Original subtitles

HISTORY IS THE THREAD THAT WEAVES THE FABRIC OF TIME

IT'S A LONG THREAD FULL OF KNOTS NO ONE CAN COMPLETELY UNTANGLE

THESE ARE THE KNOTS OF OUR HISTORY

The wave of terrorism has struck Zaragoza for the second time this year,

and everything seems to indicate that it has become a clear target.

This terrorist activity in Zaragoza

comes when the criminal gang of ETA is besieged on all fronts,

its main units are disbanded...

STUDENT RESIDENCE GROCERIES

...and its most senior leaders are arrested.

At a time when all efforts are being made

to bring about peace in the Basque Country.

Although, as Prime Minister Felipe González said recently,

there will be no compromise on violent crime.

11 DECEMBER 1987 CIVIL GUARD HEADQUARTERS, ZARAGOZA

The car bomb was loaded with three metal cylinders

and about 250 kilos of ammonia.

The explosion practically caused the collapse of the barracks.

Eleven people died in the attack.

TERRIBLE ATTACK BY ETA, WITH WHITE COFFINS

Five of them were girls, the daughters of civil guards.

And approximately 88 people were wounded.

You can't suggest rehabilitation for people who've carried out an attack,

to give an example, like Hipercor.

PRIME MINISTER OF SPAIN (1982-1996)

Or for those who blew up a Civil Guard car in Madrid.

It is neither possible nor realistic to suggest this,

and the government is not considering it.

THE CHALLENGE ETA

04 THE ROAD TO NEGOTIATION

I was nine years old,

and at 6:00 in the morning... was the explosion.

You wake up covered in dirt,

with rocks on top of you, not knowing what happened.

I started to shake because I could feel the weight of the rocks,

but the duvet, the quilts,

the blankets on the bed had covered me, had protected me.

And little by little, I pulled my legs out and got out of the rubble.

And then, I don't know, people were screaming...

That's when the first policemen, firemen, civil guards and others arrived.

I even tried to move rocks away

from someone who was screaming, asking for help.

ETA VICTIM

But I couldn't do it.

We were asleep and suddenly...

I didn't realize. I really...

I didn't know what it was.

I woke up...

I know I was on top of my husband.

I felt something, like, wet, glass or something.

I don't know if it was some kind of... Because it smelled.

Some perfume bottle that I would have on my dresser or whatever.

And I didn't think about anything, I just said to Juan...

ETA VICTIMS

That I do remember, "I hope my brother,

"if the girls cry, that he hears them."

That I do remember,

but I didn't know the magnitude of what had happened.

-I knew what had happened, obviously. -He did know.

I knew what had happened and I knew what the circumstances were.

Since I had the job I had,

in explosives, I knew what it was, that it was a bomb.

And that we were in a bad situation.

There were two bedrooms, my sister's and my parents',

the living room in the middle and my room on the other side of that.

So the explosion took out the whole other part of the house.

That's why I survived.

We lay buried under the rubble for 45 minutes.

We were trapped. I had my leg caught,

and we couldn't hear too well. In the explosion I blew my nose

and dirt came out, and my ears started to bleed.

After the attack,

they basically took her away in an ambulance and I stayed there.

I started to go around the hospitals in a Municipal Police car,

who took me and said, "Wherever you want to go."

Well, to look for the girls, of course.

Then, soon after I found out they were at the military hospital,

which is when they called me to identify them.

We were going around all the hospitals,

looking for my parents, looking for my sister,

looking to see if anyone knew anything

or if they'd been found somewhere.

And at the end, they announced

that my mother and father had died on TV, which is how I found out.

They didn't really say anything about my sister until later.

After going to the military hospital, I went down to tell her.

He arrived, and that's when he told me...

Well, he told me that someone...

That someone had died. That's all he said.

So that's when I reacted and I knew what had happened.

They died buried in the explosion.

When they went to plant the bomb, they saw that there were clothes hanging up.

One of the judges at Henri Parot's trial told us this,

that the terrorists had mentioned it

and said that they had noticed that children's clothes were hanging out,

and so they put the car right underneath.

I always hoped that my sister didn't...

It hadn't been easy to recognize her, so maybe it wasn't her.

Later, of course, I lost that hope.

They knew that families lived in the barracks.

Then they did it again, so they were looking for children.

Then they did it again in the attack on the barracks in Vic.

And they did it again in Santa Pola, and...

So they were looking for civilian victims and, if possible, children,

because that's what they could negotiate with.

At that time, they were negotiating in Algeria.

THIRTY DAYS THAT WILL DETERMINE THE HISTORY OF SPAIN

We went to the barracks several times afterwards,

to identify valuables...

STUDENT REPORT CARD

...identify personal items...

It's pretty hard for such a small child to handle things,

because it's so many things at once.

I would have liked

to have asked my father for a motorbike when I was 14,

to have come home drunk one day when I was 17 and... You know.

To have been told off, or I don't know...

And then much older, I missed them when I got a degree,

or when I got married, or when I had my son...

