Almost to the day of the 45th anniversary of the last military coup in Spain, the most visible face behind it, Lieutenant Colonel Tejero, shuffled off his mortal coil, aged 93.
Who hasn’t seen images of the Guardia Civil officer, armed with a pistol and an impressive moustache, telling the MPs to get on the ground and stay there.
Only two people refused to do that; the Head of the Spanish Army who stood his ground defiantly whilst officers tried to wrestle him to the ground, and the leader of the Communist Party, a veteran of the Civil War, who knew he was as good as dead if their coup was successful.
Born on the 30th of April, 1932 in Alhaurín el Grande (Málaga) Antonio Tejero Molina, was the son of a Republican, an agnostic, teacher by profession; i.e., he had all the credentials to be one of the first up against the wall under Franco.
He joined the Army in 1951 at the Academia General Militar de Zaragoza, which installed a political philosophy that made Attila the Hun look like a limp-wristed, wishy-washy, pinkoe. However, he managed to become even more radically facist than the Head of the academy.
By 1955 he was already a lieutenant and was sent to Melilla where he met his wife and between them had six children. Then in 1958 he was promoted to captain and put in charge of the Army HQ in Pontevedra (Galicia). Upon promotion to Major he was transferred from Vélez-Málaga to Las Palmas (Gran Canaria).
After the failed coup, he wasn’t shot, which is what they would have done with everybody they didn’t like, had they succeeded, but was sent to jail. Upon release he spent his twighlight years in Torre del Mar (Axarquia) keeping his head down making only a few public appearances.
He died in Alzira (Valencia) on the very same day that all the secret documents on the military coup were declassified and released. He had spent all his life after the coup maintaining silence on who the bigwigs were behind it, so it must have annoyed him – just saying!
The known, top names behind the coup had already gone to meet their maker: General Alfonso Armada (2013), Lieutenant General Jaime Milans del Bosch (1997), and the far-right leader Juan García Carrés (1986). It was General Milan who ordered the tanks to take the streets of Valencia before the King (Head of the Spanish Armed Forces), who many think was in on it but got cold feet, told all military units to stay in their barracks, thus quelling the uprising.
Editorial comment: I arrived to live in Spain nine months after the coup took place. Dave Darby’s Spanish girlfriend (he arrived only a month after me) had an original cassette-tape recording of the TV announcer, caught up in the siege of the House of Congress, breathlessly describing, what was going on below in the chamber. We were impressed! Who can forget; “¡Al Suelo, Coño!
(News: Spain)
Keywords: 23F Coup-Leader Tejero Dies, Paliament, Guardia Civil, Dies, Military Coup
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