Onalia Bueno: "Marlaska failed me at minute zero"

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She has become, despite herself, one of the faces of this migratory crisis that has as its epicenter the fishing port of Arguineguín, part of the municipality of which she is mayor with her Citizens for Change party.

Last Tuesday, when the police took 197 young Moroccans out of the camp and left them on the street without further instructions to look for life, Onalia Bueno chartered three buses to the capital, Las Palmas, to leave these immigrants right in front of the Delegac

ion of the Government and the Moroccan consulate, to see if someone was aware.

How do you face this migration crisis?

Is it the biggest challenge you have faced?

It is being a very heavy slab for me.

The Government of Spain has to assume its powers and find a solution for what we have at the Arguineguín dock.

Nothing in my life has disturbed my sleep as much as this situation.

How do you think that Mogán is compared in the international press with Lesbos or Lampedusa due to the migratory collapse suffered by Arguineguín?

This is new to us.

The population is very nervous.

That Interior begins to take immigrants to the streets without food, drink or money makes many people nervous.

At an international level, comparing us with Lesbos or Lampedusa is an attack on tourism, which is 35% of our GDP.

And we live on that.

From a migration crisis we will go to a social crisis.

All of this will explode.

What do your neighbors think?

They ask me not to abandon them.

But it is amazing that a government that calls itself progressive, with three ministers who came here to see the situation, is not able to articulate a dignified response as we did in the 2006 crisis.

What would you say to the Minister of the Interior if you had it in front of you?

What I already told you when you came, I asked you not to disappoint me.

He assured me that he would not fail me and that the camp would be dismantled in a few weeks.

So has it failed you or not?

At minute zero.

We cannot be us marking the step to the Government of Spain.

It is not our role, but it is that they are not up to the task.

What is the difference between the management of the cayuco crisis in 2006 and this one?

The difference is leadership.

If there is no leadership, you cannot dedicate yourself to solving political issues.

The success of 2006 was based on two leaders: Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, who assumed sole command, put all the ministries to work and went to the countries of origin to solve the problem.

But today we do not have solid leaders in that Council of Ministers where they cannot agree among themselves, as the Migration Minister José Luis Escrivá recognized when he came here.

There is no communication between portfolios and this is a matter of state.

Do you think this migration crisis is going to last?

If solutions are not put, of course.

How do you solve this problem with the number of boats leaving the coast of Africa?

The only thing that is capable of stopping it is diplomacy and the intervention of the European Union.

Are xenophobic or racist outbreaks occurring in the population due to this situation?

For me, the most important thing in this case is respect for human rights.

I do not share the shoots that I have seen at all.

The Canarian character has never been xenophobic, but when there is an economic crisis, you do not see things the same as when you have a healthy current account.

Many of us have heard that: "They are in a hotel and we are unemployed."

This has been fueled by government inaction.

And this pandemic has hit us very hard in the Canary Islands.

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