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In just six years, Pedro Sanchez has gone from starring in a bitter parliamentary scuffle with paul churches to account Felipe González and the GALcoming out in defense of the first socialist president of democracy, to agree with Bildu amendments to the future law of Democratic Memory who assume the story expressed then by the leader of Can. It happened on March 2, 2016, when the political situation in Spain was very different from the current one and also the relationship between the PSOE and Podemos. That day, with Spain in an unprecedented institutional blockade and Mariano Rajoy presiding over an acting Executive, Pedro Sánchez underwent his first investiture debate, with a government agreement with Albert Rivera that did not have a majority.
Socialists and podemitas then lived a bitter confrontation, in a situation where the ghost of the ‘sorpasso’ of the purple ones on the centenary party was a plausible speculation. The debate between Sánchez and the general secretary of Podemos was anything but friendly, just four years before both, over time, ended up governing together. And six before, now, Sánchez assumes for the Democratic Memory Law a good part of the postulates that in that plenary session provoked a bitter and famous parliamentary scuffle.
The tension overflowed between Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias, both intervening from their seats, a very short distance away. Iglesias asked him not to pay attention to the socialist “old guard” who advised against agreeing with Podemos. Y said that Felipe González had “his past stained with quicklime”. The crude allusion to the murder of Lasa and Zabala, one of the most notorious crimes of the GAL, stirred up the socialist caucus, and Sánchez himself, who did not hesitate to proclaim his “pride” for the figure of the first socialist president of democracy . Sánchez, in addition, reproached Iglesias that during the debate he had described the “political prisoner” as Bildu leader, Arnaldo Otegi. “In Spain there are no political prisoners,” he said.
Six years after that notorious incident, in which he had to intervene exlendakari Patxi López, then fleeting President of Parliament, the tables have turned. To the point that, in addition to governing in coalition with Podemos, Sánchez now assumes his speech on some matters and, in relation to the ‘democratic memory’, he gives himself to the story of Bildu, the heir coalition of Batasuna, the political arm of ETA.
Investigate quicklime
To carry out the precisely called Democratic Memory Lawone of the commitments of the legislature, the PSOE and United We can advance an agreement on the text, which it could be voted on in the plenary session of Congress next July, with Bildu and the PNV, waiting to negotiate other measures with ERC later, a formation that will also put conditions on the subject. Specifically, a goal that has between eyebrows Gabriel Rufianas confirmed by ERC sources, is to convert the Via Laietana police station in Barcelona, headquarters of the Superior Police Headquarters of Catalonia, into a remembrance center for the repression in Barcelona.
for now, The Government agrees to declare the Franco regime and its trials “illegal”, when the current Law of Historical Memory, approved with the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, simply branded them “illegitimate”, without annulling their sentences, as is now claimed. It remains to be seen whether this semantic change will result in those convicted of these court rulings being able to claim financial compensation. But in addition, and due to the amendments introduced by Bildu’s group in the Lower House, the application of the rule will be extended beyond the dictatorship, specifically until the end of 1983, which covers González’s first year in power. . And more specifically, to the murder in October of that same year of Lasa and Zabalaburied in quicklime – hence the allusion by Iglesias in the debate in question – after having been tortured in the Palacio de La Cumbre, in San Sebastián.
The «war» in the Basque Country
The news about this future Democratic Memory Law, which will expand the Historical Memory Law of the previous PSOE Government, give birth to the usual story of the nationalist left, now represented in Sortu, the formation led by Bildu (a de facto coalition ). That there was a “war” or “armed conflict” with two sides, both with equal legitimacy.
In the period that Sánchez now agrees to investigate as part of the dictatorship, Spain was a democracy with free elections for all formations, including Herri Batasuna, with a Constitution endorsed by the citizens and with an amnesty law that freed political prisoners, some members of ETA, from jail. The dirty war of the GAL was tried in its day by the Justice, which even condemned a former Minister of the Interior, as Jose Barrionuevo.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism