Jaume Reixach
14-11-2015
To understand Catalan politics, one must always and at all times retain one key fact: the accusation of the Pujol family for massive corruption and the subordinate status of Artur Mas to this clan. Without this absolute dependence of Artur Mas on the designs of Jordi Pujol, independence cannot be explained.
Jordi Pujol is clear about the red line. Under no circumstances could Artur Mas cease to be president of the Generalitat. This is the only ace he has in his hand to try what, right now, seems and is impossible: to achieve a state pact in extremis to stop and bury the judicial and police persecution of the “patriarch” and his family, as happened with Banca Catalana.
This explains the manoeuvre to create Junts pel Sí and the unrestrained concessions made to the CUP from the Palau de la Generalitat in exchange for the investiture of Artur Mas. At any price. The judicial situation of the Pujol clan is so desperate that they don’t give a damn about the future of Convergència Democràtica i de Catalunya. They sought to save themselves from this drowning, which is why it was essential for Artur Mas to remain at the head of institutional power, even if it was only as a “vase”. There will be time later, they thought, to redress this dysfunction.
I have long experience as an investigative journalist of the rackets of pujolism. But I have to say that, after the Audiencia Nacional has managed to shatter the mystery of the Pujol family’s Andorran accounts, the reality surpasses anything I could have imagined. I say this with full knowledge of the facts: this is the biggest and most scandalous case of corruption that has been seen in Europe since the end of the Second World War.
It is no longer just the mountains of money, of illicit origin, that moved through the Andorran accounts of the members of this family over the last 30 years. So it is being discovered that, on the basis of the documentation handed over by the Andorran judicial authorities, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola built up, in parallel, a sophisticated international network for evading and laundering black money which he placed at the service of major organised crime. This is the final straw in the Pujol case, which will obviously result in very heavy prison sentences for all those involved.
This is no longer just about “bites” and commissions for the award of public contracts by the Generalitat and the converging local councils. We are talking about a stratospheric dimension that connects with international crime. That is why the United States Treasury Department gave orders to scrap the Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA), the platform from which the Pujols operated after Andbank became frightened by the magnitude of the money they were handling.
I am sorry to say this, but Oriol Junqueras, Raül Romeva, Carme Forcadell, Muriel Casals, Lluís Llach are the necessary accomplices – even if they are not aware of it – of this crude and monstrous manoeuvre that attempts to use the scarecrow of the “stellar” flag to negotiate the liquidation of the independence dream in exchange for the shelving of the legal proceedings against this colossal plot of tax evasion and money laundering that has its epicentre in the eldest son of the former president of the Generalitat.
Neither UDEF, nor CNI, nor Guardia Civil. The Pujol-Andorra dossier is in the hands of the FBI, the DEA and the CIA. What has happened over the last 30 years is so big that the only “way out” of the clan is to kick the table of Spanish, European and international politics with the unilateral proclamation of the independence of Catalonia… and let it be what God wants.
I believe that some leaders of the CUP know or sense all of this and resist, tooth and nail, falling into the trap that Artur Mas-Jordi Pujol is weaving for them, with the enthusiastic collaboration of the “militia of the media” and the legion of grateful stomachs that feed off the public budget. Projecting the independence process with Artur Mas as president of the Generalitat is a very serious and enormous mistake that will muddy, for centuries to come, the legitimate sovereignty desires of part of Catalan society.
Getting out of the present institutional impasse is very easy: all that is needed is for Junts pel Sí to agree to appoint another candidate other than Artur Mas and to reach a consensus with the CUP. But, in an absolutely incomprehensible and childish way, the current leaders of ERC, the ANC and Òmnium Cultural are abducted by the talk of Artur Mas. They only need to understand that Artur Mas is a parrot who is speaking, at all times, through the mouth of Jordi Pujol in order to change their perception of the role they are playing in this game. They are the useful fools at the service of a mafia that has made them very fat and is under siege, not by “Madrid”: by the US Treasury Department!
Sympathy for independence leaders
October 15 2019
I have deep personal sympathy and empathy for the independence leaders tried and convicted by the Supreme Court, some of whom I know and have dealt with in the past. I am very unhappy with the prison situation they have been in for the past two years and the suffering their families are going through, especially those with young children. I want them to take advantage of the prison benefits provided by the sentence, to go out on the streets, the sooner the better, and to rebuild their lives. I hope to embrace them in the not too distant future.
However, I am also unhappy that adults and intellectually trained people have fallen like idiots in a strategy designed, from the outset, to cover up the corruption scandals at CiU and, especially, to try to save Oriol Pujol from his judicial involvement in the ITV case. As I had the opportunity to explain in a conference I gave last week in Reus, invited by friends of the Club Còrtum (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgss89pj1eo), the independence process is directly related to the attempt of the “hard core” of Pujolism to remain in power, at any price, in the face of the action of justice against its enormous misdeeds in the management of public money.
I told this in a very vivid way at this conference: the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Statute of Autonomy was in 2010. During the years 2011 and 2012, the PP and CiU governed in harmony in Madrid and Barcelona, supporting each other in passing the anti-social laws and implementing the budget cuts. The independence process began, before the summer of 2012, following the indictment of Oriol Pujol, who had been appointed and prepared conscientiously, for years, to become the heir of the Pujol dynasty to the presidency of the Generalitat, for his chorus in the case of the ITV.
Jordi Pujol considered his son’s accusation to be an “unworthy move” by Madrid and decided to dig up the hatchet. With one objective: to show his teeth, mobilising the masses in the streets – as he did with the Banca Catalana complaint – and get Oriol Pujol out of this bad situation unscathed.
So far, the move has gone quite well. Oriol Pujol, the fallen prince, has been sentenced to 2.5 years, but has only spent 65 days in prison. And Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, the great commissioner of Catalonia, is campaigning freely, after having spent eight months in Soto del Real and having paid a bail of only 500,000 euros.
In contrast, the nine pro-independence leaders who – consciously or unconsciously – came forward to try and save the Pujol family’s ass, have already eaten two years in prison and some still have a long criminal horizon ahead of them. Sad, very sad.
What will happen in Catalonia? The answer to this question is now before the 5th investigating court of the Audiencia Nacional, which concentrates investigations on the Pujol clan’s accumulated fortunes in tax havens and the 3% illegal financing scheme of Convergència. The nine members of the Pujol family and the crême de la crême of their corrupt gang (the Sumarroca, the Cornadó, Carles Vilarrubí…) are accused in these proceedings.
The strategy that we will experience, in the coming weeks and months, will be the same: to tense and strain the atmosphere to create an unbreathable climate – now, with the excuse of the Supreme Court ruling – to force Judge José de la Mata, of the Audiencia Nacional, to panic, reflect and pass a benevolent sentence on the Pujols and their accomplices. This is what the process we Catalans have suffered and are suffering from.
https://periodistas-es.com/cataluna-el-porque-de-todo-61129
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