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                                                                                EUROPE, Page 52

The Dark Side Of Spain's Fiesta


As Barcelona stages an Olympics and Seville a world's fair,
Spain celebrates its comeback. But domestic discontent casts
a pall on the party.

By MARGOT HORNBLOWER/SEVILLE


    The trip from the new Spain to the old is but a
five-minute stroll across a gleaming white bridge that spans the
Guadalquivir River in Seville. On one side, near the monastery
where Christopher Columbus was once buried, rise the extravagant
pavilions of the Universal Exposition. There, 250 fountains
gurgle, 325,000 newly planted trees and shrubs shade the weary,
and 96 restaurants replenish the hungry. But once over the
bridge, sidewalks crumble and the highway dead-ends in a
stinking garbage dump known as El Vacie. Within earshot of Expo
92's loudspeakers, 500 Sevillians elbow one another for their
daily water ration from a small fountain.

    The soaring $75 million Alamillo Bridge, part of $10
billion invested in the fair and new transportation facilities,
is an inspired architectural monument. But to those who live in
El Vacie's shacks, cubist contraptions of plywood and
cardboard, it is an affront. After years of delay, the
government only last week began to install 36 flimsy
prefabricated homes -- far short of the number needed to house
the barrio's 100 families, who live without toilets or running
water and cook on open fires. "The rats are eating us!"
complains Alvarina Roza Jimenez, mother of eight, holding up her
daughter's hand to show a scar. The seven-year-old is barefoot,
filthy, with sores on her mouth.

    El Vacie differs little from other squatter settlements in
Andalusia, where an estimated 44,000 Spaniards, many of them
Gypsies, live in poverty. But Expo's construction introduced a
new level of envy and conflict. Additional squatters whose homes
were bulldozed for the fair moved in, swelling the waiting list
for El Vacie's promised houses. At the fountain, a fistfight
broke out between women jostling for water, and one was admitted
to the hospital with a broken leg. "Expo is a disaster for the
poor," says Miguel Angel Moreno, a local Human Rights
Association volunteer. "It drained money from social programs
and doubled our cost of living."

    Two decades ago, the slum's misery would have raised few
eyebrows. That was before Spain, dismissed as Europe's Third
World backwater, shook off its authoritarian past and propelled
itself into relative prosperity. As much as the quincentenary
of its "encounter" with America, this country of 39 million is
celebrating -- with justifiable swagger -- its breakneck pace
of change since General Francisco Franco's death in 1975.
Moreover, 1992 marks 10 years of stable democracy under Prime
Minister Felipe Gonzalez , a pragmatic Socialist. And it
coincides with Spain's integration into the European single
market, a source of pride after decades of diplomatic isolation.
This year's bold gamble of staging a world's fair and an
Olympics will "show the world the image of a modern Spain, far
from the cliches of the past," says Virgilio Zapatero, the
Cabinet Minister in charge of Expo.

    When it comes to throwing a party, Spanish alegria, the
joy of living, is infectious. Nonetheless, for many Spaniards
old "cliches" like El Vacie are all too present. In Seville, a
conservative coalition threw the Expo-promoting Socialists out
of city hall last spring. "The state wastes money building
pharaonic bridges and highways," says new Mayor Alejandro Rojas
Marcos. "But it neglects schools, drug problems and employment."
In recent months wildcat strikes shut down Asturias coal mines;
an eight-week bus-driver walkout crippled Madrid; Basque steel
workers fired homemade rockets at police, and La Mancha farmers
blocked the roads with tractors. On May 28, a third of the
country's workers joined in a general strike, bringing to 50
million the number of working hours lost to work stoppages, far
more than in any other West European nation this year. "This was
to be the magic year," says political columnist Jose Luis
Gutierrez. "Instead the country is in turmoil: you can smell the
aggressiveness."

    Spaniards speak of their present desencanto, or
disenchantment, as if it were akin to a disease. "Spain is
ailing," says Jose Maria Aznar, head of the conservative Partido
Popular. "A climate of anxiety has taken hold." Even the popular
Barcelona Games, which have spurred an architectural renaissance
in that aging port, have been besieged by Catalan nationalists
insisting that their flag be flown and their anthem played. Last
week police arrested seven armed members of the Catalan
independence movement for plotting to kidnap an Olympic athlete
or official. A newspaper headline groused, THE OLYMPICS WILL
COST EACH TAXPAYER MORE THAN 32,000 PESETAS ($330).

