During the 27th, 28th and 29th [of July] there were 10 attempts to communicate with the President of the Government with calls and messages of which three answered, I seem to remember, through the Director of the Cabinet [Diego Rubio]. This has been one of the statements that the president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, made this Monday before the judge of the National Court María Tardón, who is investigating the massive assault on the Ceuta border on July 30 and 31.
Regarding the responses he obtained in his attempt to contact La Moncloa, Vivas has indicated that in "the first two [attempts]" Rubio told them "that he was working on it and talking to the competent ministries, that it was an immigration matter." In the last one, he told them "that the mandatory channel of communication had to be the Government delegation and not the Presidency."
Thus, the president of Ceuta has called his exchanges with Moncloa "one-way": the Autonomous City transferred information to the central Executive, but the latter did not respond to him, according to legal sources familiar with the statement.
President Pedro Sánchez did not speak with Vivas until the afternoon of July 30, when the border had already been overflowed and immigrants were entering by the thousands. During his exchange with the leader of the Executive, he reduced the events to a "humanitarian crisis" when the president of Ceuta insisted that it was an "invasion."
Along these lines, Vivas recalled that they asked for "a national emergency, and it was not done"; "that there was a single command, and it was not done [until August 26, almost a month later]"; and "that there would be a significant reinforcement of the security forces." Regarding this last request, he has pointed out that although there was one, it was not "significant", which "became evident when the invasion occurred."
In addition to the repeated attempts to contact La Moncloa, Vivas explained to the judge that in the days before the invasion, he spoke with three ministers, to whom he conveyed the emergency situation in which the autonomous city already found itself.
He did it with the head of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, as he had done before with the Secretary of State for Security, Aina Calvo. In both cases he was informed that the ministry's legal services did not see the conditions to adopt the measures he demanded. He also conveyed his enormous concern, directly, to the Ministers of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres; and Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares. He also spoke directly with Robles, already on the 30th and to request the intervention of the Army.
Regarding the person in charge of Spanish diplomacy, Albares highlighted in his conversation with Vivas the "enormous collaboration" of Morocco in migration matters. In his statement before the judge, the president of Ceuta described Morocco as "a direct threat" to Spain.
In all cases, they were told that they were facing a migration or humanitarian crisis, not a security one. In all his conversations, Vivas spoke of "invasion" and had been warning the Government for days about data such as the spectacular increase in minors in charge of the city: from the 25th to the 28th, they went from 180 to 800.
Vivas has offered a "heartbreaking" account of the situation in the city, as Luis María Pardo, lawyer for Iustitia Europa, who coordinates the popular accusations, explained at the conclusion of the statement.
The president of Ceuta has stated that he feels "satisfied" because he has seen in Judge Tardón and the chief prosecutor of the Court, Jesús Alonso, "involvement and determination to clarify what happened." Vivas has claimed to have given "all the necessary information about the communications that he could make."
He has also undertaken to provide in writing the detailed chronology of the facts that he has presented at the request of the judge. In addition to Tardón, Vivas has responded to the questions of the Prosecutor's Office, the State Attorney's Office, the popular prosecution and the lawyer of the autonomous city, who exercises the private prosecution, as a victim of what happened.
Vivas has started the interrogations of the case, which will continue tomorrow with the head of the Ceuta Local Police, Sebastián Vega, and the former Chief of Staff of the Government Delegation Gonzalo Sanz, summoned at 10:00 and 12:00, respectively.
For the judge, these three testimonies are "priority" given "the need to know, directly, the information that was available before the events, the existing forecasts, the evolution of the situation and the specific circumstances that determined the operational collapse."
Already in the subpoena order - with which he also requested reports from more than 30 organizations from all the State security bodies and forces - Tardón announced that, after receiving them, he would summon those who prepared them. After the statements of Vivas, Sanz and Vega, it is foreseeable that the judge will expand the list of appearances and include the names that emerge in this week's testimonies.
