Pepe Cuevas (1951–2022)

News of the death of a CNT member who was convicted in the past in the police-instigated "Scala case".

At the age of 71, José Cuevas Casado, who made an indelible mark in the history of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union CNT in connection with the trial known as the Scala case, at the end of which he was sentenced to a long stay in prison, along with others, died.

Pepe was born on January 20, 1951 in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the son of a prominent libertine fighter. In 1970, while living in Barcelona, ​​he became a member of the Barcelona Metalworkers Union and the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI).

On Sunday, January 15, 1978, during a large CNT demonstration against the Pact of Moncloy, he participated with other comrades in the action, unaware that it was organized by the police. After her, young members of the CNT were accused of committing a terrorist act at the Scala theater, where a fire broke out, killing four people and collapsing the building. [The Pact of Moncloy were economic and political agreements to address inflation and unemployment during Spain's transition to democracy in the late 1970s. They were attended by major trade unions such as the UGT, CC.OO and CNT. The first two eventually ratified the pacts. The CNT was the only one that completely rejected them, seeing them as disadvantageous to the working class.]

About 15,000 people took part in the demonstration. Around a quarter to two, after the protest had ended and the demonstrators had dispersed, a group of young people, instigated by Joaquín Gambino, threw Molotov cocktails at the stone facade of the Scala. According to the police, this was the cause of the fire that destroyed the building, killing four workers—Ramón Egea, Juan López, Diego Montoro, and Bernabé Bravo—three of whom, paradoxically, were linked to the CNT. It is believed that flammable or incendiary substances were placed inside the club prior to the demonstration, as it is highly unlikely that simple Molotov cocktails thrown at the stone facade could have caused the entire building to burn down. In addition, it emerged from the fire department's information that the fire started in another part of the club and probably originated from flammable material of military origin.

The Scala trial was held in December 1980. A key witness died a few days before the trial began. Defense lawyers demanded that First Vice Prime Minister Rodolfo Martín Villa appear to testify, but he did not appear. The defense's position was that the police had staged the incident, using agents provocateurs, to reduce the CNT's popularity among workers and stop its expansion in Catalonia. José Cuevas, Xavier Cañadas and Arturo Palma were sentenced to 17 years in prison as perpetrators of manslaughter and for the manufacture of explosives. Luis Muñoz was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison for complicity in the crime and Rosa López to 5 months in prison for concealment.

A few years later, a confidential police document was discovered that assigned Joaquín Gambín, a criminal in the police's pay, the task of infiltrating the protesters. It was he who infiltrated the CNT to cause the incident. Press pressure on the police, combined with Gambín's absence from court, raised suspicions about the police's role in the incident and the actual perpetrators of the crime. Finally, Gambín was arrested in Valencia in late 1981 after a shootout with the police. Scala case reopened. The second Scala trial in December 1983 had only one defendant, Joaquín Gambín. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for aiding a demonstration with weapons and for making explosives. Since then, the CNT has always presented the case as an insidious maneuver by the government to stop the growth of anarchist unions due to negative publicity, which the unions received in the years preceding the achievement of justice. To this day, the CNT believes that the indictment of its members was a trap set by the authorities to criminalize the anarcho-syndicalist movement and the CNT at a time when it was recovering from the Franco regime and coming into the limelight.

Although everything was planned and ordered from above, Pepe had to spend several years behind bars. After he was released from prison, he went to the countryside and became a shepherd. A few years later he worked in the construction industry in Catalonia. After gaining a lot of experience in the field, around 2005 he was offered the restoration of the Arab baths on Paseo de los Tristes in Granada, known as El Bañuelo. It was then that he decided to move to this Andalusian city, put down roots in El Fargue and became involved in the social mobilization that was taking place in the area. In 2011 he rejoined the CNT-AIT in Granada and a few years later he also participated in the activities of the Libre Albedrío social library. An interview with him was filmed in one of its rooms for a documentary film on the Scala case, which complements what has already been published by Xavier Cañadas in the only book on the subject.

The accident in Sacromonte forced him to go to a retirement home where several of his friends visited him, so he did not lose contact with the organization or the movement.

He died on November 20, 2022, and the following day his remains were cremated in Arcos de la Frontera. On Sunday, November 27, the CNT-AIT Granada held a memorial event in his honor, attended by his anarchist colleagues as well as his relatives and other friends. The aforementioned documentary film and a video with photographs from his life were shown. A commemorative plaque in his honor was then unveiled at the CNT-AIT Granada headquarters. There was also food and drink and many memories of Pepe.

Sources:
https://www.lavozdelsur.es/actualidad/sociedad/fallece-pepe-cuevas-histo...
https://www.cnt-ait.org/ha-fallecido-el-companero-pepe-cuevas-casado/
https://www.facebook.com/CntAitGranada/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moncloa_Pacts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scala_case

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