Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 7 mins.)
On a wall near the Madrid Metro station of Legazpi, there is a plaque. Those who stop to look at it will learn that it commemorates the antifascist Carlos Palomino, who on 11th November 2007 was fatally stabbed by a career Spanish soldier who was also a neo-nazi “skin” (or “skinhead”). The plaque placed by antifascists on the station entrance has been defaced by fascists a number of times but was always restored; it was also destroyed but soon replaced. In May 2016 Madrid’s City Council erected a plaque on No.145 Paseo de las Delicias where Carlos Palomino died while being given emergency aid. The plaque states:
Here was murdered on 11th November 2007 Carlos Javier Palomino Muñoz, of 16 years of age, a fighter against fascism and racism.
MURDERED BY A SERVING SOLDIER AND NEO-NAZI
A Google search featuring the name “Carlos Palomino” throws up the Mexican heavyweight boxer – one needs to refine the search to come up with the antifascist youth. Palomino was 16 years of age when he went with friends to counter-protest the fascist organisation Democracia Nacional that was holding an anti-immigrant demonstration at Usera, a south Madrid district of noted migrant habitation, particularly of Latin American and Chinese background.
The antifascists boarded the metro carriage at Legazpi station on Line 3, unaware at first that 23-year-old Josué Estébanez de la Hija, a neo-nazi “skin” and professional member of the Spanish military, was on board, on his way to participate in the fascist demonstration. Seeing the youth and identifying them as antifascists, Estébanez drew a knife he was carrying, the blade of which was 25 centimetres (nearly 10”) long and held it concealed behind his back.
Not noticing the knife but becoming aware that Josué Estébanez was wearing a Three-Stroke sweatshirt, known as a label worn by neo-fascists, Carlos began to remonstrate with Estébanez, who then stabbed him fatally. Another youth was gravely injured and lost two-thirds of a finger to the knife attack1.
Josué Estébanez then fled the carriage and the station, pursued by antifascists, who caught him and were administering a severe beating when a passing police patrol rescued but also detained him. Carlos’ mother and Movement Against Intolerance were the civil society prosecutors (a provision in the Spanish legal system which is more typically availed of by organisations of the Right) at Estébanez’s trial. During two years of legal procedure Josué did not once express regret for what he had done until the last moment of the trial, having been found guilty and about to be sentenced.
Metro video footage produced during the Madrid trial clearly showed the sequence of events in the carriage and contradicted the neo-nazi’s claim of self-defence. During the trial Estébanez pretended he had not been on his way to the demonstration but instead was going to meet friends but failed to produce corroborating evidence. He denied being a fascist but the video record showed him giving the nazi salute and shouting “Heil Hitler!” His attempts to deny his neo-nazi sympathies were not aided by the number of fascist organisation in Spain and across Europe that publicly declared in his support.2
Josué Estébanez was from Galdako3 in Biskaia province in the Basque Country, a country where the majority had a long tradition not only of antifascism but also of resistance to service in the Spanish military. It would be interesting to know how he came to enlist in a military career and to be a neo-nazi, though both things are probably not unconnected. According to a press report, his neighbours in Galdako didn’t know he was in jail until the news reached them and hadn’t even known he was in the Army. His mother had not seen him for some time.
Estébanez’s defence team sought a total of nine months’ jail, six on conviction for reckless manslaughter and three for causing grievous bodily harm to a second person. The family prosecution sought 37 years’ imprisonment and compensation, while the civic association joining in the prosecution, Alto Arenal or Movement Against Intolerance asked for 30 years’ jail as a “hate crime”.
Josué Estébanez was sentenced to 26 years in prison and to pay a compensation of 150,000 euros (not a cent of which was ever paid). On 22nd April 2010, the Spanish Supreme Court confirmed the sentence.
THE MOTHER
Carlos Palomino’s mother, Mavi Muñoz attended all days of the trial of her son’s murderer, accompanied by her own mother and other family. When on the very last day, just before sentencing Estébanez turned to her and apologised for the suffering he had caused her, she replied: “I wish you all the worst.”
Mavi became an antifascist activist and founded the Association of Victims of Racism and Homophobia4 and entered the organisation Mothers Against Repression, of which she has been made the honorary president.
When the Madrid city council at last erected the plaque to commemorate her son’s murder, she was there and, among other events, attends the annual demonstration in remembrance of her son. Every year a public demonstration is held on the 11th November in Madrid to honor the memory of Carlos Palomino and to reaffirm resolute opposition to fascism and often fountains are dyed red.
