Original interview in GARA, Basque newspaper

Ane was born fifteen days after her father was shot down in an action of the dirty war in the Hotel Alcala in Madrid, for which she only came to know him through references. Maiana, 28 years old, was 12 when her father was killed in an ambush of the Guardia Civil on Amistad Street in Bilbao. She never had time to have a normal life with him.

The victims of ETA seem very active, they have been seen with the subject of Strasbourg, calling for demonstrations and acting as a lobby. Less is heard from you, but it is also true that you appear less, why?

Ane MUGURUZA: The main question isn’t the quantity but of the social scene. Unfortunately our reality is what it is. We are victims of violence from the state and this condition carries with it a responsibility. On the one hand with the memory and dignity of our murdered family members, and on the other hand with society. For the painful reality that we have had to live, we’ve acquired a commitment to contribute positively from the sphere that corresponds to us so that this country can advance on the path towards peace, so that no one else, no one, has to live the traumatic experience of losing a loved one in the context of the conflict and that the reasons that generated it are resolved.

Maiana BUSTINZA: In Egiari Zor we have always been clear that our pain, our suffering, mustn’t be another element to deepen the social confrontation, nor to be used as an obstacle for achieving or building peace, but completely the opposite. We know that the role that we can play is fundamental, but we are very clear that our pain doesn’t give us the condition of lawyers or politicians, and for that we are never going to try to direct the political or legal life.

Up to where does your condition as an active agent go?

M.B.: We maintain periodical reunions with agents, associations and platforms, apart from the internal functioning of the foundation. We participate in forums, round tables, debates… We make contributions to the proposals and dynamics that are presented from the institutions in matters of human rights and victims.

Your youth is surprising. What has made you take the step to work in Egiari Zor?

M.B.: Being young today means being the adults of tomorrow and all that we can build today will be what has to be managed in the future. If they advance on the path to peace, a just peace for everyone, it will be for us, or future generations, to enjoy. In change, if we we hold up in the trenches, if we don’t make the effort to stop feeding our pain over and over, the panorama that we will leave to others will be what we have had to live and that isn’t desirable for anyone.

A.M: In our case we have had references with our mothers, who have taught us not to feel rancour or hate. We have to give them thanks for that. Rancour, hate, the need for revenge are feelings that destroy people who feel them.

When Egiari Zor was presented, they set their main objective on obtaining the truth for advancing towards a just and peaceful solution. Am I to understand that you will be content with this, with the truth, above other criteria such as justice and reparations?

M.B.: The terms are very important, but unfortunately in the conceptual there exists for decades an expressed manipulation on one part. To put an example, the very term victim, of justice, dignity, truth… In some way we became aware that from different sectors they have exercised a brutal indoctrination around these concepts, up to the point that even we don’t feel identified with them. Therefore, there was a work, let’s say, of detoxification of the concept, and we set our sights on the definitions of international organizations. There we felt ourselves identified with the concepts of victim, of affected, of justice, of memory…

A.M: As far as justice is referred to, we are conscious that the injustice existent is that which contributed to the death of our family members and hundreds more other people. Therefore we are clear that justice in our case won’t come from any Spanish or French court. Our starting point is the memory of all the people wrenched away and the demand that recognition, truth and justice be the indisputable bases of a just, true and definitive solution. Justice is dealing with in a sincere manner what happened and the reasons for why it happened.

Said in other words, in a scheme of resolution based on transitional justice, would you accept a certain level of impunity for the crimes committed against your family members?

A.M.: Impunity? If there is something we have known throughout our lives, apart from personal tragedy, of losing family members, it has been and is precisely that, impunity. The states left unpunished the crimes against our family members.

About transitional justice, it’s true that it’s been a valid tool in other conflicts, but also that there doesn’t exist a unique model of transitional justice and that each people must design their own model. We’re not going to enter spaces that don’t correspond to us, the management of justice, the character of it and the application of it doesn’t enter our sphere. In change, we do believe that as a previous step towards the scrupulous application of justice it’s indispensable the creation of a proactive mechanism for the truth, a Truth Commission, or however you want to call it. It is absolutely indispensable to identify each and every one of the violations of human rights that have happened without exception in the last fifty years, not just to apply justice but to find the most adequate model.

Returning to this truth, little has been advanced in these two years of the new time. They haven’t clarified any new case of the dirty war or of police-vigilante violence, what’s your opinion in this respect? Do you think in the future it will be possible?

M.B.: You have to say that the majority of our cases have never been assumed or claimed by anyone, although we know where they come from. The crimes against our family members are covered in impunity, and who gives impunity doesn’t want clarifications, nor to recognize that there are victims caused by them, for their political responsibilities, security forces, paid mercenaries… To deny us is to deny their violence and therefore the very existence of the conflict.

A.M.: But this idea of one violence, of one story, has already fallen from them. There are sectors that continue denying us because we are the mirror that reflects their violence, but we are going to continue insisting, we are here and we are going to continue to be here. Whether they want it or not, we are part of the memory, of the story, and also part of the truth of what happened. The truth will be the sum of all the existing truths, the sum of what each one has lived.

Two years ago one part renounced violence, it was a great step. No other people have suffered this violence or the consequences of it, that is very, very important, although others of us can’t say the same. I wish that all parts would take the same step and that no one would ever have to suffer the violence that has struck us.

Is it fitting to speak of the “victims of ETA” or of the “victims of the state” in general, as if everyone had the same position?

A.M.: Not at all. Fortunately we have been able to prove that there are victims of ETA who share the necessity of dialogue to reach consensus’, agreements that allow everyone to continue advancing. Who haven’t allowed that they play with their pain, nor that they be used in a regressive strategy or of no-solution. Why are victims like Rosa Rodero, Veronica Portell, the Lluch sisters, among others, not heard? Why don’t they give the same dimension and offer them platforms for their speeches and opinions like other victims of ETA? I take advantage of this to point out the positions of these women whose commitment is also with peace. It is important that society knows that not all of us victims think the same nor do we seek the same objectives.

Beyond the Glencree initiative, are there contacts between the victims of the two sides? Is it possible some kind of common contribution?

M.B.: The Glencree initiative was born in 2007, and continued for five years, until the beginning of 2012. Egiari Zor was born precisely in April of this year, and during this year and a half of life we have shared different activities among victims. To put an example, we coincided in aspects such as if you don’t recognize the two stories you can’t close the conflict, since none of us has the absolute truth; in desiring an end without hate and revenge, based on mutual respect.

The campaign unleashed by some victims brings us decades backwards. Don’t you run the risk of plunging society in despair?

A.M.: Fortunately not all victims think the same, Basque society desires peace, they believe in a just solution for everyone and it is a demand that they make of the political class, forward-looking and implication and good management of the time we live in, all the initiatives put in march from different sectors and spheres support that the path that Basque society has chosen is that of building peace and democratic coexistence.

What do you feel when you hear victims of ETA speak of impunity for the European sentence about the doctrine, when the prisoners referred to have passed almost 30 years in prison?

M.B.: We haven’t even reached thirty years old, and to think that there are people who have spent more time in prison than our lives, as a human being it’s something that makes you reflect on a lot of questions. On the other hand, you think that in cases like ours no one has spent a single day in prison. I imagine that everyone has their own concepts of what is impunity, democracy, the State of Law and human rights.

On a human level, do you understand this reaction in some way?

A.M.: On a human level we understand that no one is going to bring back our loved ones, no matter how much we want it this is never going to be able to happen. This is the tragedy. We understand perfectly the pain, we recognize it because we also feel it, we know how it hurts, how hard it is. Pain doesn’t have acronyms, nor ideologies, it is exactly identical for everyone, although undoubtedly everyone hurts for their own. For that we understand that pain is a thing and the management of this pain is something very different.

Translation by Basque Peace Process