My sister was very fond of children.

She probably would have liked my son

and would have... You know.

Just like my mother. My mother also loved children.

Some friends...

looked through the rubble and collected some photos,

ruined...

And some keepsakes, a medal, some mementos came out...

But nothing else. We didn't get anything else out of there.

These photographs were given to us by a photographer.

A photographer who did a photo essay on the girls.

Those are all that's left, really.

I just miss my daughters and my brother.

I didn't care about the rest.

To lose everything and have them there, to have my brother there.

The rest of it I didn't care about.

The funeral service took place in an atmosphere of tension

caused by the relatives of the deceased and, especially,

by the father of the two twin girls who died in the attack,

who was visibly upset and prevented the presence of the media

inside the Basilica of Pilar during the course of the funeral.

When ETA says it's disbanding,

you think, "Sure, they disband now that they're not anything anymore."

As long as they've been able to do damage, they didn't disband.

They've disbanded now that they can no longer do anything.

FRENCH COMMANDO LEADER

We were victims... Cheap, I don't know, acceptable, yeah.

In fact, there came a time when ETA realized...

...that they were getting nowhere by killing civil guards,

because we were pretty much replaceable...

CIVIL GUARD COLONEL

...and at little cost to the government.

Major criminal operations by ETA

are usually agreed upon...

...by the gang's executive committee.

JOURNALIST

And specifically in Zaragoza,

the decision was taken by Garmendia,

alias Pakito, but with the knowledge and consent

of Josu Ternera, who was the head of the political wing.

The cell responsible for the attack on the Zaragoza barracks

is the Argala cell.

CIVIL GUARD LIEUTENANT GENERAL

Which is led by Henri Parot

and is also known as the French cell.

No one, not even other leaders or other groups,

knew of its existence.

This attack,

with the death toll and its repercussions,

was to influence the government's decision to sit down in Algiers.

There is an agreement that under no circumstances

will any political movement, whether terrorist or non-terrorist, in Algeria...

...be able to use it as a base of operations under any circumstances.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER OF SPAIN (1982-1991)

1987 - ALGIERS NEGOTIATIONS

We started negotiating and...

BARAJAS, 9:20 P.M.

...I made several trips to Algiers

to prepare with the Chief of Staff and the President of the Republic,

Chadli Bendjedid.

Basically, it was a regime that was directed and controlled by the military...

...and therefore the intelligence services there

knew how ETA moved and had it perfectly controlled.

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SECURITY (1986-1994)

There had been members of ETA there who had been trained

in camps at the Algerian police school.

So we knew that they had significant support from the point of view

of training and logistics.

With that risk, we had to sit down with them.

In Spain, we organized meetings with all the parliamentary

political parties and nationalist parties, to explain to them what our objective was.

We made a contact with ETA in Algiers

to work out what would trigger the negotiations.

The trigger was each of us making a kind of announcement.

They would stop the terrorist activity

and we would go to Algeria to have the first meetings.

What happened?

What happened is that Txomin was already living in Algeria.

The Algerians gave him the rank of colonel in the Algerian army,

with considerable financial benefits,

in order to create a sense of a good relationship with him

and to make him feel important.

DOMINGO ITURBE ABASOLO "TXOMIN"

WAS APPOINTED TO NEGOTIATE WITH THE STATE

He went to the Souma police school of the Algerian police.

He did physical exercises and so on, and on maneuvers that they did there,

he fell off the edge of the roof of one of those industrial units.

He was rappelling and killed himself.

And so we were left with no one to talk to.

We never got to do the autopsy on Txomin Iturbe.

No one talks about it even today. There's a certain fear of talking about it.

PRIME MINISTER OF SPAIN (1982-1996)

I think they just took him out.

Txomin was from the...

nationalist independence movement

and was not from the movement that had the closest ties,

to put it bluntly, with East Germany.

I really think that cost him his life.

TXOMIN ITURBE DIED TWO DAYS BEFORE THE 'OFFICIAL' DATE

AFTER TXOMIN'S DEATH THE GOVERNMENT DISCOVERS

THAT TWELVE OTHER ETA MEMBERS ARE HIDING IN ALGERIA

And everyone says that it was an accident.

I often say, "Did anyone see Txomin fall from there?"

Nobody saw him.

FORMER LEADER OF THE PNV

Oddly enough, he was the one pushing for a negotiation.

THE ALGIERS NEGOTIATIONS ARE SUSPENDED

There have always been negotiations with ETA.

There have always been negotiations.

All governments have negotiated with ETA. All of them.

They've all put the hurdle in the same place.

"We will not give in or accept political negotiation."

And in all the negotiation processes, violence was not only not ruled out...

JOURNALIST

...but it was considered an element to be intensified

in order to have more weight in the negotiation.

1988 - AJURIA ENEA PACT

The Ajuria Enea Pact was the attempt to find some shared way out,

by uniting everyone to the form of commitment.

It was the first "all together" that we had seen in Spain for a long time.

After seeing previous failed attempts...

PEACE NOW AND ALWAYS

...to find a solution to try to go more or less unilaterally,

the Ajuria Enea Pact was a wonderful surprise.

And it's probably the most important blow

that the terrorist organization has received

and which it responds to with brutal attacks.

Especially to the Basque Nationalist Party

and the Basque government, which was then presided over by lehendakari Ardanza,

that even his intervention couldn't be effective

in stopping their terrorist activities.

To ask for peace in the Basque Country today...

BABY ON BOARD

...is to tell ETA to reconsider once and for all,

not to turn a deaf ear to the calls of Basque society,

to accept the opinion of the vast majority,

to reconsider the absurdity and senselessness of its stubborn attitude,

to come to its senses

and to abandon its weapons once and for all.

The ETA attacks were still going on,

but there was peace, calm and tranquility

and, in addition, the political parties had taken on a commitment...

...and that was that, every time there was an attack...

PRESIDENT OF THE BASQUE GOVERNMENT (1985-1999)

...the one who was going to protest was the lehendakari.

I think that, whether or not there were any other interpretations

of the Ajuria Enea Pact, they were aware that it was doing them a lot of harm.

Because until the Ajuria Enea Pact,

the political squabbling was at such a level

that they could act with complete impunity,

because there was no agreed position

denouncing and condemning what they were doing.

THE KIDNAPPING OF EMILIANO REVILLA

24 FEBRUARY 1988

The day he was kidnapped, I called the house

and my brother-in-law Antonio picked up the phone.

He was very agitated, very anxious.

I said, "Antonio, what are you doing there?"

And he said, "I can't tell you now.

"What do you want? Hurry up, we need to leave the line free...

JOURNALIST

"...because they've kidnapped my father and I'm waiting for a call."

And then, of course, I just stood there with the phone,

and I looked at my wife and I said, "They've kidnapped your father."

Emiliano Revilla was kidnapped by a cell of the terrorist group ETA

on February 24th.

Two men and a woman abducted the industrialist at gunpoint...

At no time did anyone contact the family.

At least, at first.

Of course, you find out later how it works, how it is, right?

We had to find ourselves a contact

who had some connection with the Basque nationalist groups

or with terrorist groups, to know a little bit about what to expect

and how to get to a possible negotiation.

And all this, with the police on top of you

so that you don't make any moves, or that at least it's some move

that they're aware of, because you know

that if you make any move or put the Civil Guard on alert in any situation,

you know that it can put the life of the kidnapped person at risk.

He focused on walking,

even though it may seem absurd, in a two-by-one space.

He took two steps forward, two steps back, two steps forward, two steps back.

He wore out several pairs of slippers.

According to his calculations, he walked about 2,000 or 2,500 miles

in the eight months he was there.

He had the opportunity to talk to the one he thought was the leader...

Who later, we learned...

ARRESTED IN FRANCE ONE OF THE ETA'S MOST WANTED LEADERS FOR 15 YEARS

...was Urrosolo Sistiaga. I even think they played

a game of cards after lunch or after dinner

every day, and he explained to him...

RELEASE REVILLA

...what ETA was, what ETA intended and so on.

And my father-in-law would say,

"When this is over, what are you going to do?

"This will end at some point, or do you think this will last forever?"

THE FAILURE OF ALGIERS

We came to the decision that we had to try, so we tried.

INTERIOR MINISTER (1988-1993)

Knowing it could go wrong.

In fact, we thought it would go wrong.

CORCUERA TRAVELED TO ALGIERS AND PARIS AFTER ETA'S ULTIMATUM

We knew beforehand that it wasn't going to work out,

but we wanted the breakdown to come from him.

The government decides it needs information on the other side.

In a negotiation where there are two parties in opposition,

and in this case one of the parties are terrorists,

being able to know what they want

or what the limits are and where the other party's red line is

is fundamental when it comes to getting the best out of the negotiation.

That's why we organized what was called Operation Messengers,

because in that negotiation,

the terrorists who were negotiating in Algiers

had a group of advisors

who were legal members of the abertzale left,

one a director of a newspaper, one a lawyer.

It was known that they were the shadow advisors.

As there were many of them,

they were distributed among all the units of the security forces,

and each one had several objectives

so we had them under surveillance morning, noon and night,

to try to find out

what ETA was going to say or do in that negotiation.

THE GOVERNMENT HOLDS ITS POSITION REGARDING THE LIMITS OF DIALOGUE WITH ETA

The aim was to reach an understanding with the Spanish government

and to have the backing of the government of Algiers...

FORMER LEADER OF HB

...which was quite powerful at the time.

And the government of Algiers was very willing to participate

in that project.

And not only participate, but also give us total support of ETA.

José Luis Elkoro was part of that group of ETA advisors,

former members of the abertzale left, people with a certain background,

political background, even cultural background,

who were in the shadows

and were the ones who were going to be able to influence the negotiators

by means of messages that were going to be passed on to them and, above all,

that had a direct line to the terrorists.

And, in fact, when they had already proposed

that talks should be opened

in a joint declaration that they asked us to make

jointly with the Spanish government, putting themselves on the same level...

VERA TRIED ON SUNDAY IN ALGIERS TO GET ETA TO EXTEND THE TRUCE

...in which we had to talk about opening political talks,

we did not deny that he was not...

In short, he was not in the script and he had never been.

None of the speakers representing the State against ETA...

71.3% OF SPANIARDS BELIEVE THAT THE GOVERNMENT MUST NOT GIVE IN TO ETA

...was prepared to give up the fundamental values.

Which are of the unity of Spain, the Constitution...

That, contrary to the nonsense we hear every day...

GOVERNMENT ACCUSED OF NATIONAL INDIGNITY

...was never on the table.

There was a direct threat of...

Explicitly, "If you go back to Madrid,

"then you can be targeted by ETA, by an attack."

"Sure, yes, but that comes with the job."

When the talks had already started in Algiers,

in 1989, the French police

arrested Josu Ternera in France.

Josu Ternera had set himself up as the undisputed leader of the gang.

"JOSU TERNERA", ONE OF THE LEADERS OF ETA, ARRESTED IN BAYONNE BY FRENCH POLICE

His arrest in France, then, made one fear

that they could stall, that the talks might fail...

FRENCH POLICE TOPPLE THE LEADERSHIP OF ETA WITH THE ARREST OF 'JOSU TERNERA'

...that had begun in Algiers.

It was an encouraging moment,

but one that was also frustrated because there was an intervention

by economic interests.

And I understand...

that there was an offer from the Spanish government

to bring gas from Algeria...

that was very interesting.

They were in another reality,

in another world. They were far from what was happening in the West

and the democratic countries.

And so, we broke up.

And what happened? Well, we were very afraid...

ALGIERS ENDS ITS MEDIATION BETWEEN THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT AND ETA

...that the Algerians would back out of their promise to expel them.

ETA ANNOUNCES THE END OF THE TRUCE

But they delivered.

ALGERIA

They all ended up in a Spanish Armed Forces plane,

accompanied by the Algerian intelligence services

and by our civil guards and police...

ETA MEMBERS DEPORTED

...with the fear, which is an anecdote, that, when flying over Spain,

Baltasar Garzón, who was always on the lookout

for anything that would allow him

to get on the front page of the newspapers,

would order the plane to land

because it carried terrorists who were being pursued by the National Court.

Waiting his turn to cross the Suspension Bridge

from Las Arenas to Portugalete...

APRIL 12 1989 ETA BREAKS THE TRUCE

...on the other side of the Nervion estuary, three young men armed with guns,

apparently including a woman...

CIVIL GUARD SERGEANT JOSÉ CALVO DE LA HOZ IS MURDERED

...shot him at close range through the left window of the car.

Hit by four bullets, one in the neck,

the non-commissioned officer was taken away in an ambulance.

All the Basque political parties, with the exception of Herri Batasuna,

have shown their most emphatic rejection with this new attack,

declaring that, after it took place,

the dialogue in Algiers is closed, despite what ETA and HB say.

I had been having dinner with my boyfriend,

with the intention of, after dinner, going out for a drink.

We argued, something happened,

we said, "Well, then, let's go home."

And so I left that Saturday night, intending to go home...

...but there's a bend in the M-30,

where, without really having planned it,

at the last moment I turned...

JOURNALIST

...and then I thought,

"What if I go by Revilla's place for a moment?

"In case there's news."

I looked up in front of me,

and something in the distance,

someone among all those who were coming, caught my attention.

He got to the pedestrian crossing, which I was facing,

because of the position in which I had my car parked,

he waited, crossed over...

and passed right in front of the hood

to go to the right, to his door.

And I just went up to him, and asked...

MARÍA JOSÉ SÁEZ FIRST WITNESS

"Hello, good evening, excuse me,

"are you related to Emiliano Revilla?"

And then he just stared at me and said, "Who are you?"

I explained to him that I was a journalist and that I was following the story

and immediately, I said, "You are Emiliano, aren't you?"

And he hugged himself, he cried, and...

I'd been following that story for a while, but I didn't even know Emiliano Revilla.

I had seen two, three or 20 pictures in the press,

but I had never had any contact with him,

and the man who was coming was a much thinner man.

I still remember, so many years later, saying to myself,

"Come on, girl, this is the scoop of your life."

And I get a phone call, right?

I get a call from a journalist, María José Sáez,

who was one of the regulars who stood guard at the door.

I wasn't surprised because lots of journalists called.

"Hey, we're down here, come down here, we'll hang out and we'll talk and stuff."

We knew each other very well,

but I had never called him at home, especially at 2:00 in the morning,

and the truth is that I don't know why he wasn't shocked...

When I get to the place where

I had arranged to meet María José, I see that she's with someone else,

but not for a second did I imagine that that person was my father-in-law.

I was behind them,

standing behind Emiliano, I saw Jesús' face,

and all I could do was cry.

