The memory law that attacks the right and sectors of the PSOE: it will study human rights violations until 1983

The object of the controversy, which has raised González’s doubts and has been harshly criticized in a letter signed by veteran former socialist leaders, is the additional provision included in the law that Congress approved this Thursday for the creation of a commission to examine possible “human rights violations perpetrated against people who fought for freedom and democracy until 1983,” according to government sources, who point out that the objective is to examine cases such as the murder of student leader Yolanda González in 1980 at the hands of of a far-right commando.

EH Bildu included this proposal among the reasons that led him to support the democratic memory law. The nationalist left interprets that the extension to 1983 may include the investigation of the murders of Segundo Marey, at the hands of the GAL, and the cases of Lasa and Zabala, all of them perpetrated at the beginning of González’s term.

Government sources deny that the extension of the investigations could affect those cases cited by the nationalist party. The norm establishes that until 1978 the investigation will be assumed by the prosecutor’s office, and from then to 1983 it will be a commission of experts that will study possible violations. The additional provision literally says “in case elements could persist that cause alleged violations of human rights to people for their struggle for the consolidation of democracy, fundamental rights and democratic values”. It is this paragraph that, according to the Government, excludes the victims of the GAL from that study commission.

Bildu took credit for the success of this legislative change, although the amendment was not his, and that has served to light the fuse of the right. The adaptation of the Fort of San Cristóbal, located in Navarra, “as a place of Memory”, as well as the “adhesion of the Palacio de la Cumbre” in San Sebastián (which was the residence of the civil governor of Gipuzkoa and the place where Lasa was tortured and Zabala) to the City Council were the other reasons that led EH Bildu to support the law promoted by the Minister of the Presidency and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños.

Majority without Bildu

Government sources already pointed out, however, that the memory law was going to go ahead with a large majority and that it would do so even if the five EH Bildu deputies voted against it. Finally, he has left Congress on his way to the Senate with 173 votes in favor, 159 against and 14 abstentions, including those of the ERC deputies, who turned from no during the process. That blank vote, added to the support for three other government initiatives, is part of the “normalization” of relations that has been achieved in recent times after weeks of crisis due to the espionage scandal with Pegasus on independence leaders.

The inclusion of research up to 1983 has caused an important stir, fundamentally on the right, which considers that it is “historical revisionism” and that it “blows up” the Transition. José María Aznar censured that “it is made and agreed with terrorists.” Asked about this initiative, former President González replied: “When I see it I will tell them, but blowing my nose, it doesn’t sound good to me.” José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, also a socialist, responded in an interview in elDiario.es: “I think you should read it. Sometimes there can be a democracy and a hearsay debate. This is very imperfect for a country.”

“You have to read the preamble, the statement of reasons for the 2007 law, the current law and the contents. Both make an exaltation of the democratic transition and what they establish is that the democratic transition was a success. At that time, surely we were not able to address all the issues that the dictatorship had left open, such as the fundamental issue of families who did not know or still do not know where their loved ones are”, expressed the former president about the law that will modify the one he launched more than a decade ago.

From the Government they maintain that the law condemns the dictatorship and the coup of 1936, declaring the Franco regime illegal and pays tribute to all the victims of the war of factions and the victims of Franco’s repression. In fact, one of the main measures of the new norm is that the State will be the one that pilots the search for the remains and assumes the costs of the exhumations of the two sides of the conflict. A DNA bank of victims will be created where biological samples of relatives will be stored to be able to compare them with a view to future identifications and, after the debate of the law in commission, “people affected by the abduction of newborns” were incorporated. that is, the stolen babies.

In addition, the Executive points out that the law vindicates the Democratic Transition, the 1977 Amnesty Law and the 1978 Constitution. One of the main conflicts with the PSOE partners was their refusal precisely to annul the amnesty, something that ERC and United We Can with the aim that the crimes of Francoism could be judged. The confederal group included an amendment so that the law is interpreted based on international law, by which war crimes and crimes against humanity cannot be amnestied. It remains to be seen if this precept allows Francoist crimes to be tried or if the courts continue to hide behind a restrictive interpretation, something that experts and memorial associations fear, informs Marta Borraz.