During the ten to fifteen years following the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975 Spaniards everywhere became readily accustomed to public protest. Their new found freedom of speech and assembly brought most of them face to face with what was once a uniformed instrument of political repression: the armed forces and police. Confrontations were not uncommon yet rarely violent. For the most part, the recently liberated and the ex-oppressors gradually learned to respect one another as both learned the subtleties of the democratic process. BACK