Many compatriots will wonder about the origin and ownership of the so-called Spanish Presidential Residence in La Mareta, in Lanzarote. How is it that the King of Jordan acquired a property in a place so far from that country ...
Many compatriots will wonder about the origin and ownership of the so-called Spanish Presidential Residence in La Mareta, in Lanzarote. How is it that the King of Jordan acquired a property in a place so far from that Arab country and why? Why did this palatial residence later pass to the King of Spain and in the end he ceded it as a palace for the presidents of the Spanish colonial government, who come with their presence every year to provoke the People of the Canary Islands? Why do independent newspapers like "El Día", from Tenerife, reproach the head of the Spanish Government for coming on vacation to this discredited place?
We have to go back to the year 1984, in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war, when the PSOE wins the elections in Spain. When Saddam Hussein starts the attack against Iran, he thought everything was going to be a walk in the park but it wasn't like that and little by little he gets involved in a war where explosives and all kinds of weapons such as cluster bombs and mines were needed. Tehran has a huge infantry and prefers light weapons, gunpowder and explosives in the amount of anti-personnel mines, which Spanish merchants are happy about. Until 1985, European explosives companies cover the market.
Spanish companies and the government of the metropolis, through their traffickers and bankers, are in contact with the International Arms Cartel and offer their products and ultimately, lend their ports of Spain and the Canary Islands. At the beginning of 1985, the German traffickers of Parten Reederi, the brothers Heinrich and Steinkirchen, load the ship "MS Fraude", which is chartered by the Danish, Finn Poulsen, known and convicted of being an arms trafficker. The ship is known for trafficking arms with the apartheid regime of South Africa.
New year 1985, the Fraude is in Scotland, Irwin's private port. It is from this small port that the shipments of explosives and gunpowder from the Nobel´s Explosives Company factory, an English subsidiary, leave; January 7, 1985, the Frauke leaves for Sweden, where it arrives on the 11th to load 219 tons of explosives from Bofors, then continues to Denmark, to Korsör, where Finn Poulsen lives, convicted in 1983 for arms trafficking.
From there to Belgium to load 321 tons of gunpowder, then to the port of Nordenham to load 346 tons. From here, on January 26, 1985, it passes through the Strait of Gibraltar to the port of Bar in Yugoslavia, to embark 70 tons of military TNT explosives. Then it comes to the port of Tenerife and from here to Morocco, El Cabo in South Africa until it reaches the Gulf on March 25, destination Iran. The ships Katia and Ventota loaded with weapons also pass through the Canary ports on those dates and I stop counting.
The Spanish Cartel IT and the Spanish government with its factories of the Auxiliary Metallurgical Group, Gamesa, S.A., as well as the National Company Santa Bárbara and Explosivos Río Tinto, are responsible for organizing the transport for both contenders. For Iran it does so through Sea Spain, with a stopover in Las Palmas; for Iraq, through Cargo Master, through Jordan, which serves as an intermediary for the weapons destined for Iraq, especially the Spanish anti-personnel mines, well known in war zones for their effectiveness against civilian populations.
Between October 1986 and March 1987, five ships loaded with weapons left Barcelona for Akaba, in Jordan, final destination Iraq. For six months, the IT Consortium exported 5,883 tons of weapons from Barcelona to Iraq. The weapons that were going to Iraq were disembarked in the Gulf of Akaba and had to pass through Jordan, so that Iran would not find out, and from there they were sent to Iraq. The King of Jordan receives as a gift for his discreet and useful collaboration, by chance, an immense luxury palace on the island of Lanzarote for his vacations for his collaboration. The Spanish explosives company, Explosivos de Río Tinto, invests large amounts of money in properties in Lanzarote, as if by chance.
A Danish shipowner, - by chance - buys in Teguise, Lanzarote, the palace of the Spínola family, known as the Spínola palace, which he later sells to Explosivos de Río Tinto, which in the end cedes it to the Teguise City Council, for its help. Years later, the King of Jordan graciously gives his palace in Lanzarote, illegally built within the maritime-terrestrial zone of Costa Teguise, to the King of Spain and he ends up ceding it to the presidency of the Government of Madrid.
The Spanish bourgeois democracy of the PSOE government covers up and protects European capitalism and its friends related to arms trafficking and allows them to invest in the colony of the Canary Islands, because that is what African colonies are for.
Felipe González, president of the Spanish Government, in his speech to the Nation in May 1987, cynically declares: "Spain has never authorized a single export of weapons to Iran." Lack of memory of Mr. González. End of 1984, beginning of 1985, for example, 9,200 tons of Spanish weapons leave Barcelona for Iran, chartered by Sea Spain. Three ships with a stopover in the Canary ports leave for Bandar Abbas, the Greek "Lindenbels", the "Tribels " and the "Angelique".
Most of the ships that transport weapons originating from Spain, Sweden, France or Portugal, are small ships of 300 to 1,000 tons and are obliged to touch the Canary ports to supply themselves, as they do not want to pass through the Suez Canal to avoid the control of the Egyptians, especially when the destination was Iran.
The Boards of Works of the Canary ports and the Delegates of the Spanish Government, of that time, Canarians of the PSOE that we all know, could provide the necessary information to Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero about the stopovers of many of these ships that coming from Europe were going to Iran or Saudi Arabia, which later re-exported it by land to Iraq, ships that were dedicated to arms trafficking, through the ports of this colony, namely, Adonis, Age, Altair, Andros, Angelique, Anneliese-Oltmann, Atlantic Island, Atlas, Blue Bird, Donica Black, Dansus, Elefteria K, Elisabeth Clipper, Else Cat, Fraude, Gallart, Gente Breeze, Gretl, Gritt Clipper, Hawk, Heita, Jotun, Kanikar, Karen Clipper, Katia, Limandra, Lindenbels, Maria Th, Melpo, Morsoe, Nicole, Nikoforos, Nordica, Panther, Peral, Pete Wesch, Pia Arre, Sandy Trader, Sea Star, Sea Trader, Svendborg, Trautenbels, Tribal and Urrida.
Well, dear compatriots and independentist militants, the arms trafficking, where Spain is one of the great powers, especially of anti-personnel mines to assassinate the civilian population, served indirectly for the manufacture of the residence of La Mareta, in Costa Teguise, Lanzarote, colony of Spain, during the government of the PSOE in times of Felipe González. Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero, president of the Spanish colonial government, knows it, but the practical dialectic of the governments prevents him from thinking about it.
In France, in 1988, a very interesting book was published, in Gallimard Editions, by two investigative journalists, Walter de Bock and Jean-Charles Deniau, entitled, "Des Armes pour l´Iran ", where all the arms trafficking and dirty business carried out by the companies of the Cartel in armed conflicts was discovered.
Precisely the names of the Canary ports of Tenerife and Las Palmas appear in almost all the chapters, with the implications and collaboration of the colonial authorities and the Canary Port Board of Works of the time, of the PSOE, by the way, aware of all this disastrous traffic.
Precisely, the authors dedicated it to us hoping that this book would help us in our liberation struggle, so that the Canary ports, when we are free, in our Federal Republic, will no longer participate in this disastrous business.
Now our compatriots know where the palatial place of La Mareta in our island of Lanzarote comes from, where Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero spends his vacations, built years ago, to hide the benefits of an international arms trafficking. Who now remembers the thousands of civilians who died in that war or the thousands of wounded who still fall when stepping on Spanish mines that still remain buried in those war zones, Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero!
By Antonio Cubillo, President of the National Congress of the Canary Islands, political arm of the MPAIAC.
