Consuelo Ordóñez, president of Covite, in an archive imagemónica torres
The Collective of Victims of Terrorism (Covite) has denounced on Tuesday that 44 candidates who appear in the more than 300 lists of EH Bildu in the Basque Country and Navarra for the elections of May 28 were convicted of belonging and collaboration with ETA. Seven of them were convicted of murder. This association considers "especially serious" and "a danger to democracy" that people with "criminal and terrorist records" stand for public office. "No dignified democracy, no rule of law aware of the meaning of its victims of terrorism would allow the revolving doors of terrorists to be politics," said Consuelo Ordóñez, president of Covite.
Among the candidates of EH Bildu, Covite includes leaders of the former Batasuna, such as Adolfo Araiz, who is presented as second on the list to the Parliament of Navarra, and the former president of Sortu Hasier Arraiz, number 27 to the City Council of Vitoria, this sentenced in 2016 to two years in prison for integration into a terrorist organization. It also cites seven candidates and alternates sentenced to long prison terms for their involvement in several murders committed by ETA between 1978 and 2001. The list of candidates has been obtained from the lists that EH Bildu has presented to the regional elections in Navarre and to the municipal elections and to the General Assemblies (provincial parliaments) in the three Basque territories.
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The list of candidates with blood crimes includes Agustín Muiños Dias Tinin, number six on the list for mayor of Legutiano (Álava) and sentenced in 1985 to 29 years in prison for the murder in 1983 of José Antonio Julián Bayano; and Begoña Uzkudun Etxenagusia, number three on the list for mayor of Régil (Gipuzkoa) and sentenced in 1989 to 18 years in prison for the murder of José Larrañaga Arenas in 1984. It also cites Juan Carlos Arriaga Martínez, in third place on the list for mayor of Berrioplano (Navarra) and sentenced in 1989 to 29 years in prison for the murder in 1984 of Jesús Alcocer Jiménez.
In Bizkaia, Asier Uribarri Benito is ranked number four on the list for the Maruri-Jatabe City Council. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison as an accomplice in the 1997 murder of civil guard José Manuel García Fernández. "Some even go on the lists with their name and the nickname they had in ETA, as is the case of Tinin and José Antonio Torre Altonaga Medius," adds Covite in an informative note.
The president of the group of victims of terrorism urges public officials "to guarantee minimum political and ethical principles in the appointments of the members of their lists," and stresses that "any convicted of terrorism, even if he has served his sentence, should be obliged to publicly repudiate his criminal past if he wants to exercise a public function." The opposite, in his opinion, means "turning into democratic references precisely those who have done the most to destroy our democracy, attacking the life and physical and moral integrity of thousands of people."
Covite criticizes EH Bildu for "trying to disguise its symbiosis with ETA while cramming its lists to the elections of 28-M of people who belonged to the terrorist organization and were convicted for it." "It is one more provocation to the victims of terrorism to see how the Abertzale left rewards these murderers for remaining proud of their criminal past," Ordóñez said.