REVILLA, RELEASED ON HIS DOORSTEP

The greatest surprise, which I've always said,

and I stand by it, that it was possibly

the most intense hug I've ever given in my life.

THE REVILLA FAMILY PAID ETA AROUND 1 BILLION PESETAS FOR HIS RESCUE

Then, years later, through a program that the Basque government ran...

REVILLA'S RELEASE WAS AGREED TO ON THE 14TH,

BUT HE WILL CONTINUE TO PAY PART OF THE RANSOM

...I don't know if it was for the reintegration of ETA prisoners

or to find a way back to normality,

they contacted me to ask me how I would feel,

if my father-in-law would feel comfortable

meeting with Urrosolo in the Nanclares de Oca Prison.

NATIONAL IDENTITY CARD

I told my father-in-law, and he said yes, that he had no problem with seeing him.

I don't know what they talked about.

In fact, Urrosolo...

sent us a letter asking for forgiveness to the family

for the kidnapping

and for everything that we had to go through.

ON THE SAME DAY AS THE RELEASE OF EMILIANO REVILLA

ETA KILLS POLICE OFFICER CRISTÓBAL DÍAZ

1989 - THE INFORMANT

After the failure of talks in Algiers,

the Civil Guard launches an offensive against ETA

and one of the most important operations of that time,

because it will show the capacity of the Civil Guard

in the fight against ETA

is precisely the dismantling of the Éibar cell.

ÉIBAR CELL 7 CAR BOMB ATTACKS

Regarding this unit, I think...

it's worth highlighting the participation of someone

who will later become a Civil Guard collaborator.

Luis Casares was one of the many collaborators from the Éibar cell.

He provided the house and was an important part of it because,

at a certain point,

he realized that the cell that he was housing

and for which he and his family were risking years in prison

was not treating him well,

and he decided to collaborate with the Civil Guard.

What happened? That the cell, who were still

young terrorists in their 20s,

had become somewhat intimate...

with Casares' family, his wife and daughter,

something that upset Casares to the point

that he couldn't handle it.

Luis Casares was not a Basque.

He was born in Cantabria,

so, well, it was his wife who got him into all this trouble.

The natural reaction is to say, "I'm going to get rid of him."

CIVIL GUARD GENERAL

Casares decides to collaborate to stop the cell,

because it was ruining his life and family, and he wanted to end it.

On top of that he saw the possibility of getting some money, too.

THIS WOMAN IS A DANGEROUS BITCH

He called the civilian governor.

At first, the call doesn't seem completely believable.

He is asked for proof, with some material evidence

that what he says is true,

he takes a kilo of explosives from the cell,

delivers it to the Civil Guard. Then we realize...

that what he says is true

and we knew, because Casares told us,

that the cell was leaving for France on a certain day,

because a truck was going to pick it up.

As we knew the collection point through our informant,

what we did was to set up checkpoints with uniformed units,

and we ourselves, the investigation units,

in unmarked cars, were providing signals to warn

that the checkpoints were there.

They never suspected that we were behind them.

From that point, we were left with two tools,

the cell on the one hand, and the truck driver on the other.

When we stopped the cell, we were left with the driver and the truck,

and he allowed us to get to a later cell by means of surveillance.

We arranged it so that Casares had time...

INFRASTRUCTURE

...to run from the law, to run from the security forces,

and he left for France.

But from France he continued to collaborate with the Civil Guard.

ETA never found out about the existence of this collaborator

until he died many years later, in France.

ÉIBAR CELL

CASARES CONTINUED TO LEAK INFORMATION FOR YEARS TO THE SPANISH CIVIL GUARD

Casares was for many years collaborating with the Civil Guard

from France with a lot of information,

a lot of information that was used,

and others that weren't and will never come to light,

he fell ill and he died.

ETA, as it happens always with its militants,

paid him a public tribute

without ever knowing that he was a Civil Guard informant,

although years later it was revealed,

to the great surprise of the world of ETA,

who never imagined they had an infiltrator in their ranks.

THE POLITICAL WING OF ETA ARRIVES AT CONGRESS

In a press release received by various media in the Basque Country,

political-military ETA calls for votes for Herri Batasuna

in the upcoming elections.

The elected members of Herri Batasuna have stated that they do not intend

to participate in parliamentary activities on a regular basis.

According to Iñaki Esnaola, they will go to Congress as long

as they can make a contribution to a dialogue

between ETA and the government.

We went to take a picture in front of Congress.

GROUP OF ELECTED DEPUTIES AND SENATORS OF HERRI BATASUNA

And in the afternoon we met at the Hotel Alcalá,

to discuss where to go for dinner

and, well, we decided to have dinner at a restaurant.

GUNMEN SHOOT JOSU MUGURUZA DEAD IN MADRID

I was facing Josu Muguruza,

talking to him. And if that bullet hadn't hit Josu Muguruza,

if it had been two centimeters away, that bullet would have been for me.

Josu Muguruza had been in ETA...

...and he was in Egin.

