At this political moment so special, the best homage we can make to the victims, to the people shot and to all the disappeared in the Otxandio’s bombardment, in Durango, in Gernika… is to restore the word to Euskal Herria and to reaffirm the engagement to respect the decision which will be adopted.
70 years ago now, Franco and Mola, generals of the spanish army, made a coup d’etat and established a national catholic form of government which the terrible consequences extended during the 40 next years to all the Spanish state.

The citizens from Hego Euskal Herria of this time suffered also from these consequences. One of the firsts consisted in the bombardment of Otxandio, which, even if it’s the first act of the war against Euskal Herria and one of the firsts air attack against the civil population, constitutes an unknown act. Unfortunately, the actions of this kind followed one other the following years and the bombardments of Durango and Gernika are engraved in the memoy of Euskal Herria: they were the precedents of the Second World War and although they produce an impressive pain -or, precisely for this reason- the bombardments of populations continue until now, instead of disappearing, as we see in Palestine and in Lebanon.

The 18th of July 1936 and the bombardment of Otxandio which took place the same week, marked the beginning of a very black period for Euskal Herria. Whereas in Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia lived the violence of the front, thousands of people disappeared and were shot for ideological motives in places where there weren’t front lines, like in Nafarroa Garaia. In fact, one carried out an ideological authentic cleaning under the criminal act known like the “glorious crusader”.

Even if the obstacles of the Republic’s Government and the fraud of the Iruñea’s assembly diminished a little bit the hope that the Statute of Lizarra had awake in Euskal Herria, the public claim of an only state for the four provinces by the Front Popular Navarrais, integrated by the PSOE, PCE, the Republican Left, ANV and the trade-union UGT, resuscitated the interest for the sovereignty. However, the coup d’etat, of a brutal violence, put it a term from the beginning.

What would be the situation of Euskal Herria if there had not been this fact so dark fact? What would be the political reality of Nafarroa Garaia if about 3000 progressist and engaged young peoples had not been shot?

From that time, the thinks changed but the consequences of the franquism period still continue. In that, more than the disdain, we have to take in consideration the attitude of today since it is very significant. So, there are those who want maintain privileges they had during the franquism period to maintain their statute and a juridical and political framework which doesn’t respect the word of Euskal Herria, as proof the position of some parties or medias about the political process which is open, and those who had a privileged statute and who consider like a threat the fact that all the citizenship from all Euskal Herria have all the rights, that’s why they try to impeach the process by all the means.

When Udalbiltza took an engagement for the rights of the basque citizenship, it expressed its will to recover our historical memory, but this recuperation bases itself not only on the monuments’ inauguration and institutional acts’ organisation. More than the documents torn out by the force, the important is the claim of the political sovereignty stolen, beyond the impositions, the union between this will and the actual will to build Euskal Herria.

In this moment so special, the best homage we can make to the victims, to the people shot to all the disappeared in the Otxandio’s bombardment, in Durango, in Gernika… to is to restore the word to Euskal Herria and to reaffirm the engagement to respect the decision which will be adopted.
With this objective, Udalbiltza intervened in various acts and initiatives of this day and a delegation directed by Loren Arkotxa will take part to the acts organised this sunday in Otxandio.