31.7.1997. Analysis of July 1997 in Euskal Herria.

THE "JULIAZO". IN JULY 1997 THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT ORGANISED AGAINST THE BASQUE LEFT NATIONALIST MOVEMENT THE BIGGEST FASCIST MOBILISATION KNOWN IN EUROPE SINCE THE EXTINCTION OF NAZI GERMANY.

4. Another example of a demonstration where impossible and implausible amounts were given: Zaragoza.

The demonstration held in Zaragoza on Tuesday 15 is another paradigmatic example. Think about the confusion of a reader that, like me, had followed the account of the demonstration on the papers on Wednesday 16.

1º Deia, Biscayan paper, page 27, title: «Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate in Zaragoza with Blanco Garrido family», text from agencies: «Plaza del Pilar, with a capacity of 100,000 people, was again too small to put up the hundreds of thousands of people that got today to the streets to shout mottoes like That’s enough and ETA assassin...»

2º Diario de Noticias, paper from Navarre, page 8, title: «Some 300,000 people with Blanco Garrido family in Zaragoza», text from agencies: «Plaza del Pilar, with a capacity of 100,000 people, was again too small to put up the 300,000 people that got yesterday to the streets to shout mottoes like That’s enough and ETA assassin...»

3º ABC via Internet, electronic edition, signed by D.Z., National News Summary: «...in Zaragoza, city where 450,000 people gathered, the biggest demonstration ever held in the city...»

4º EL PAIS, page 18, title: «Hundreds of thousands demonstrators in Zaragoza and Seville against terrorism», text: «Some 600,000 people, according to the Government’s Delegation in Zaragoza, walked along with Blanco family in Zaragoza».

Bold types are of myself. Is it serious, believable the press of a country that REGARDING THE SAME OBJECTIVE EVENT says, the same day and knowing that capacity of Plaza del Pilar is 100,000, that the amount of demonstrators summed up: A) hundreds of thousands (it must have been two hundreds at least since its in plural): Basque) 300,000; C) 450,000; D) 600,000? Is it tolerable that the Government Delegation of Zaragoza, knowing that in the last elections in 1996 the electoral roll for the WHOLE PROVINCE summed up 702,086 voters, that less than 550,000 voted in the WHOLE PROVINCE, and that the TOTAL POPULATION (including babies, sick persons and disabled) in the capital city amounts on 1.1.1995 only 607,899 people, has the nerve to say that 600,000 people demonstrated in the city?

I spare my readers the effort of following detailed review of other stupidities or counterfactic exaggerations (the very much applauded one and a half million demonstrators in Madrid -at least 800,000 according to the urban police-, the 10,000 in Ceuta according to EL PAIS and ABC which became 20,000 according to EL MUNDO, and the 30,000 demonstrators in Vigo that became 170,000 for EL MUNDO. But I do want to comment on these absurd falsifications referred to demonstrations held in the Basque Country.

5. The MADE UP demonstration of Pamplona and the made up half a million of Bilbao.