Gernika Honors 1930's Basque Republic

I believe there is no better place to commemorate the anniversary of the Basque Republic than Gernika.

This is what EITb tells us about today's events:

70TH ANNIVERSARY

Gernika-Lumo holds tribute to first Basque government

The Basque government held an extraordinary cabinet meeting on Sunday at the Assembly House of Gernika-Lumo to mark the 70th anniversary of the first Basque Executive of Basque Premier José Antonio Agirre.

At the ceremony, which paid tribute to all the members of that cabinet, Basque Premier Juan Jose Ibarretxe defended a plural and peaceful Basque Country. The event was attended by former Basque Premiers Carlos Garaikoetxea and Jose Antonio Ardanza, and by the 11 councillors of that first Executive.

It was a modest ceremony but extremely symbolic. Ibarretxe read a letter sent by Health Councillor Alfredo Espinosa to Basque Premier Aguirre just hours before he was executed by Franco’s army.

70 years later, Ibarretxe said that we had to commit ourselves to achieve peace and to respect the right of the Basque Country to decide its future.

Likewise, the Basque leader condemned Franco’s dictatorship and pleaded for “defending and respecting the democratic will of the Basques”.

Relatives of those first councillors also said some words. The son of former Basque Premier Agirre underlined that all of them were received due recognition though the ceremony. The Basque police’s orchestra played the Basque anthem at the end of the event.

Now, this is not the first Basque government in history, let me remind you here and now that Navarre was an independent state for over a thousand years.

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