FORMER HB LEADER

Josu was a colleague at Egin, he was my editor-in-chief...

...at the time, and he was also a personal friend.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR AT EGIN (1992-1998)

And, well, there...

What happened, happened.

Some armed people, some gunmen, opened fire,

they shot Josu, they shot at Iñaki Esnaola.

Iñaki Esnaola was a significant figure.

And Jon Idígoras...

who was also a leading figure in Herri Batasuna.

And Josu. I think they were the three targets that the police went after.

With Josu, they hit the target, with Iñaki Esnaola,

well, he was left seriously injured,

and then Jon was... He got away... But he was also a target.

We always condemn terrorist attacks, wherever they come from,

and we view them with the same concern, from the point of view of moral legitimacy

as being against violence, I can tell you that for us the investigation

of this incident has the same priority as any ETA murder.

Long live military ETA!

THE ONLY CONVICTION FOR THE CRIME WAS POLICE OFFICER ÁNGEL DUCE

THE RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST RICARDO SÁENZ DE YNESTRILLAS WAS ACQUITTED

THREE YEARS EARLIER ETA HAD MURDERED HIS FATHER

HIS FATHER WAS INVOLVED IN AN ATTEMPTED COUP

Ángel Alkalde was the next on the list, he was in jail at the time,

they released him to go to Parliament and they all swore in Congress.

Well, they "swore," they promised, as required by law.

Do you swear or promise to abide by the Constitution?

As required by law, I do promise.

Mrs. Itziar Aizpurua Egaña,

Mr. Ángel Alkalde Linares and Mr. Juan Cruz Idígoras de Gerrikabeitia,

not having used the standard wording,

have not acquired full status as members of Parliament.

Please leave the Chamber.

Mr. President, before we leave...

Mr. Idígoras, there is no opportunity for a statement of any kind at this time.

-Please leave the Chamber. -We will not cause any incident...

So what happened? We were dismissed from the Chamber

and, after a day or two...

one of the lawyers said to me...

"They've issued an arrest warrant for you."

CONVICTED OF COLLABORATION WITH ETA

ÁNGEL ALCALDE, FORMER DEPUTY OF HB,

ARRESTED FOR BELONGING TO THE "RECRUITMENT TEAM" FOR ETA

I was inclined to run away,

either as a refugee or a fugitive,

depending on who is interpreting the situation,

I was facing between 14 and 15 years.

ARABA CELL FALLS

At that time, it was one of the most bloodthirsty and one that...

had to be broken up and dealt with whatever it took.

FIRST CORPORAL

The Araba cell was slaughtering us.

It moved as it pleased, quickly, across the three provinces.

The Civil Guard was already working on three lines of investigation.

One of them, the first, was the tire, a tire imprint that was left

after the attack, which they committed, the attack on the Llodio barracks.

Furthermore, when Santi Potros was arrested in '87,

a series of documents were intercepted.

"LETTER FROM ARABA CELL" SENT TO "SANTI POTROS"

But there were two letters in particular that were signed by the Araba cell.

And the other line of investigation was a thread that was left hanging

when the Éibar cell was dismantled.

There was a truck driver who was going to make the delivery to France.

The truck driver, which was a common means of transport

for the cells to go from Spain to France and from France to Spain.

And of all the leads we had, that was the best.

José Antonio Mujika Huizi was the driver of the truck

that tried to transfer to France the members of the Éibar cell.

They put technology of the time into it.

A homing beacon. Now there are others much more sophisticated

and easier to put in place, because it was quite difficult.

But, well, we did follow the truck's journey.

It rang alarm bells, first of all,

the fact that he drives the truck on a Saturday morning.

He usually made the deliveries on a school day,

not on a Saturday morning, at 9:00 in the morning.

So, now that totally throws us off balance,

and that's when we say, "We have to contact Intxaurrondo."

The truck takes a very strange route

and picks up some people, we couldn't see who,

but we did see that the canvas in the front is moved.

And he gets out of the truck,

goes over to the bar, but doesn't go inside.

We think that's a little strange.

So, after two or three minutes two guys show up.

I find myself, all of a sudden, at the bar,

in front of me, with three guys.

Three guys and, in the middle, Paterra.

JUAN CARLOS ARRUTI AZPITARTE "PATERRA"

14 MURDERS 1200 YEARS IN PRISON

So I went to the bathroom

and contacted my team leader on the radio and said,

"I'm sure it's Paterra."

Then they leave the bar and go for a walk in the hills,

the walk was for safety,

because Manu and Txiribita suspect something.

God arranged things so that we didn't go after them,

because if we had,

today I wouldn't be able to tell you what I'm telling you right now.

And then they got in the truck.

The truck was one that usually transported wood,

so with the wood,

the truck driver, who was obviously collaborating with ETA,

had developed a system,

so that to anyone looking, the truck seemed full of wood,

but inside, there were two compartments, a vertical one to stand or sit,

and a horizontal one, where three or four people could hide.

We began a very drawn-out tail.

Until he got to the highway toll. He stopped there, the driver was asked

to take down the tarp and they asked him who was inside.

