It was 1991. I was 17 years old. ETA murdered ten people, five of them children, by detonating a car bomb in the Vic barracks. The next day, while the funerals were being held, the Civil Guard shot two of the perpetrators of the crime in a chalet in Lliçà d'Amunt. I don't need to look at Google to remember their names. Juan Félix Erezuma and Joan Carles Monteagudo. I also remember those of Francisco Mújica Garmendia, José Luis Urrusolo Sistiaga, Domingo Troitiño, Santiago Arróspide. I belong to the generation that grew up with posters of étarres at bus stations.
The embrace between two bloodied civil guards and the run of a man carrying a wounded girl in his arms are indelible from the attack in Vic. In that state of shock, many of us almost celebrated the death of the two elders. "It's not good that you react out of hatred", my father let me go. Four years earlier, the Hipercor attack (21 murders) marked several generations.
One of my first journalistic jobs was to participate in research for a series on the history of ETA. I was commissioned by documentary filmmaker Joan González, who gave me the opportunity to work with Xavier Vinader, investigative journalist and symbol of freedom of expression. ETA murdered in 1980 two ultra-rightists mentioned by Vinader in an article. He was tried and sentenced to seven years in prison for "reckless professional recklessness resulting in two murders". He went into exile, had terrorist attacks, returned, was in prison for two months, and the government of Felipe González pardoned him. If Twitter had existed, Vinader would have been the great whitewasher of the time. For many of us he was a reference. That series about ETA never saw the light of day.
ETA has been very present throughout my professional life. I have interviewed a repentant old man; Jesús Eguiguren, the negotiator with ETA who announced the end of the organization; two special programs coinciding with the definitive truce; the interview in Txillarre with Arnaldo Otegi. I have also interviewed a GAL gunman, former minister José Barrionuevo and former Secretary of State Rafael Vera, convicted for their involvement in the dirty war against ETA.
More than three years ago we started working with Màrius Sánchez to interview Josu Urrutikoetxea, Josu Ternera. The leader of ETA is the living witness who knows the most about the terrorist organization, its wildest years and also its end. It was a tough, rough, tense conversation with him, and with an undeniable journalistic and historical value.
During the interview, the ETA leader hears unusual terms in his vocabulary: murder, mafia, attack, cynicism. He is reminded of horrific passages of his organization, with archival footage I'm not sure he's seen before. And, to give an example, when asked if he remembered what happened on June 19, 1987, the name of Hipercor did not cross his mind.
It has been five years since Urrutikoetxea announced the dissolution of ETA. Today there are kids who don't know who Miguel Ángel Blanco was. I assure you that with the viewing of our documentary (at the Sant Sebastià Festival) many young people will discover that not so long ago in Spain a car bomb could explode in the parking lot of a supermarket, or in a barracks house, or they could stick a shot in the back of the neck to an alderman of any town. It will be very clear to them who that young politician from Ermua was, and even that his killer was Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, alias Txapote, whom they may have even chanted without knowing who he was. Is this really whitening? Are we still like this?
