Victims of the GAL ask the Government for an "unequivocal declaration of assumption of responsibilities"

Daughters of Brouard and Galdeano urge the Prosecutor's Office to act ex officio" against Barrionuevo, who "prides himself on having practiced terrorism"

BILBAO, 11 Nov. (EUROPE PRESS) -

Edurne Brouard and Begoña Galdeano, daughters of Santi Brouard and Xabier Galdeano, assassinated by the GAL in 1984 and 1985, respectively, affirmed this Friday that "the generic condemnations of State terrorism are not enough" and assured that they do not want ask them for forgiveness, but have appealed to the central government to make "an unequivocal declaration of assumption of responsibilities and recognition of the damage caused".

Within the framework of a press conference called by the Egiari Zor Foundation, Edurne Brouard and Begoña Galdeano appeared this Friday to give their assessment of the interview with former Interior Minister José Barrionuevo to 'El País', in which, among other issues, refers to the attempted arrest of ETA member Larretxea Goñi in French territory and acknowledges that he ordered "Second Marey to be released" after his kidnapping.

In the appearance, they have read a statement, in Basque and Spanish, in which, firstly, they have thanked the "vortex of rejection reactions expressed by the political and social majority of Euskal Herria" before the "public justification of State crimes" against their relatives. Some reactions, "those of the political and institutional class" that, as they have recognized, they have missed "on numerous occasions" and that today they welcome "in a positive way".

After affirming that "the humiliating burden contained in the words of the former minister is not new, nor is the revictimization" that it causes them, "the gratuitous damage or the defenselessness" that it generates, they have assured that Barrinuevo's statements "do not contribute anything at the informative that we did not know", although they have highlighted the "epic character that emerges from his words and gestures". An attitude, in his opinion, "derived from the conviction of those who know they are unpunished and boast of having practiced terrorism."

In this matter, they have warned, they observe a "paradigm change", since "if before denial was the resource, denying any participation or responsibility in terrorist acts, today the strategy tries to whitewash and legitimize the terrorism practiced from the apparatuses of the State", which "is terrible from the democratic perspective of a rule of law".

As they have pointed out, Barrionuevo "unequivocally assumes criminal responsibilities for which he has never been tried", as well as "crimes of torture". Thus, they have highlighted that the former minister "acknowledges having ordered the kidnapping of José María Larretxea Goñi, an attempted kidnapping carried out by four Spanish police officers that the French Gendarmerie aborted on October 18, 1983, just two days after the kidnapping of Lasa and Zabala.

Barrionuevo, they added, "recognizes what we have been denouncing for decades, that the State, through the Government of Felipe González, used terrorism and dirty war" and that "under his orders, members of the FES and paid mercenaries acted as executors , whom he refers to as comrades who shoot from their trench".

In his opinion, on this issue "the Prosecutor's Office should act ex officio, as it should have acted when former President Felipe González confessed to having had in his hand the decision to blow up ETA's leadership, because whoever has the possibility and the decision to carry out carried out a terrorist act is fully aware of the existence of a terrorist structure within its Government and because it implicitly assumed that it had the capacity to decide to carry out or abort said terrorist operation".

They also believe that the Prosecutor's Office should have acted "after the declassification of the CIA papers, after the revelation of conversations between senior government officials and the CNI about the role of José Luis Corcuera in sending letter bombs and the murder of the postman from Renteria Antonio Cardosa or on the death of Mikel Zabalda in the Intxaurrondo barracks and the subsequent disappearance of his body".

Along these lines, they have pointed out that, if, as the current Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande Marlaska, says, "the reported events were terrorist acts and the truth does not prescribe, his confession of an unpunished and unprosecuted criminal act should lead to the opening of judicial proceedings that clarify the facts and point out the responsibilities".

In this regard, it has reported that the Larretxea Goñi family is studying the possibility of filing a criminal complaint against Barrionuevo for "ordering the kidnapping of his brother", while the Egiari Zor Foundation will also evaluate the possibility of taking legal action with its legal services. legal, individually or collectively.

After criticizing that the Spanish justice "has been a party and has never shown interest in solving the crimes perpetrated by State terrorism", he also criticized the fact that, to date, "no political party, no government has yet assumed responsibility for these very serious events".

"And the responsibility is not only of the material authors, it is not only of some specific public officials, the responsibilities dot political acronyms that go from the UCD and its heirs of Alianza Popular, today PP, to the PSOE, and so it will be as long as Public acknowledgment of the damage caused and the victims generated is not materialized and a process of declassification of the reserved documentation is opened that sheds light on the unresolved cases", they have warned.

Likewise, they believe that those who gave political and media support to a State strategy that used all its machinery to assassinate, violate human rights and distribute impunity among criminals with State positions, those who signed a pact of silence and that with their collusion they allowed terrorism to become one more tool of the State".

The same should be done, in his opinion, "those who used this issue to obtain political gain and reach Moncloa to later process pardons and early release in payment for the duty fulfilled, to senior government officials and agents of the Forces and Corps of State Security".

The victims have assured that they do not need to be asked for forgiveness and have warned that "the generic condemnations of State Terrorism as if it had arisen by spontaneous generation or as a consequence of the isolated decision of four disturbed people" are not enough.

"If there are sewers and they are shielded, if there is impunity and investigative commissions are blocked in parliament, if justice continues to look the other way, it is evident that there are State responsibilities that clearly affect specific political acronyms," they have denounced.

After insisting that they do not need "general sentences that exempt many from their responsibility", but "a declaration at the highest institutional level", they have appealed "to the Government of the Spanish State, to make an unequivocal declaration of assumption of responsibilities and recognition of the damage caused", although they believe "it is difficult to hope" that it will occur.

Likewise, they have ordered him to adopt "the democratic determination to declassify the secret documentation that allows the crimes derived from State terrorism to be resolved, which were not only the GAL."

"It is time to build, to invest in the present and project it towards a future in which events of this nature cannot have a place or possibility of being repeated", they have maintained.