Civil Guard (Spain): Difference between revisions
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[[Image:Guardia Civil a caballo Dos de Mayo 2008 n1.jpg|thumb|Horse guards of the Guardia Civil during the ceremonies of the [[Dos de Mayo]] 2008 in [[Madrid]]]] |
[[Image:Guardia Civil a caballo Dos de Mayo 2008 n1.jpg|thumb|Horse guards of the Guardia Civil during the ceremonies of the [[Dos de Mayo]] 2008 in [[Madrid]]]] |
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The '''Civil Guard''' ({{lang-es|'''Guardia Civil'''}}) is the [[Spain|Spanish]] [[gendarmerie]]: it is a [[police force]] that, at its beginning, had both military and civilian functions. It no longer has military duties (but maintains military status) and today it is essentially the equivalent of a federal paramilitary police. As a police force, the Civil Guard is comparable today to the [[French Gendarmerie]] and the Italian [[Carabinieri]], as it is part of the European Gendarmerie. The Civil Guard uses as its leading emblem the motto "El honor es mi divisa" (Honour is my emblem) |
The '''Civil Guard''' ({{lang-es|'''Guardia Civil'''}}) is the [[Spain|Spanish]] [[gendarmerie]]: it is a [[police force]] that, at its beginning, had both military and civilian functions. It no longer has military duties (but maintains military status) and today it is essentially the equivalent of a federal paramilitary police. As a police force, the Civil Guard is comparable today to the [[French Gendarmerie]] and the Italian [[Carabinieri]], as it is part of the European Gendarmerie. The Civil Guard uses as its leading emblem the motto "El honor es mi divisa" (Honour is my emblem) stressing its [[esprit de corps]] and pointing out the importance of honour. Their precincts are called "casa cuartel" (army house) and, like other military garrisons in Spain, they appear under the motto "Todo por la patria" (All in the service of the Mother/Fatherland), in surroundings whose miserable architecture and lack of beauty and proportion account very well for the material and mental misery of the people lodged in there. |
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==History== |
==History== |
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Revision as of 10:17, 30 November 2008
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2008) |
| Civil Guard | |
|---|---|
| Motto | El Honor es mi Divisa (Honour is my Emblem) |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Operations jurisdiction | [[Spain]] |
The Civil Guard (Spanish: Guardia Civil) is the Spanish gendarmerie: it is a police force that, at its beginning, had both military and civilian functions. It no longer has military duties (but maintains military status) and today it is essentially the equivalent of a federal paramilitary police. As a police force, the Civil Guard is comparable today to the French Gendarmerie and the Italian Carabinieri, as it is part of the European Gendarmerie. The Civil Guard uses as its leading emblem the motto "El honor es mi divisa" (Honour is my emblem) stressing its esprit de corps and pointing out the importance of honour. Their precincts are called "casa cuartel" (army house) and, like other military garrisons in Spain, they appear under the motto "Todo por la patria" (All in the service of the Mother/Fatherland), in surroundings whose miserable architecture and lack of beauty and proportion account very well for the material and mental misery of the people lodged in there.
History
The Civil Guard was founded in 1844 during the reign of Queen Isabel II of Spain by the Basque Navarrese aristocrat Francisco Javier Girón y Ezpeleta, second Duke of Ahumada. The policing done by the Civil Guard was carried out earlier by the Holy Hermandad. The first academy of "guardias civiles" was established in the town of Valdemoro, south of Madrid, in 1855.
The Guardia Civil's first job was to restore and maintain security in the Spanish countryside. The end of the First Carlist War had left the Spanish landscape scarred by the destruction of civil war, and the government moved fast to prevent the increasing danger of banditry in rural areas. Based on the model of light infantry used by Napoleon in his European campaigns, the Guardia Civil was born as a police force with high mobility that could be deployed irrespective of inhospitable conditions and that was able to patrol large areas of the countryside. Its members, called 'guardias', maintain to this date a basic patrol unit formed by two agents, usually called a "pareja" (a pair), in which one of the 'guardias' will initiate the intervention while the second 'guardia' serves as a backup to the first one.
The Modern Force
Today the Guardia Civil is a police force subject to the checks and supervision expected in a democratic society. Morevoer, the guardias' proven effectiveness throughout history, whether in controlling banditry or in addressing the subsequent challenges and tasks given them, meant that additional tasks have been added regularly to their job description.
Today, they are primarily responsible for policing and/or safety regarding the following (but not limited to) areas and/or safety related issues (given in no special order):
- highway patrol,
- counter drugs operations,
- anti-smuggling operations,
- customs and ports of entry control,
- safety of prisons and safeguarding of prisoners,
- weapons licenses and arms control,
- security of border areas,
- bomb squad and explosives,
- security in rural areas and in locations with less than 10,000 inhabitants,
- anti-terrorism;
- coast guard,
- police deployments abroad (embassies);
- intelligence and counter-intelligence gathering,
- cyber- and internet crime;
- hunting permits and
- environmental law enforcement.
Peacekeepers
The Civil Guard has been involved in labours as peacekeepers in United Nations sponsored operations, including operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Angola, Congo, Nicaragua, Haiti, East Timor and El Salvador. That was part of what the Spanish could muster. They served with the Spanish contingent in the war in Iraq, mainly in intelligence gathering, and they lost seven 'números'. In addition to el instituto armado ("the armed institution", the Guardia Civil is known as la benemérita ("the good-deserving"). They served in the Spanish colonies, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Morocco.
