Last week, the 50th anniversary of the disappearance of three young Galicians who crossed into France and was taken by ETA for members of the Civil Guard was commemorated in Vitoria. These are three of the 113 cases of assassinations to which, according to the victims, the Democratic Memory Law approved last October could be applied.
Victims of ETA consider that the norm can be applied to the crimes of the terrorist group and have been waiting for more than three months for the State Attorney General’s Office to respond to the request that they made to that effect. The Dignity and Justice Association has asked the Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, that his Technical Secretariat address “the analysis and study on the possibility of applying this Law to the victims of terrorism from the terrorist organization ETA, who were persecuted, kidnapped , tortured and murdered in the period from January 1, 1969 to December 29, 1978”.
The final date is that of the entry into force of the Constitution and the one that the memory law sets as the last day to which the rule is applicable, which according to the association must fall within the scope of that law. “All the crimes against persons committed by the terrorist organization ETA in the mentioned period would be perfectly framed”, all of this “in attention to the very general principles” that are the basis of the norm, “such as the principles of truth, justice, reparation and guarantee of non-repetition, as well as the democratic values ??of harmony, coexistence, political pluralism, defense of human rights, culture of peace and equality of men and women”.
The association chaired by Daniel Portero reiterated its request to the Prosecutor’s Office last week, since it has not yet received a response on the preparation of that study. The request letter, dated December 11, includes a list of the people killed by ETA in the period covered by the regulation, for whom it requests -although not only for them- “the protection, recognition and reparation contained in the Democratic Memory Law”.
The first on the list is the taxi driver Fermín Monasterio, assassinated in Arrigorriaga (Vizcaya) on April 4, 1969 when he asked for explanations from a wounded ETA member who was fleeing. The latest is Joaquín María Azaola Martínez, who died in Guecho (Vizcaya) 10 days before the Constitution came into force. He was killed by ETA for having revealed to the Police a plan to kidnap the future King Juan Carlos I.
The norm that Dignity and Justice asks to protect the 113 murdered by ETA establishes that among its objectives is “the recognition of those who suffered persecution or violence, for political, ideological, thought or opinion reasons.”
It subsequently adds the norm that, in general, a victim will be considered any person “who has suffered, individually or collectively, physical, moral or psychological damage, patrimonial damage, or substantial impairment of their fundamental rights” as a consequence of actions or omissions that constitute violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law.
The association considers that its request is aligned with “the spirit” of the norm, which is to “comply with the moral duty to promote democratic memory policies to strengthen to neutralize oblivion and avoid the repetition of the most tragic episodes in history , as well as promoting the pedagogy of “never again”, such as the temporal scope, object and purpose of the norm, general principles and democratic values ??on which it is based”
Thus, it is “perfectly acceptable” to include in the scope of protection of the law “all those people, men, women and children, who in the period between January 1969 and December 29, 1978, were extorted, persecuted, tortured, forcibly displaced from the Basque Country and Navarra or assassinated by the terrorist organization ETA in defense of democracy and freedom”. As in the case of thousands of victims since the Civil War, the body of the three Galicians has still not been found.
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