Disrespect at Ezkaba

A group representing the Asociación de Familiares de Fusilados, Asesinados y Desaparecidos de Nafarroa (an organization that brings together relatives of those victims of the Spanish government that have been executed by firing squad, murdered or gone missing in the Basque province of Navarre) stated their disagreement to Elena Torres regarding the approach given to the guided visits at the Ezcaba fort.

Yesterday, Elena Torres (president of Navarre's Parliament), received the delegation for the association, headed by association's own president, Mirentxu Agirre, who counted with the company of Olga Alcega, Tomas Dorronsoro, Josefina Lamberto and Roberto Rocafor. At the end of the meeting the association stated that they do not agree with the approach that they are giving to the guided visits a the Ezkaba fort, "because they barely portray its real purpose, a jail for extermination". As it is well known, during the guided visits the main focus are historic and architectonic information about the fort, but they barely make any reference to the use given to the fort as a jail by the Francoist dictatorship.

During the meeting, according to a press release by Navarre's Parliament, Agirre was pleased by the degree of development in the agreement between that the Parliament decided to establish with the Universidad Pública de Nafarroa (Navarre's Public University) to create an archive dedicated to the Historic Memory.

"We are very satisfied by the interest and sensibility shown by Elena Torres time and again towards our cause. We trust that, just as she told us, the archive dedicated to the Historic Memory will be active by the next legislative period. On our behalf, we assured her that we are willing to collaborate in any possible wasy", informed Mirentxu Agirre at the end of the meeting. She also made public the "gratefulness" from the association for the cycle of conferences that, under the title "Victims of the Civil Was and Historic Memory" was organized by the Parliament on November of 2008, and to this matter they asked Elena Torres if there was a possibility to make such conferences an every year occasion.

The association was created back in November of 2002 with the objective of "reclaiming the historic memory in regards of the victims of the Francoist genocidal repression during the Civil War". On March of 2003, the Parliament approved a declaration in favor of the acknowledgment and moral reparation of all those Basques from Navarre executed by firing squad in the aftermath of the Francoist coup d'etat in 1936.

We sustain that a lot more needs to be done regarding all the heinous crimes committed by the Franco regime from 1936 until today that Juan Carlos Borbon perpetuates the murderous regime as king of Spain.

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Holocaust Warning

To all Basque-phobes out there (Franco Aleman, John Rosenthal, Joe Gandelman, Colin Davis, to mention some), you better watch it, from today on any denial of the Holocaust is considered a crime.

Here you have the note from Yahoo News:

UN condemns Holocaust denial

The UN General Assembly unanimously condemned denial of the Holocaust, in a move diplomats said was directly aimed at Iran for branding the World War II mass murder of Jews a lie.

In the resolution proposed by the United States and co-sponsored by more than 100 countries, the 192-member Assembly General "urges all member states unreservedly to reject any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part, or any activities to this end."

The resolution, adopted by consensus, does not name any country but points to "efforts to deny the Holocaust, which by ignoring the historical fact of these terrible events increase the risk they will be repeated."

Why does it affect you?

Because one of the core issues you deny or downplay when refusing the right of the Basque people to their self-determination are the crimes committed by Francisco Franco's regime against the Basques.

You never talk about Gernika and how the extreme right in Spain has never been accountable for the crimes commit ed by Franco and Hitler that day. I want to remind you today that unlike Berlin, Madrid has never apologized for that genocidal crime.

You conveniently leave out all the Basques that died in Hitler's death camps.

You have never mentioned that the Spanish Guardia Civil hunted down, tortured and murdered Basque resistance fighters who participated in operations to rescue Jewish people (specially children) from the Nazis.

You willingly participate in the massive cover up of the Gestapo crimes in Iparralde, where dozens of Basque villages were destroyed for the active participation of the Baques in the war efforts against the Axis.

Often you refused that there was a Basque Republic before WWII (and a Catalonian Republic for that matter), the only reason why that Basque state ceased to exist was because of the aid that Hitler and Mussolini gave to Francisco Franco.

During WWII while the Basques aligned themselves with the Allies and became a key instrument in the operations to hide and spirit away downed Allied pilots, dissidents and refugees, Franco sent his Blue Division to fight alongside the Nazis in Russia.

After the war the Basque Government in the Exile provided an intelligence network that was proven very valuable when it came to finding Nazi murderers hiding in different Latin American countries in the aftermath of WWII, something that not even the Mossad could match.

So, read this part again:

"...the 192-member Assembly General "urges all member states unreservedly to reject any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part, or any activities to this end."

There you have it.

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