At first he said he wasn't carrying anything,

but then he started to back out.

You could see the reaction and, as soon as he took the tarp down,

you could hear shots,

even from above they were trying to throw a grenade.

Manu goes to grab another grenade to throw again,

and he's shot, and the grenade just explodes in his hand.

In the crossfire, the border was full of cars.

It was 10:00 at night.

People were standing around and thinking it was a movie.

Eight or ten minutes of continuous shooting

until there comes a moment when, once they run out of ammunition,

one of them comes out shaking

with a gun in his hand, saying, "I surrender, I surrender, I surrender."

TWO DEAD AND THREE INJURED IN THE DISMANTLING OF THE CELL "ARABA"

As a result of the dismantling of the Araba cell and especially

because of the testimony of Paterra, who was the most outspoken,

two cells were busted... Trusted ones, which were the Laudio and the Aizarotz.

About 40 collaborators were arrested,

they raised nine weapons caches, found about 30 apartments

as well as a lot of documentation, which was used in other operations.

IN 1996 THE ARABA CELL REORGANIZES ITSELF

THIS WIRETAP OF ETA IS THE ONLY ONE CAUGHT BY THE CIVIL GUARD IN ITS HISTORY

-Hello? -It's Alberti.

-Right. Good afternoon. -Listen.

THEY NEGOTIATE THE RENT OF A SAFE HOUSE

-I've got the money for the promo. -Right. For the album.

When do you want me to give it to you or what?

Weren't you with him yesterday?

-Yes. -I thought you'd be with them.

Yeah, but since we had the money and... Hey, there's no rush.

-I'm telling you for... for you. -Right, I just thought that you...

1990 - HENRI PAROT GOES DOWN

One day, the head of the counter-terrorism services arrived at my office

and told me that the attacks that were taking place in Spain,

like the one in the Plaza de la República Dominicana,

the one in the Plaza de la República Argentina,

the one in Juan Bravo Street,

were not carried out by the Madrid cell, which surprised us a lot.

The Argala cell was a surprise to everyone,

and in ETA, too.

Because that cell, created in Txomin's era,

and thereafter only the military chiefs who knew that...

...that to do terrorism you don't need to have an army.

They would take the car, they would have...

CHIEF OF OPERATIONS OF THE FRENCH INFORMATION SERVICE

...a small space in the car to put the gun,

they would come to Madrid,

do some surveillance, kill and leave. Period.

They were working for a long time, but ETA made the mistake of,

since more and more cells were going down...

KEY ETA CELL KNOCKED OUT

...and more and more pressure...

ETA SUFFERS ONE OF THE HEAVIEST STRIKES IN THE LAST YEARS WITH THE FALL OF "ARABA"

...was needed on the government, in the run-up to 1992,

the Expo and the Olympic Games,

that cell that they had taken care of and packed in cotton wool,

forced them to make more and more attacks.

And it just so happens that at one of the checkpoints...

Because there were many police checks on highways at that time,

we stopped a car with the members of that mobile cell,

who were French and Algerian nationals.

SEVILLE

He went up to the checkpoint, and we saw the guys waving at him to stop,

and he didn't stop. And the corporal placed a spike strip,

we punctured three tires.

The car was carrying 310 kilos of explosives...

CIVIL GUARD

...and had three flat tires, so it stopped.

And when we got to where the car was,

he opened the windows and shot at us.

He ran out of ammunition for the gun.

I had the machine gun,

and I put it in his chest, but...

From the instinct of... I don't know, I grabbed it and I threw it back,

and then we threw him to the ground.

And I grabbed his hand and put my foot on his chest and I pinned him down.

A FRENCH ETA MEMBER, ARRESTED IN SEVILLE WITH 330 KILOS OF EXPLOSIVES

He was speaking to me in French and telling me not to hit him,

because, of course, I, after catching him...

I was so nervous when I had him,

and I gave him a... I beat him a little bit.

I hit him.

And then he began to speak to me in Spanish

and told me he was an ETA activist.

82 MURDERS SENTENCED TO 4800 YEARS IN PRISON

The bomb squad had already arrived.

They lifted the hood, and I don't know

if it was four or five butane bottles it was carrying,

and those were full of bags of Rubber-Two.

ABC 03.04.1990

I think, without a doubt,

he was the smartest terrorist I've ever seen.

He was cold, he was calculating, he was smart, he knew us very well.

He was very experienced, he had over ten years of killings.

He was a killing machine.

FOZ DE LUMBIER

ETB NEWS 26.06.1990

Juan María Lizarralde Urreta, alias Heavy, one of the two ETA members

who were found dead this morning in the Foz de Lumbier,

was born in San Sebastián and joined ETA in 1979.

The police attribute to him, among others, the murder of General Atarés

and the kidnapping of Adolfo Villoslada.

María José Faustcu Echenagusía was a native of Régil, Guipúzcoa,

and acted as a collaborator of the Goierri cell

until its dismantling in November of 1987.

