The silence that betrays

It was not an isolated event. Days before there were similar incidents in Vitoria and, weeks ago, in Azpeitia, where a hundred radicals attacked a local police station. Three episodes with the same protagonists, the same slogans and the same strategy.

What some try to present as simple protests is, in reality, political violence that in Spain we know too well. It is the street fight always, the same one that for years was the street arm of ETA, the echo of that terror that wanted to subdue an entire country.

It is worth remembering this, especially for the youngest, because this Government wants us to forget it.

ETA terrorists left more than 850 murderedamong them my brother, thousands of wounded and families broken forever. He set fire to streets, shops and party headquarters; he persecuted councilors, journalists and judges; and turned fear into a daily routine.

It was his way of keeping the threat alive and reminding others that thinking differently could come at a price. She was the one who forced the citizens to lower their gaze, the one who tried to silence us and the one who wanted to leave the victims alone.

That is why you cannot trivialize what is happening or hide it with excuses. We cannot remain silent when violence returns to our streets, nor look the other way for fear of disturbing the partners who fuel it.

The Government is silent.

The president is silent, the Minister of the Interior is silent, and that silence hurts.

It hurts because we know him. Because it sounds the same as the one from then, the one that left the victims alone and made an entire country tremble. Those of us who live through terror know how to recognize it, although now they change its name.

We know what it’s like to see hooded men go unpunished, seeing police officers injured and journalists beaten for telling the truth.

We have seen all of this before.

And he has the same hatred, the same cowardice and the same contempt for freedom. Before, the Spaniards stood up to say “enough.” Today, the Government is silent, because it depends on those who never condemned anything, on the heirs of those who pulled the trigger.

“The silence of the Government (that silence that Marlaska tries to sell as prudence) is the same that one day allowed ETA to kill”

Of whom, as Arnaldo Otegi o Mertxe Aizpuruacontinue to justify their past and boast of having whitewashed it from Congress. Some are even in Congress today, sitting where they once pointed out the victims.

And that silence (that silence that Marlaska tries to sell as prudence) is the same one who one day allowed them to kill.

And the most serious thing is not only that violence returns, but that it returns accompanied by silence.

Neither the President of the Government nor any of his ministers have condemned what happened in Pamplona, ​​Vitoria or Azpeitia. The Council of Europe has had to do it, which has demanded an unequivocal condemnation from Spain, a rapid investigation and the protection of journalists.

While Europe has to remind us of what Spain has already learned painfully, this Government remains silent.

Keep silent out of fear, out of calculation and out of pure cowardice.

It remains silent because it is governed by those who have never condemned terrorism. With those who continue without asking for forgiveness from the victims. With those who still justify the murderers and call them “political prisoners.”

That silence is the price of an agreement with EH Bildu. The price that this Government has decided to pay to remain in power, even if it is at the cost of breaking what one day united all democrats against terror in the Spirit of Ermua.

A consensus that Sanchismo has dynamited by a handful of votes.

The State Security forces and bodies and the Ertzaintza already warn that this violence is organized, that a pattern is repeated and that the feeling of impunity is growing.

The SUP and JUCIL police unions demand political support, resources and respect against increasingly aggressive groups.

Press associations also say this, asking for guarantees so that a journalist does not have to risk his or her life to report.

And yet, the Government prefers to look the other way. He prefers not to bother his partners. He prefers, as always, silence. At the cost of citizens’ trust in their institutions and at the expense of the memory of the victims who gave their lives for freedom.

And that silence of sanchismo not only shakes all of us who believe in dignity, justice, freedom and respect for each of the victims of terrorism.

It also betrays the trust of citizens in their institutions, the memory of those who suffered and the dignity of a country that was once capable of defeating fear.

*** María del Mar Blanco is a PP deputy.