The Guardia Civil has a sister force in Costa Rica also called the Guardia Civil. The Costa Rican 'guardias' often train at the same academy as regular Spanish officers.
Characteristics
They typically patrol in pairs. Their traditional hat is the tricornio, originally a tricorne. Its use now is reserved to parades or ceremonies, being now substituted by a cap, a beret or the characteristic "gorra teresiana"[1].
Members of the Guardia Civil often live in garrisons (casa-cuartel) with their families.
Since the Guardia Civil must accommodate the families of its "guardias", it was the first police force in Europe that accommodated a same-sex partner in a military installation.
The symbol of the Guardia Civil consists of the Royal Crown of Spain, a sword and a fasces. The different units have variations of this symbol.
Specialities
The corps has been organized into different specialities divided into operative and support specialities[2] [cite]:
- GEAS (Grupo Especial Actividades Subacuáticas) - Divers.
- GRS (Grupo Rural de Seguridad) Anti-riot unit.
- Guardia Civil del Mar - Seashore surveillance and security of ports and harbours
- SEPRONA (Servicio de Protección de la Naturaleza) - Nature Protection Service, for environmental protection.
- Servicio Aéreo - Aerial monitoring (normally from helicopters)
- Servicio Cinecológico Unit K-9 Drug detection and explosives and people.
- Servicio de Montaña - Mountain and Speleology Rescue.
- SIGC (Servicio de Informacion de la Guardia Civil) - Intelligence Service focused on counter-terrorism.
- TEDAX (Técnicos Especialistas en Desactivación de Artefactos Explosivos) - Explosive Artifacts Defuser Specialised Technicians (EOD)
- Tráfico - Control of freeways and highways.
- UAR (Unidad de Acción rural (ex. Grupo Antiterrorista Rural)) - Antiterrorist Unit.
- UCO (Unidad Central Operativa) - Central Operative Unit, a branch of the Policía Judicial focused on organized crime.
- UEI (Unidad Especial de Intervención) - Special Intervention Unit, a Special Forces unit.
- PMA ("Policia Montada Armados") - Armed police on horseback
- UVP (Unidad Vestidos de Paisano") - Plain clothes internal security unit
Requirements
- Good standard or native Spanish speaker
- Between eighteen and twenty-nine years of age
Criticisms
Spying
On 23 July 2007, Roberto Flórez García, a retired guardia civil ascribed to Centro Nacional de Inteligencia was charged with spying for a foreign power (allegedly Russia)[3].
Political Involvement
In the nineteenth century the Spanish army got involved in politics regularly. The Guardia Civil was no exception. For this reason, the 'guardias" were seen historically as a reactionary force. On 3 January 1874, General Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez de Alburquerque stormed congress and ended the Spanish First Republic with a company of thirty guardias civiles.
The first three decades of the 20th Century in Spain was a time of political turmoil. During this period the Guardia Civil served frequently in the restoration of order remaining mostly loyal to established regimes. Thus, it supported the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), but it also supported the Spanish Second Republic (1931-1939). During the Spanish Civil War, the Guardia Civil forces split almost evenly between those who remained loyal to the Republic -53% of the members[4]- which changed their name to "Guardia Nacional Republicana" - National Republic Guard)[5] and the rebel forces[6]. After the war, under the authoritarian government of General Francisco Franco (1939-1975), the Guardia Civil was reinforced with the members of the "Real Cuerpo de Carabineros de Costas y Fronteras" - Royal Corps of Coast and Frontier Carabiners[7].
The involvement of Civil Guard figures in politics continued well to the end of the twentieth century: on 23 February 1981, Lt. Col. Antonio Tejero Molina, a member of the Guardia Civil, participated with other military forces in a failed coup d'etat. Along with 200 members of the Civil Guard Lt. Col. Tejero took hold of the lower house of the Cortes. But the perception of the Guardia Civil as a specially reactionary force is considered inaccurate by most military analysts,[citation needed] It can be said that the Civil Guard has supported established power regardless of the legitimacy of its origins.
Police brutality
A different issue is the heavy-handedness use by the 'guardias'. For a long time the Guardias were feared because of their excesses, great power and authority in rural areas, and for what seemed to be a total lack of accountability for their actions. The fact that they covered mostly rural and isolated parts of the country allowed for this lack of accountability. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Guardia Civil conducted a campaign against Andalusian anarchists (Spain), accusing them of being members of the secret society The Black Hand. For this reason the 'guardias' had a mythical (negative) reputation in literature and in popular history. Some of the poems of Federico García Lorca, especially the world-famous Gypsy Ballads, portray the 'guardias civiles' as the natural enemies of both gypsies and marginal figures including the against anarchists that were popular in rural areas of southern Spain. Lorca's poems have contributed to the Guardia Civil's traditional reputation as a heavy-handed police force.
See also
References
- ^ "Orden General número 1", Boletín Oficial de la Guardia Civil, 3, 12/29/1998
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|date=and|year=/|date=mismatch (help) - ^ "Orden General 16", Boletín Oficial de la Guardia Civil, 30, 10/21/1999
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ "La fiscalía acusa de un delito de traición al ex espía doble destapado por el CNI", El País, 7/24/2007
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ Muñoz-Bolaños, Roberto (2000), "Fuerzas y cuerpos de seguridad en España (1900-1945)", Serga, 2
- ^ Decreto de 30 de agosto de 1936, 8/30/1936
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ The International Bridgades - Colodny, Robert G. Accessed 2008-05-12.
- ^ "Ley 15 de Marzo de 1940", Boletín Oficial del Estado, 3/15/1940
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)