It was not an easy day for Rafa Diez, the former secretary general of LAB, not in personal and not in political terms. Today he has traveled to Madrid on Monday to receive a sentence of ten years in prison for helping to open a path he has no regrets to have opened. On the contrary, he encourages to "keep going along this path with full conviction, stronger than ever in getting the Basque society to be the protagonist of this path."

As in a already written script, the Judge has accepted the request of the prosecutor and as ordered Diez to be sent in prison. He was out on bail and it was of no use his stating that he had no intention to flee. So Rafa Diez will join Otegi and the other in prison once more. Before being taken to jail the former secretary general of LAB said: "Here or wherever I must go, I will continue to struggle for peace and a democratic solution". Thousands of people in the Basque country have taken to the street to protest the sentence, last Friday against the members of the Abertzale Left.

Sonia Jacinto received the notice in the National Court, Arnaldo Otegi, Miren Zabaleta and Arkaitz Rodriguez learned it while on the road as they were transferred. Rafa Díez learned the news while free in Donostia, and thus he became the recipient of expressions of support and the most direct and authoritative voice to assess the judgement and its effects. Rafa Diez was in Donostia (San Sebastian) when he learned the sentence handed out to them. He accepted to answer some questions to the newspaper GARA.

- First of all, on a personal level, how do you take a sentence of ten years in prison?

It is clearly a blow, a jolt to your concrete and close situation. In the political arena, I take it as proof that we are living a historic moment, yet often agitated. The Abertzale left is opening a new scenario with its initiative, a new political phase in which the historical claims of this country are going to be emerging with greater dimension and power, and it appears that in this passage there are many groups that seek to condition and stop things. We have to measure the situation with patience, perspective, without static readings.

- What message do you think the State is sending with this sentence? Is it saying that political means are not possible?

At this point it is difficult to evaluate even what State or what role has this or that legal decision. Sometimes we conclude that this is a conflict of State but you have no State to talk to to end the conflict. We are facing a great opportunity to build a scenario for peace and democratic solution, and it seems that the very same solution is a problem. So, beyond speculation, I think what we have to do is the total conviction to follow on the road we have opened, being stronger than ever and making the whole of the Basque society become the protagonist. The vast majority of the Basque society does not understand this sentence. It knows it has been built in an arbitrary manner, with hypotheses that most people know to be false. People know that our only role was only in promoting an historic change in the strategy of the Abertzale Left. For this reason it is this Basque society has to seen itself challenged and show a maximum level of contribution and commitment to this path.

- Are you afraid that attacks like this may cause doubts about the viability of the political choice?

It can certainly raise questions, but the answers cannot be the classical answers given in other historical contexts. We have to work so that it is the society as a whole which answers, and does so in a certain direction: to make this irreversible. We have to get that society a protagonist status, so that nobody can affect its condition nor deny its future. No one can steal that.

- Is the gap between Euskal Herria and the Spanish State greater today than yesterday?

The opinion of the Basque political subject has moved away from the Spanish one, in a social, political, even institutional context… This is a reality. Every day there are more differences.

- What about the international context ? Do you not think that it should make a counterweight to such attacks?

This is a topic that has to be analyzed, but obviously it is imperative that the international community is an active agent towards this common goal, it needs to get involved to achieve a peace process in capital letters.

- Brian Currin admitted recently that is not possible to sustain such a process unilaterally, forever. Are we reaching the threshold necessary to pass to a bilateral or multilateral phase?

What we found with this statement is that there are sectors that have much fear of a scenario in which the violence disappeared and there is only the use of political means. It is becoming increasingly clear that while some make contributions and are willing to move, others are afraid to reach that point, and for this reason they speculate with the new situation using the excuse that the Basque society does not understand. From there it creates a tension that does not allow to advance faster. But again we are at an historic moment and that, independently from the decisions that ETA needs to adopt, we need the contribution of all.

Patxi Lopez says he understands the frustration of the sentence. Something to respond to him ?

Lopez often make judgments in terms of sufficiency or insufficiency in comparison to other situations, so I would say that his position is certainly not sufficient, and that he as lehendakari should take steps in all its rawness and perspective. Peace is something we have to achieve all together. It's time for him also to get really down to work. The Abertzale left will continue to be an active party to this process.