EH Bildu transferred this Friday to the “private” sphere the toast for two ETA prisoners that an Abertzale group had organized in the Judimendi neighborhood of Vitoria. An act that completed the kalejira (musical parade) and the intervention of two spokespersons who, without expressly citing the two honored ETA members, celebrated the end of the dispersal and promised to “work for the rights of Basque political prisoners.”
Pressure from the Collective of Victims of Terrorism (Covite) and the Villacisneros Foundation forced the organizers of the tribute to Diego Ugarte and Roberto Lobrero to avoid a public toast to them during the San Juan festivities. Among the participants in the kalejira and carrying a Sare banner in favor of the release of the ETA members was Txema Matanzas. The ETA member lawyer and former prisoner was appointed by EH Bildu as a member of the Álava Electoral Board in the 28-M elections.
The festive march was headed by a banner that recalled the “neighborhood prisoners” in Basque. They are Diego Ugarte and Roberto Lebrero. Diego Ugarte along with Luis Mariñelarena and Asier Carrera formed the Ituren commando that assassinated the socialist politician Fernando Buesa and his bodyguard Jorge Díez Elorza on February 22, 2000 with a car bomb parked on the campus of the Basque University in Vitoria. Lebrero was sentenced for placing, along with other ETA members, various explosive devices in a discotheque in the Navarrese municipality of Lakuntza in September 2001.
The conveners did not say their names and the speech of two young people from the organization focused on the end of the dispersal of the ETA members and the maintenance of their commitment to “work in favor of the rights of political prisoners”, in reference to the 130 ETA members serving their sentences in prisons in the Basque Country and Navarra.
“Disgusting”
Before the celebration of the act in memory of the two convicted of terrorism, the mayoress of Vitoria Maider Etxebarria (PSE) had described their celebration as “disgusting”.. The acts were part of the festive program organized at the Judimendi festivities, a neighborhood in the capital of Álava that has held similar events on previous occasions. Yesterday morning, Etxebarria transferred the information about these acts to the Prosecutor's Office after the public complaints made by the Villacisneros Foundation and the Collective of Victims of Terrorism (Covite).
The mayoress of Vitoria has also announced that her technicians will analyze the award of the subsidy of almost 14,000 euros granted by the City Council for the organization of festive events in this neighborhood of Vitoria.
Villacisneros and Covite, at first and yesterday, the PP of Vitoria urged Etxebarria to act to prevent the development of these two acts that in their public calls do not refer to the ETA members but limit themselves to pointing them out as “neighborhood prisoners”. » in Basque. However, the Plaza de Sefarad where the homage took place was plagued with the symbols of Sare in which the release of the ETA members is demanded and the names of Diego and Roberto appear, in reference to Diego Ugarte and Roberto Lebrero.
Before its development, the organizers of the act assured that they had already informed the Ertzaintza of its development without receiving any order to suspend it.