"Into the Palacio de las Cortes - seat of the lower house - strode Antonio Tejero Molina, a thickly mustached lieutenant colonel in Spain's gendarmerie, the Guardia Civil. Wearing the Guardia's traditional black patent leather three-cornered hat, he waved an automatic pistol in the air. From behind and around him came 200 of his fellow Civil Guards, armed with automatic rifles."
"Mr. Tejero approached the speaker's podium, fired three shots into the ceiling and shouted, with a profanity, for everyone to sit down and be quiet. Most of the deputies cowered below their desks as his men let off bursts of automatic rifle fire."
"For a tense 18 hours, many Spaniards feared that Francoist fascism had returned. Mr. Tejero, who died Feb. 25 at 93, became the most visible incarnation of the coup attempt, but he was not the only player."
On February 23, 1981, Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero Molina of Spain's Guardia Civil led approximately 200 armed Civil Guards into the Congress of Deputies in Madrid during a prime ministerial vote. Tejero fired shots into the ceiling and forced 350 deputies to take cover while his men fired automatic weapons. The incident, known as 23-F, represented a critical threat to Spain's newly established democracy following dictator Francisco Franco's death in 1975. Radio broadcasts and video footage revealed the attempted coup to the public. For 18 hours, Spaniards feared a return to Francoist fascism. Tejero was not acting alone; Spanish army Lieutenant General Jaime Milans del Bosch also deployed military forces, including 2,000 soldiers and 50 tanks, as part of the coordinated coup attempt.
#spanish-coup-attempt-1981 #23-f-military-uprising #spanish-democracy-transition #antonio-tejero-molina #post-franco-spain
Read at The Washington Post
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