Tag: Transition

Jordi Martínez de Foix i Llorenç was a Catalan pro-independence activist and socialist, member of the youth of the Communist Party of Spain.

At the age of fifteen he joined the PCE, an illegal party that advocated street fighting and the independence of several territories of the state, including Catalonia. He participated in dozens of demonstrations. On December 2, 1977, in one of the many demonstrations in which he participated, he was shot twice by plainclothes police officers. Those shots, which caused a dozen perforations in his small intestine. In the hospital, the police harassment against him was constant. He was discharged on May 1, 1978, and that same afternoon he went to a demonstration. Jordi‘s political activity was frenetic.

“The investigation was closed because the police said they had opened fire in self-defense,” according to his niece Blanca.

At the end of 1978, without time to recover from the assassination of Gustau Muñoz, which had hit him hard, Jordi was preparing some devices to use on October 15, in memory of President Lluís Companys, who had been shot by Franco’s forces 38 years earlier. Jordi was in a rented apartment he had in Nou Barris, on what was then Carrer Lucena, currently Passeig Verdum. While he was handling the explosives, they exploded in his hands, killing him instantly. It was 9:23 p.m. on October 14; at that time his watch stopped.

In the subsequent investigation they found phosphorus in the apartment, a material that was not used for the explosives that Jordi used (of the Irish type). The fact that the location was a free apartment, known only to Jordi and his family, has always led the family to think of an infiltration within the group; this accusation has led to discussions with some people in the PCE.

On October 30 of that same year, Jordi‘s family, friends and colleagues wanted to pay tribute to him at the Parish of Sant Andreu de Palomar, in Pl. Orfila. At the event, Lluís Maria Xirinacs, Jordi‘s father, people from Socors Català, and other fellow activists were to speak. Hundreds of people approached, but they found the square and the surrounding area occupied by the Spanish police. The family, wanting to avoid more pain, decided not to hold the ceremony, although the priest did not refuse despite the ban.

Already at that event, Jordi was described as a “patriot and communist“. It is for this reason, for his struggle and commitment to the country and the working class, that the Esquerra Independentista considers him one of the fighters who fell in combat and the local assembly of Sant Andreu-Nou Barris d’Endavant, in Barcelona, organizes an annual tribute to him.

Tribute y Carles García Solé , a veteran independence activist who was subjected to a court martial with a request for a death sentence in 1972 for his membership in the FAC

“In October, Jordi Martínez de Foix died in an explosion in a flat in Horta. According to the official news, the explosion was accidental, as he was manipulating an artifact when the explosion occurred. According to what we found out, and after taking samples to a trusted laboratory, the explosion was caused and with an explosive component not available to civilians, in other words, everything indicates that it was another post-Franco assassination. 

I met Jordi on Passeig de Maragall, where he lived with his parents and mine. They worked as doormen in the same building, 305 Passeig de Maragall. I had been in exile for more than two years, and the Martínez de Foix family offered me a job with them, at the Escola Barceloneta workshop. That relationship coincided after work when we went down to the Ramblas to demand our rights as people and workers, with Francesc, Jordi, Marc Muñoz, etc.

A few weeks earlier, on September 11, 1978, in a confrontation with the police on Ferran Street, a plainclothes police officer shot and killed young Gustau Muñoz in the back. He was only 16 years old.

Then I started working with the Martínez de Foix. They had a Foundation for disabled boys, There I met Marc Muñoz, Gustavo’s brother. He introduced me to his sister Yolanda, whom I would eventually marry. We lived together for 20 years and had two daughters. The most precious treasure of my life!

My parents worked as doormen on Passeig de Maragall. The Martínez de Foix family lived there or still lives there. I hadn’t seen Jordi for days. One day we met and he told me that he had been arrested – he was a member of the PCE (International) –. As a result of the mistreatment he had been admitted to the hospital, where he had been threatened that the same thing would happen to him as to Gustau Muñoz. He was worried, but he was a fighting person and didn’t take the threats from the BPS seriously.

I had been working at his family’s Foundation for a few days and knew that he had an apartment in the Horta neighborhood, where his organization held meetings and prepared clandestine materials. Suddenly, we received news that Jordi had died as a result of an accidental explosion in the Horta apartment.

After the threats from the BPS, no one believed it had been an accident. I spoke to his family to try to enter the apartment and get samples of the remains of the deflagration. I sent them to a good friend who was politically committed to our cause to analyze them. He worked in the laboratories inside SEAT and the next day he called me to tell me that the analysis had revealed a very high component of white phosphorus that was not normal. It was a substance that was not available to the civilian population, and in any case, it was typical of the army.

At that time, family and friends were holding Jordi‘s funeral at Placa Orfila in Barcelona. My friend and I quickly went there on our motorbikes to give the family the laboratory results. I know that the family has mentioned this, and they are aware that the death of Jordi Martínez de Foix was a murder. One more of many from that damned “Transition“.

Years later I met Francesc Martínez de Foix one day when he was going down to Barcelona to sell eggs in the stores we had arranged. The meeting was cordial. It had been a while since we had seen each other, I think I remember the last time it was at a demonstration on Gran Via, where serious incidents with the police occurred. We were attacked by a group of secret people who came out quite badly.

After remembering those episodes, I brought up the subject of Mikel, a persecuted Basque militant, and the importance of ensuring that he could cross to the other side safely. Francesc proposed a way that seemed to me to be very good. As director of the Foundation, he would organize a coach trip to the French state with the children and the monitors. Mikel would be accredited as another monitor. The problem was convincing the other monitors, which was solved. We did it and there were no problems from the teachers. Everything went smoothly in the Jonquera crossing.

A very fond memory of the more than three months that Mikel spent in the mill of the farmhouse and a great favor from TEB. And from the Martínez de Foix family. I met Mikel in Havana many years later, during the days of the Perpignan affair that made possible the ETA truce in the Catalan Countries, an important act of sovereignty.“