On the 10th anniversary of his murder, the demonstration in Madrid easily exceeded a thousand and antifascist demonstrations were held in many other parts of the Spanish state. Mavi Muñoz sent the following message that year:
“Let his blood not have been (shed) in vain”
“Now more than ever, on this tenth anniversary, not only for Carlos, but for all those who have fallen at the hands of fascism, I pray that their blood has not been shed in vain. That blood has been shed for defending a better world, I believe that there is a better world, but we have to find it, we have to fight for it, and there is no fight without sacrifices. I ask the anti-fascist movement of today, the anti-fascism of now, to commit itself, that the fight continues, that we do not allow ourselves to be stepped on, that we realize that the fascists are advancing, that we cannot allow that. Our motto is They will not pass! and it’s time to put it into practice. We have to reorganize and restructure all of us, because there are many more of us and we can handle them. We have to show it and not allow them (to spill) more of our blood. We are not going to allow one more of us to fall. And to each attack there must be an effective response.”
13th CARLOS PALOMINO ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION WEDNESDAY 11th
Many hundreds turned out in Madrid on the evening of the 11th of this month for the annual commemoration of Madrid’s latest antifascist martyr in a march convened by Friends and Relations of Carlos and supported by other organisations, including the Madrid Antifascist Coordination. They rallied outside the Atocha Metro station – it was in Atocha that a lawyers working for the trade union movement led by the Communist Party were massacred by fascists in 1977 — one of the many attacks on the Left and democratic forces of the “Transition”, to ensure that post-Franco Spain remained in the hands of the same people but in a “democratic” form.
This week the marchers proceeded from Atocha in columns, maintaining social distancing, with his image on placards and led by a banner declaring “Carlos vive, la lucha sigue” (“Carlos lives, the struggle continues”). The march passed through Paseo de las Delicias, where Carlos Palomino had died.
Then they lined the route through which a small group passed, holding up a placard recording the murder, along with his image on another placard, with red flares burning (see video) to bursts of applause and cheering.
MADRID
Madrid is a city of wide disparities. There are the imposing buildings, monuments and fountains of an imperial past for example around Puerto del Sol and la Plaza de España on the one hand and on the other, areas like Valences, more on the outskirts, with its radical traditions, mixed ethnic population, the Rayo Vallecano football team with it anti-fascist ultras, the Bukaneros (of which Carlos was one). Carlos lived with the Palomino family there. Even down a few minutes walk from the Plaza de España, one finds small areas like the Cuchilleros where the ambience is more antifascist and tolerant of difference in sexual preference; there are many areas like that in Madrid, close to the city centre (if Madrid can be said to have just one city centre).
The city is split politically between extremes of Right and Left. The Right are the political heirs (and often the actual descendants) of the victors of the fascist-military uprising in 1936, their current fortunes often the prizes awarded by the Dictator, General Franco. On the other hand, the Anarchists and Communists of various types – the heirs of those who lost. Madrid was successfully defended against the fascist-military coup in 1936 but then besieged by land and bombarded from the air. Franco had airplanes and pilots from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, along with land transport vehicles and armaments, while the European states blockaded the elected government of the Spanish state.
No pasarán!, “they shall not pass”, was the cry for the defence of Madrid in 1936 (and actually at the Battle of Cable Street in London’s East End that year too). But sí pasaron, they did pass. The city fell on 28th March 1939 and, like in all other conquered Spanish, Basque and Catalan cities, the hunt began for “the Reds” — i.e antifascists of any kind. Huge numbers found their end against blood-spattered walls.
But still the resistance did not end. On 5th August 1939, the JSU, a communist youth organisation assassinated Isaac Gabaldon, Commander of the paramilitary police force, the Guardia Civil, after which 51 female and male antifascists, the “Thirteen Roses and the 38 Carnations”, were shot by firing squads (see article on that elsewhere on Rebel Breeze). In the 1970s the antifascist workers’ movement forced the post-Franco “Transition” for fear of revolution.
The antifascist resistance still lives in Madrid today.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The knife was identified as an Army one by the family prosecution but by the trial had disappeared.
2Brenton Tarrant, mass murderer of 51 innocent Muslims in New Zealand in March 2019, had names of some of his heroes marked on his weaponry, among which was that of Josue Estébanez. Unlike his hero in Spain, Tarrant admitted to all charges but like him, expressed no regret during his trial; he was sentenced to natural life in prison.
3As I was writing this today the news came of the arrest of two supporters of the Amnistia movement against repression (not part of the official Left Abertzale leadership), one of whom is from Galdako.
4The title seems a reply to the right-wing Association of Victims of Terrorism, which counts many military and police and their relatives as members.
SOURCES AND FURTHER INFORMATION
Erection of the plaque: https://www.diagonalperiodico.net/libertades/30374-placa-para-recordar-carlos-palomino.html
The murder and trial: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asesinato_de_Carlos_Palomino
Commemoration in Madrid on Wednesday (reports, photos, videos):
Was a hero of mass murderer in New Zealand: https://elpais.com/ccaa/2019/03/15/madrid/1552645383_279994.html
Estébanez neighbours in Galdako and studying law and pottery in jail: https://www.elespanol.com/reportajes/20181116/asesino-neonazi-carlos-palomino-josue-derecho-alfareria/352744736_3.html#img_12
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