    In his State of the Nation address this spring, Gonzalez
was forced to spend much of the debate defending his
administration over what United Left coalition leader Julio
Anguita called "the interminable rosary of scandals." Last year
Gonzalez's Deputy Prime Minister resigned after allegations of
influence peddling involving his brother. In January another
Minister was forced out after a railroad speculation scandal.
Last week Gonzalez named a new head of the Bank of Spain,
following media allegations linking the incumbent to an
insider-trading scheme, charges he denies. "Spain does not have
a worse corruption problem than surrounding countries," the
beleaguered Gonzalez told parliament. "But it does have a public
opinion problem."

    Do Spaniards protest too much? Many would argue that their
situation is no worse than that in the rest of Europe, where the
prosperous 1980s have evolved into the recessionary 1990s and
the popularity of most governing parties is falling. But Spain's
ruckus seems perversely timed: Expo has attracted about 7
million visitors in 10 weeks, Madrid is preening as this year's
European Cultural Capital, and refurbished Barcelona is
welcoming 7,000 members of the international media for the
country's first Olympics. "It's good to be self-critical, " says
Angel Luis Gonzalo, head of Spain's Expo pavilion. "But we
should be boasting more about what we do well."

    In the late 1980s, Spain had become Europe's wunderkind:
its foreign investment ballooned, its 4% cumulative annual
growth was the Continent's highest and, with the help of
European Community subsidies, it built $30 billion worth of
highways and other public works. No longer did Spaniards have
to emigrate north for jobs: their income rose to 79% of the E.C.
median. Culturally, Spain became fashionable: the campy
fantasies of filmmaker Pedro Almodovar; the sunswept
abstractions of painter Miguel Barcelo; the postmodern
extravaganzas of architect Ricardo Bofill; the prankish sexiness
of fashion designer Sybilla. Madrid promoted itself as the eye
of a creative tornado known as la movida, whirling all night
long. Novelist Camilo Jose Cela won the 1989 Nobel Prize for
Literature. "In the 1960s, we felt like second-class Europeans,"
says Juan Sanchez-Cuenca, director of the U.S.-affiliated
advertising firm Bozell Espana. "In the 1980s we felt proud to
be Spanish."

    But today, he says, "we've lost our confidence. The good
times are over." Economic growth has slowed to 2%, and inflation
remains at a stubborn 6.9%. Unemployment has swelled to 17.5%,
no better than when Gonzalez took office. "There's a lot of
cosmetics," says Pedro J. Ramirez, editor of the daily El Mundo.
"But fundamentally we have not made a modern economy." Anyone
who conducts long-distance business on Spanish telephones or is
so naive as to rely on Correos, the government mail service, or
so unwitting as to fly Iberia, the fickle state airline, might
be tempted to agree.

    The '80s was also the decade of "los butiful," Spanish
jet-setters who made fortunes in banking and speculation. But
in 1992 a new sort of hero set a bonfire to those vanities. This
spring 470 coal miners arrived in Madrid after marching more
than 300 miles from Leon in the north to protest layoffs.
Villagers on the harsh Castillian plateau turned out to applaud
and even sing to them; television stations filmed the blisters
on their feet. "If they import Polish coal, our valley will
die," said Eugenio Carpintero, 32, swigging wine from a leather
pouch on a blustery afternoon. Outside the Guadarrama Hospital,
nurses and patients cheered, "Viva los mineros!"

    Braving the labor unrest, Gonzalez seems determined to
wrestle Spain's economy into line with inflation and
budget-deficit targets set out in the E.C.'s December agreement
at Maastricht. Despite growing doubts elsewhere in Europe, a
majority of Spaniards still support the treaty, and Gonzalez has
not wavered since he told parliament this spring, "For a country
like ours, historically isolated, no effort should be spared to
board this train. Our well-being and our stability depend on our
success in adapting to the construction of Europe." The
restructuring of Spain's noncompetitive heavy industry is under
way, and parliament has approved Gonzalez's plan to slash state
spending and open up financial, transport, telecommunication and
oil-distribution markets.

    A onetime firebrand lawyer, Gonzalez has evolved into a
smooth diplomat more at home on the international stage than on
the streets of Madrid. Last year, brushing off opinion polls
that showed most Spaniards opposed the gulf war, he allowed the
country's air bases to be used as launching pads for U.S.
bombing raids against Iraq. Eventually, domestic opposition
faded, and Spanish prestige in the international arena rose,
heightened by Madrid's success in hosting last fall's
Arab-Israeli peace talks.

    Next January Spain's seven-year E.C. transition period
will be over, and the country will be forced to compete full
throttle in a 340 million consumer market. For every businessman
concerned that this will mean a foreign takeover of Spanish
industry, another argues that Spain can muscle its way into the
big leagues. In his Valencia porcelain factory, Jose Lladro
offers his 2,300 employees, 85% of them women, an Olympic-size
swimming pool, tennis courts and Friday afternoons off. But the
atmosphere is far from relaxed. Quality is rigidly controlled,
and any worker who arrives six minutes late loses half an hour's
pay. "A lot of firms will go under in 1993," predicts Lladro,
who exports 80% of his world-famous figurines. "Only the best
will survive."

    Steeling itself for further unrest, the government is
preparing a new law restricting the right to strike. Similarly,
dissent in a flamboyantly free press may be dampened by proposed
criminal penalties for libel. "Gonzalez is following in the old
regime's authoritarian tradition," charges editor Ramirez, whose
paper has aggressively investigated corruption. The government
has also taken heat for a new law that allows detention of
anyone failing to carry identity papers and permits the search
of private homes without warrants in cases of suspected drug
dealing.

    Spain is one of the few European nations that must still
contend regularly with terrorists. But the Basque extremists,
who had threatened to disrupt the 1992 festivities, were
severely weakened by recent arrests of their top leaders.
Nevertheless, the group showed signs of life last month when it
bombed a navy van in Madrid, wounding 13. Although Spain's 17
regions are gaining more autonomy, the national-identity issue
remains explosive. Catalans and Basques, who control their own
schools, police forces and television stations, envision an even
more independent future under a Euro-umbrella. The Basque
country, says Guernica Mayor Eduardo Vallejo, "should be the
13th star on the E.C. flag."

    Polls show that drugs, more than terrorism or the economy,
are Spain's most incendiary political issue. The country has
become a principal gateway for South American cocaine, Middle
Eastern heroin and North African hashish. Although the
government has stepped up enforcement, its combat against the
drug trade is uneven. Colombian Justice Minister Fernando
Carrillo Florez recently charged that "the battle against the
Medellin cartel is being lost because of Spanish bureaucratic
hassles" in delivering evidence against dealers.

    On a warm night in Valencia, 300 citizens gather in the
streets of Malvarrosa, a beachfront neighborhood. Passing a
megaphone back and forth, they snake through the streets,
shaking their fists at apartments where, they claim, heroin
traffickers live. "Drug dealers out! Out! Out!" they shout. For
seven years, the barrio was besieged by addicts. "Our children
couldn't go to buy a loaf of bread without having their coins
stolen," said Maria Jose Fuentes, who was marching with her
nine-year-old son. "Old ladies were attacked. Prostitutes were
everywhere, and addicts walked around with needles in their
arms." Last September, in what Malvarrosans call the mothers'
revolution, the neighborhood rose up. Every night since, it has
held a one-hour street protest. "The only punctual things in
Spain are this and the beginning of the bullfights," jokes
bricklayer Santiago Marin.

    Last fall, when the protests were televised, similar
demonstrations flared in Barcelona, Madrid, Santander and
Murcia. Embarrassed, the national police stormed Malvarrosa and
attacked unarmed demonstrators with tear gas, rubber bullets and
water cannons, injuring 35. But the assault backfired: two weeks
later, 25,000 Valencians turned out to protest against the
police and uphold the vigilante movement. "If necessary, we'll
continue our protests forever," says bartender Jose Lopez.

    The mood of the nation is impatient: Spain may be willing
to celebrate how far it has come, but not without railing at
how long lies the road ahead. Democracy and prosperity boosted
expectations beyond what an Expo or an Olympics can satisfy. In
Seville, the graffiti read EXPO '92: UNEMPLOYMENT '93. In
Valencia, a large scrawl on a concrete wall declares NO MORE
PROMISES. SOLUTIONS NOW! The time for fiestas may be running
out.