By Michael Birnbaum | Washington Post
BARCELONA – Just days after declaring Catalonia’s independence from Spain, the region’s deposed leader appeared Tuesday in Brussels to vow to continue his fight even outside the country.
The flight to at least temporary exile by Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont was a remarkable comedown for a man who devoted his life to fostering an independent Catalonia.
Now, instead of leading a free nation, he has been forced from his country, charged with sedition and rebellion, and his region has been forced to accept direct rule from Madrid – exactly the opposite of his aspiration in the weeks leading up to the historic independence declaration on Friday.
“The Spanish government was preparing an offensive against the people of Catalonia, calling [on] them to be loyal,” Puigdemont said at an emotional Brussels news conference where he spoke in Catalan, Spanish and French. “We are facing a state that only understands the reason of force.”
He declared himself the “legitimate president” of Catalonia, but said that he had come to Brussels “to have more security.”
“I am convinced, according to the information that I have, that there would have been a violent reaction” if he and his colleagues had remained in Catalonia, he said, speaking alongside several of his top former ministers who he said agreed with him to leave Catalonia on Friday night.
“We are here in search of guarantees that are not available at the moment in Catalonia, in Spain,” Puigdemont said, adding that he does not think they would face fair trials if they returned now. He called for the European Union to pressure Madrid to accept their independence drive and drop the criminal charges against them.
But he also said he thinks that pro-independence politicians should take part in Dec. 21 regional elections called by authorities in Madrid, a tacit acknowledgment that Catalonia remains far from independent.
Puigdemont’s decision to flee Catalonia has disappointed many of the pro-independence rank-and-file activists who consider it a failure to stand up for the ideas of a newly free nation.
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The Washington Post’s Braden Phillips contributed to this report.
