It is shameful for democracy and humiliating for the victims that ten years after the self-dissolution of ETA, the Basque independence left -

whose votes Pedro Sánchez and his ministers have relied on for the continuity of the progressive government

- do not definitively break the bond that continues to bind them. to a not so distant terrorist past, turning Sortu -the last name of the old Batasuna- and its mothership EH Bildu into

political heirs of ETA

.

Who have simply changed the t

The act of shooting in the neck and the car bomb due to participation in the institutions maintain the same purpose of territorial rupture of Spain that inspired its founding under Franco.

Because,

Arnaldo Otegi did not condemn terrorism on Monday as a way to achieve political objectives

nor did he apologize for the 853 murders, the dozens of kidnappings, the thousands of extortions and, finally, the five decades of dictatorship of terror and hatred imposed on Spanish society in general and on Basque society in particular.

And remembered,

as a warning

, that the "pending issue of the causes of the political conflict" remains unresolved, since "the first and necessary step to build a different future" passes through "respect for our national condition."

That is, to

an independent Basque Country

.

Without showing an iota of regret - in this he agrees with the vast majority of former ETA members, who

they rejected the via Nanclares for militant obedience

- and as part of that new strategy, the coalition leader

nationalist

he limited himself to staging his "regret and pain for the suffering suffered", since "it should never have occurred".

And he concluded: "We should have managed to get to Aiete earlier",

inevitably including themselves among those who were active members of the terrorist gang and later formed part of the secret negotiating tables

with the Government of Rodríguez Zapatero in exchange for political assignments from the State.

Because Otegi's statements are inseparable from those meetings in which ETA managed to wrest dishonorable commitments from its interlocutors and from

its new position of strength as a priority partner of the Government of Sánchez

.

And in the same way that

the PSOE works for the euskaldunización of Navarra

and Minister Grande-Marlaska has put an end to the policy of dispersal by bringing ETA prisoners closer to prisons in the Basque Country and granting them degree privileges,

Otegi had to interpret this Monday a forced declaration of consideration towards the victims

, which will serve the Government to whitewash the Abertzale formation when they support the

Budgets

.

Because that's what it all comes down to:

use the pain of the victims as political merchandise

, which Otegi himself knows is irreparable, even if this Monday he promised to "mitigate it to the best of our ability."

Instead of trying to impose

an impossible equidistance between victims and executioners

, should begin by banning homages to murderers - they are done more than ever - and help

clear up the more than 300 unsolved murders.

To continue reading for free

Sign inSign up

Or

subscribe to Premium

and you will have access to all the web content of El Mundo