“These are inadmissible and intolerable words,” they denounce in the Moncloa regarding the statements in which the EH Bildu candidate for the elections next Sunday in Euskadi, Pello Otxandiano, did not want to recognize ETA as a terrorist organization. “ETA was an armed group,” was all Otxandiano was willing to admit. And the Government, despite the fact that it has in EH Bildu one of its essential parliamentary supports to sustain the legislature, this Tuesday has extremely harshly condemned the position expressed by the electoral candidate of the nationalist party.
“Unfortunately, in this country, all Spaniards know very well that ETA was a terrorist group,” said the Government spokesperson, the socialist Pilar Alegría, after the meeting of the Council of Ministers. “And not recognizing it like this is not only cowardly, but it is an absolute contempt for the victims and for Spanish and Basque society,” she said. “It also demonstrates a denialism that is absolutely incompatible with the history of our country, and with democracy, which defeated ETA's terrorism,” she stressed.
Despite the fact that the Government itself and the leadership of the PSOE highlighted until now the “good climate” in which, in their opinion, the Basque electoral campaign was taking place, in contrast to the “noise” that in their opinion is being generated in other electoral scenarios –as in Catalonia-, the fact that the EH Bildu candidate has avoided calling ETA a terrorist group seems to stir up the until now placid waters of the appointment with the polls next Sunday in Euskadi.
At Moncloa they recognize that this political controversy, in the final stretch of the Basque campaign, also reaffirms the Government and the socialists, as well as the PSE electoral candidate, Eneko Andueza, in their positions. Among them, his forceful refusal to support a lehendakari of EH Bildu, or to form a coalition government in Euskadi like the one that the socialists are part of, and aspire to revalidate, together with the PNV. Sánchez himself has described the PNV as a “strategic ally” of the Government.
“In the face of the fight against violence and ETA terrorism that this country has experienced, this Government, like practically all democratic governments, has been absolutely forceful,” said Pilar Alegría. “Nothing has changed,” she insisted, despite the fact that EH Bildu is now one of the legislative partners of Pedro Sánchez's Executive.
“We do not share at all the position and words expressed by the EH Bildu candidate. Because this country has unfortunately suffered for many years from ETA terrorism, many people were murdered by ETA terrorism. And not recognizing that ETA was a terrorist group is not absolutely cowardly, but rather it is an enormous contempt for all the victims and for Spanish society as a whole,” the minister spokesperson reiterated. “And deny the obvious, which is that thanks to the rule of law itself, together we managed to defeat ETA's terrorism,” Alegría concluded.
