Twenty years of the last ETA offensive in Catalonia: six months, five murders

José Luis Ruiz Casado

always left at 7.30 am from his house, in

, on the outskirts of

.

«He commented on some occasion that, if they attacked Sant Adrià, it would be his turn, because he had strict schedules.

But he was not obsessed with it.

We had no fear ", remembers

, close to

, both councilors of the PP in the town in 2000. At that time, ETA had not killed in

for more than six years

.

The terrorists

,

and

(the latter belonging to the group of five ETA members who will soon be transferred to prisons near

) ended the parenthesis after finding out the specific routine of a father of two minors old and without aspiration to prosper in politics.

It was the first of the last five murdered that the gang claimed in

in a margin of six months, an offensive that would turn out to be

macabre epilogue

in the community.

The prelude to the end was two shots at a man sensitive to the concerns of his neighbors, an orphan as an escort and assaulted from behind, as soon as he left to go to work at the usual time.

Today is 20 years old.

We couldn't imagine it.

Sant Adrià hardly appeared on the map, we had no political relevance.

In addition, there had been no attacks in

or Catalonia lately, ”

emphasizes

.

The unsuspected of the homicide was limited to the strategy of "socialization of pain" to which ETA applied after breaking the truce of 1999: 23 murdered and 102 injured throughout Spain in one year.

By targeting any constitutional representative, the gang propagated an indiscriminate threat that made it difficult to protect any possible target.

«They sent us some basic self-protection recommendations.

That we were not always going to the same place, that in restaurants we faced the door ... We had not considered an escort.

We had it after the attack for a very limited season, "laments Aragall.

Two months later, the reconstituted Barcelona command perpetrated the crime for which it is most remembered, the murder of former socialist minister

.

and

took advantage of the lack of bodyguards to approach him in a garage and silence a voice in favor of the negotiation for the gang to lay down their arms.

Rosa Lluch

explains that her father "asked to have an escort 24 hours before he was killed", alarmed by the escalation after the ceasefire.

«I lived it very badly.

She felt like she could be a target of the band.

The afternoon before he was killed, he met with the government delegate,

, and told her about it.

On behalf of the government, she told her that she should not fear anything and that they should not put her under an escort because she was in no way a target.

Lluch revealed it to her daughter hours before being shot, while they were eating.

Agogue She told me to be calm.

It had the guarantee of the State.

It would have been good if they explained to us what they were based on to give it to her », says Rosa.

"Although the request for dialogue came from before, Lluch emerged as a symbol that had to be talked about", interprets

, at that time delegate of the Association of Victims of Terrorism in Catalonia.

The massive march in memory of the former minister was crowned with an improvised request from journalist

in favor of a dialogue with

, which upset the Government of José María Aznar.

“It reflected what my father would have done.

He was an uncomfortable figure who, as he had left active politics, could allow himself to say things that others had difficult, “thinks his daughter.

«I did not understand the tension that was mounted by that.

had said months before that he would sit down with ETA.

But it bothered me that the message was not consulted before with the victims.

We could have agreed on it »,

believes

.

The clamor did not pity the ETA members: in the following weeks they took the lives of

, councilor of the PP in

, and of the guard

.

The command fell in January 2001. The relief was short-lived: ETA reappeared two months later, with a car bomb outside a hotel in Roses.

The shrapnel hit a mosso d'esquadra,

.

"It was not a massacre because some boys risked their lives there.

The hotel was full of retirees, and the boys almost dragged them out.

My son died, but many more could have died ", warns his father, Santos Santamaría, vice president of the Catalan Association of Victims of Terrorist Organizations.

«It was his last day in Roses, the next day he was transferred to Barcelona.

It was off duty and, with the alert, it showed up.

It was my birthday.

The last words he had with me were: 'Dad, congratulations.

See you tomorrow, '"recalls the father.

The list of 54 murdered in Catalonia closes with the only mosso killed by the gang.

"It was not the last because ETA did not want to kill more," says Santamaría, who feels that names like his son's have fallen into oblivion: "In part, it consoles that it was the last.

But he was our son and we are not sure if he was of much use.

In fact, today, the relations between the Catalan independence movement and the heir formation of Herri Batasuna, Bildu, are very close.

The tribute to

has been suspended by the Covid.

Neither the Barcelona command nor the authors of the attack in Roses,

and

, have asked for forgiveness.

Five crimes in ETA's farewell to Catalonia

• JOSÉ LUIS RUIZ CASADO

  .

  Councilor of the PP in San Adrià de Besòs.

  Shot on September 21, 2000.

• ERNEST LLUCH

  .

  Former Minister of Health, murdered in his garage on November 21, 2000.

• FRANCISCO CANO

  .

  Councilor of the PP in Viladecaballs, assassinated on 12-14-2000 in Tarrasa.

• JUAN MIGUEL GERVILLA

  .

  Urban guard.

  Shot dead in Barcelona on December 20, 2000.

• SAINTS SANTAMARÍA

  .

  Mosso d 'Esquadra.

  Killed by car bomb in Roses (March 17, 2001).

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• ETA

• Catalonia

• Barcelona

• PP

• Bildu

• Salvador Illa

• Basque Country

• Jose Maria Aznar

• Spain

• Parot doctrine

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