Antonio Cubillo

Biography

Cubillo was born on 3 June, 1930, in San Cristóbal de La Laguna and received a law degree from the University of La Laguna. He was married and had 3 children.

He founded the Canary Islands Independence Movement in 1963. While exiled in Algiers, escaping the Francoist dictatorial regime, Antonio Cubillo began a campaign to claim independence from the Spanish rule in the late 1970s. In 1978 he was crippled in an assassination attempt linked to the security forces of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior. After the movement was disbanded in 1982 (following the creation of the Canary Islands Autonomous Community), he was able to return to Spain and found a democratic party in 1985, the National Congress of the Canaries. In 2002, the Madrid supreme court recognized that the Government of Spain committed a crime of state terrorism against his person in 1978 and paid him damages as a result. To this day, this is the first time the State officially recognized it engaged in crimes against civilians. In 2011, a documentary called Cubillo: The Story of a State Crime was shown on National TV highlighting the role of the State.

Cubillo's core claims have always been that the Canary Islands could be better off if it could keep and develop more of its resources and thus maintain greater autonomy from Madrid. He claimed that the resources are considerable in terms of tourism, geo-political locations for maritime traffic development, fishing fields, oil fields and natural energy resources. The movement he founded, however, failed to attract public support among Canarios owing to its violent nature. The organizations that have succeeded it, such as the Popular Front of the Canary Islands (FREPIC), have remained largely marginal.

He died on 10 December, 2012, at his home in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. He was buried in the Cementerio de Santa Lastenia in the same city.