makes sense to explain it because it is part of one of the most momentous episodes in the history of Spain," says the journalist, who insists that the journalist insists on the Franco regime in its final days.

No one has wanted to say who the actual perpetrator of the events was, whether Baena fired or not, and why the police went looking for him. "I've tried to get them to tell me, but they believe they have sufficient reasons to maintain the pact of silence, and I can't judge them for that," he says.

Mateos has been talking to her for years, with this anti-Franco militancy, and has made other investigations, such as the one collected in the book Cipriano Martos Case (Anagram)"I have great respect for a militant group that sacrificed everything, but I think the leaders deserve a different treatment. I've been able to read the minutes of the meetings and the verbatim transcripts of the internal debates, and their strategic blindness is evident," he asserts. In 1975, Raúl Marco and Elena Ódena were at the top.