Vitoria (EFE).- MEP Maite Pagazaurtundua, has pointed out that the Basque and Navarrese families have yet to talk about the years of ETA terrorism.
«Joxeba Pagaza. A cry for freedom” is the title of the exhibition inaugurated at the Memorial Center for the Victims of Terrorism in Vitoria on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the murder by ETA of the chief of the Local Police of Andoain (Gipuzkoa) Joseba Pagazaurtundua.
His sister, together with the director of the Memorial Center, Florencio Domínguez, have toured the exhibition room where photographs and documents are displayed, such as Joseba’s original writings in which he foreshadowed his own murder.
There are also displays of solidarity for the previous attacks suffered, telegrams after his murder and the public mailbox that has been placed in Andoain to collect citizen complaints about terrorist violence.
Fight against oblivion is necessary
Before the visit, Maite Pagazaurtundua pointed out that fighting against oblivion is “absolutely necessary” in a society that has suffered decades of “dictatorship, self-censorship and silence.”
“Properly understood memory is a vaccine, an antidote against new forms of fanaticism,” Joseba’s sister remarked.
He recalled that during the years of ETA terrorism in Basque and Navarrese families there was “a taboo” to talk about what was happening.
Now an “enormous ignorance” of what happened is also detected because in families “it continues not to be discussed” about what parents and grandparents saw and felt.
In his opinion, although the work of the Vitoria Memorial Center is very necessary, there is this “deficit” in society to prevent there being a minority that continues to harm the new generations.
We must avoid a justification of terrorism
“We need to transmit full knowledge about the past, face taboos and avoid justification of the past,” he stressed.
The director of the Memorial has recalled the terror implanted by ETA in towns like Andoain, which experienced the “ideological cleansing strategy of non-nationalists through systematic harassment.”
He has stated that an attempt was made to silence the voice of a part of the population through street violence, the murders of ETA and the “political coverage of Batasuna”.
Andoain, he remarked, was also a reflection of the “fragile institutional response to this situation.”
With this exhibition, he has continued, history cannot be changed but it can be remembered and made known to the youngest. EFE