The bodies of both were found at 10:00 in the morning in the Foz de Lumbier,

one kilometer from the place where a shooting took place yesterday.

During the funeral for the Civil Guard sergeant José Luis Hervás,

who lost his life in the shooting,

the Minister of the Interior, José Luis Corcuera,

said that the two ETA members had taken their own lives

when they were surrounded by Civil Guard troops.

The cell was there, we don't know if they were resting, gathering information,

and the Civil Guard patrolling the area,

as part of their normal activities,

saw two boys and a girl who seemed strange,

they went to identify them, but without knowing

and of course without realizing that they were terrorists,

they think that they are coming after them,

so what happens is that a shooting takes place,

the terrorists kill the sergeant,

the other guard has time to take cover...

CIVIL GUARD SHOT DEAD AND ANOTHER WOUNDED AT LA FOZ DE LUMBIER

...and the terrorists flee.

Each side gave totally and utterly contradictory versions,

just the same as always.

They had committed suicide, which was illogical.

INTERIOR EXPLAINS HOW DEATH OF TWO ETA MEMBERS IN NAVARRA WAS SUICIDE

The version of the ETA members...

...or the lawyers was that they had been tortured and then killed.

PRESIDENT OF THE BASQUE GOVERNMENT (1985-1999)

If we look at history,

there are quite a few cases in which people have been killed

in terrorist arrests.

None of them have really been settled in full.

And in the case of the Foz de Lumbier,

where there is talk of suicides...

TWO DUTCHMEN SAW THE THREE ETA MEMBERS ALIVE AFTER THE SHOOTING

...I would include it with all these cases that are never resolved.

Even with those accounts... Those of the Civil Guard have obviously

always been hard for me to believe.

And those of the ETA members have often been difficult to believe, too.

The truth is that the statements of the prisoner,

even in front of the judge, although he later withdrew,

supported this version,

and the autopsies that were performed on the bodies

also supported the testimony of the Civil Guard.

ETA TUTORIAL FOR TERRORIST CELL TRAINING

BASQUE COUNTRY AND FREEDOM E.T.A.

THE MASSACRE AT VIC

ETA would try to reproduce the massacre

at the Zaragoza barracks in Barcelona.

The Barcelona cell prepares a car bomb

that is loaded with more than 200 kilos of ammonia

and that, after researching and planning the attack,

is released down the access ramp

to the courtyard of the Civil Guard barracks

at 7:00 in the evening,

when the courtyard is full of children playing there.

The explosion of the car bomb causes the death of nine people,

five of them children,

two civil guards and two women.

I started to pick up the wounded and whatever was there

and then do the task of surveying, of identifying one by one of the corpses.

That's what I had to do.

I knew them all. And I had to identify them one by one.

CIVIL GUARD

Sala, his mother-in-law, the baby's partner, Pakito,

Rosita, Ana, Maripili...

My wife was at the window of the pavilion,

then she saw the car going down and started telling the kids to move,

but, of course, when it got to the wall,

it exploded and the two or three girls who were closest were the ones who...

We got there and...

Of course, I... I felt it intensely, because...

CIVIL GUARD

...only five years before,

I was in a barracks like that playing in the courtyard.

It's like you've had your own son killed there, even if he wasn't.

It creates a very strong family feeling,

so that attack, apart from living it,

half an hour or 45 minutes later,

after feeling the smell, the smoke...

The ambulances, the screams... Apart from that...

It touches you very deeply because it was very cruel.

All attacks are cruel, but this one in particular.

Releasing a car bomb when you can see children playing...

Because ETA was obsessed with children.

Because if they had any balls, they would have come to get us.

Sons of bitches.

ETA VALUES AN ETA LIFE "A HUNDRED TIMES MORE" THAN A CHILD OF A POLICE OFFICER

The cell fled.

ARMED CRIMINALS HIGHLY DANGEROUS ETA MEMBERS

During the getaway, someone saw the license plate.

The license plate reached us at the Civil Guard.

That morning we arrested the cell's collaborators,

who told us where the cell was hiding,

because they had rented a house from them.

From that point on,

the cell's arrest was inevitable.

On entering the house, the terrorists opened fire, as did the response unit,

and the two terrorists were killed.

And the man who was cleaning the car, who was arrested, was the one who gave us

all the information about the life and activity of the Barcelona cell.

MURDERED BY THE CIVIL GUARD

MEMORIAL SERVICE IN GERNIKA

FOR THE TWO ETA MEMBERS OF THE BARCELONA CELL

Well, I, as you will understand,

I would never say anything against the organization.

Absolutely nothing.

FROM 1988 TO 1991 ETA ENDED THE LIVES OF 107 PEOPLE

SERIES BASED ON THE BOOK "HISTORIA DE UN DESAFÍO:

CINCO DÉCADAS DE LA LUCHA SIN CUARTEL DE LA GUARDIA CIVIL CONTRA ETA"

WRITTEN BY MANUEL SÁNCHEZ CORBÍ AND MANUELA SIMÓN