Gernika (Bizkaia) (EFE) prominent minister Félix Bolaños.
Bolaños, head of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, attended the commemorative acts of the 86th anniversary of the bombing of Gernika this Wednesday, the first time that a minister of the Government of Spain attended these events.
Along with the minister have been the lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, and other members of his cabinet; the president of the PNV, Andoni Ortuzar; the general secretary of the PSE-EE, Eneko Andueza; the representative of EH Bildu Gorka Elejabarrieta; and the parliamentarian of the PP Carmelo Barrio, among other institutional and political representatives.
After the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced yesterday that Gernika will be declared a “place of memory” due to the “horror” of the fascist bombing that its town suffered in 1937, during the Civil War, Bolaños explained in statements to the media that the Executive has decided that the first place of this type in accordance with the law of Democratic Memory is the town of Vizcaya.
The minister has not alluded to some statements by the Lehendakari in which Urkullu has indicated that, 86 years after the bombing, “a gesture of restorative justice “is still pending” by the State.”
Gernika, present in memory and I remember the victims
Bolaños, who has not admitted questions about current political issues, has highlighted that in the bombing “hundreds of innocent people died at the hands of the Nazis” and the Government wants to reflect that their memory “is still present” and that democracy is also fruit of the recognition and memory of those victims.
“The coup plotters against the legitimate government in 1937 indiscriminately bombed the defenseless civilian population of Gernika, just as they bombed Durango, Eibar, Otxandio and places in Euskadi and the rest of Spain”, recalled the minister.
“Today you still get goosebumps when you hear the sirens that warned the population of the bombing,” he said.
Bolaños has stressed, “86 years after that massacre that Picasso immortalized”, that as a member of the Spanish Government he wishes to convey to the victims: “we do not forget them, and their memory is what also inspires our democracy”.
The minister has considered “very symbolic” that, despite the “atrocious bombardment carried out by the Nazis, coup leaders and fascists”, the Gernika tree, “under which the lehendakris swear and symbol of the freedom of Euskadi”, will remain ” standing” after the air strike.
“The brutal bombardment did not achieve its objective”, that of preventing Spain “from being what it is, an advanced, European democracy, of values and rights”, added Bolaños.