Manuel Marraco Madrid
Madrid
Updated Tuesday, March 26, 2024-17:23
The
Collective of Victims of Terrorism (Covite)
reported this Tuesday that in the last
korrika
it was able to document the exhibition of "more than 60 images of ETA members." The
korrika
is a popular race held every two years in favor of the Basque language, but which according to the victims has become
"a cult of ETA terrorism
. "
The festival consists of traveling over 11 days - which extended until Sunday - throughout the Basque Country, Navarra, the French Basque Country and the County of Treviño (Castilla y León). An organization van, with an entertainer, always accompanies the runners. The race is divided into kilometers that are purchased by a group or institution, which allows them to carry a wooden baton that serves as the mast of an ikurriña.
"Taking into account that carrying the baton of the
korrika
is considered an honor, it is absolutely undignified that it has been given to members of ETA," lamented the president of Covite, Consuelo Ordóñez. The group criticizes the "sepulchral silence" of the majority of public institutions and a part of civil society regarding what happened.
Covite explains in a statement that on several kilometers purchased by
Sortu
or
Etxerat
- a support platform for ETA prisoners - the korrika symbols
have
been transferred to ETA members. This is what happened in a section of Andoáin acquired by Sortu, a party that supports
EH Bildu
. The witness was handed over to the ETA leader
Ainhoa Ozaeta
, released last February. The image of the ETA leader
Asier Oyarzabal
was also exhibited
.
"There are many town councils that have bought kilometers in this edition of the
korrika
. The Basque Government, the three provincial councils, the Parliament of Navarra and the Government of Navarra, among other public institutions, have also done so. Our public representatives should have been the first to raise their voices against this aberration, and the majority have not done so," Consuelo Ordóñez censured.
The money from the purchase of sections goes to the company AEK, dedicated to the teaching and literacy of Basque among adults. Several of his spokespersons have explicitly asked for the release of ETA prisoners.
Covite accompanies its complaint with an annex of the sections in which it has detected the presence or images of ETA members, specifying their identities. In a section of Galdácano (Vizcaya), one of the images was that of the former ETA leader convicted of multiple murders Francisco
Javier García Gaztelu, 'Txapote'
.