Ximo Puig, the journalist and moderator Ana Matamales, and Pablo Broseta, this Friday at the Palau de la Generalitat Valenciana.Generalitat Valenciana
Manuel Broseta explained to his family that he was giving up having a police escort because he could not imagine his life if two public officials whose job it was to protect him were killed in an attack and he came out unharmed. Nor did he think that he could be a target, nor did he want to live in fear, nor did he consider the escort a solution. Pablo, one of his three children, remembered him this Friday, recalling the figure of his father, who died on this day, January 15, 30 years ago.
The professor of Commercial Law, who was a member of the Council of State, senator, Secretary of State for the Autonomous Communities of the UCD (Unión de Centro Democrático) and president of the anti-Franco Democratic Junta of the Valencian Country, was assassinated by an ETA commando in Valencia at 10.20 in the morning, shot in the neck. He had just finished teaching class and was crossing Blasco Ibáñez Avenue on the university campus. He was 60 years old.
The Generalitat paid tribute to him this Friday in the form of a dialogue between Pablo and the Valencian president, Ximo Puig. Broseta was a key politician in the Transition and a well-known person in Valencian society, but above all he was "a deep listener", according to his son. “I could not conceive of not reaching an agreement, a consensus, a negotiation. Before passing sentence, what he did is listen and, secondly, always put himself on the other side of the table”, he added in the solemn Saló de Corts of the gothic Palau de la Generalitat. The association of friends and the foundation that bear the name of the politician and academic have been in charge of keeping the name of Broseta, born in the Alicante town of Banyeres, alive.
A column marks the place where he died, next to some gardens, in front of the building that housed the Faculty of Law in 1992
Ximo Puig was 33 years old at the time.
He worked with the then Valencian president Joan Lerma, also a socialist.
“Lerma told me.
Those were times that fortunately we do not know how to calibrate today.
When you got up in the morning, one day yes and one day no, with the morning news that opened with an attack.
Now we see what happens with the pandemic and sometimes we become desensitized.
In the case of terrorism, it was much more serious because it was a murder with all the drama that this means.
In Valencian society it had an extraordinary impact.
The killers knew who they were killing," Puig said.
Before the images on the news of bodies lying on the ground with a shot or the destruction of car bombs, Pablo asked his father if everything would not be solved quickly by killing all the terrorists: "Then he looks me in the eye and makes me the following reflection: if we did that, we would be like them and thus we would never end this”.
Broseta and Puig vindicated the professor's spirit of negotiation and responsibility to overcome the current polarization of the political landscape.
Both also agreed on the importance of keeping the story of that time alive through education.
ETA stopped killing just over 10 years ago.
In 2018 it dissolved its structures.
betray the memory
In this sense, the Valencian president, who governs in coalition with Compromís and Unides Podem, stated: “The imprint of what terrorism has meant must be very present. If not, we would betray the memory of those who were murdered and our own dignity. That daydream that ETA was born to put an end to Francoism was a huge mistake. ETA fought more against democracy than against Francoism. You have to know the story."
Broseta advocated communicating the story of what happened with ETA well and especially that it be included in the school curriculum so that "history is not rewritten."
He also defended that the victims' associations be a "valid interlocutor".
He then threw a cape on his interlocutor, emphasizing that the victims feel "very sheltered in the Valencian Community", while throwing a dart at the Government of Pedro Sánchez, for relying "on separatists, independentists and parties clearly opposed to the regime of the 78″.