Consuelo Ordoñez charges against Ayuso for Madrid's treatment of victims of terrorism: “They disrespect us”

―They have killed dad, they have killed dad, they have killed dad.

Consuelo Ordóñez, president of the Collective of Victims of Terrorism (Covite), causes a shudder this Monday among the deputies who listen to her in the Madrid Assembly when she relives the terror of ETA to try to explain to the representatives of the PP that that bloody 12-year-old boy years old is today a man who finds no protection in the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. It doesn't matter that he and his family have been registered in Madrid for decades. It doesn't matter that there is a law that provides for compensation. That that child and other victims are being left without aid that reaches 75,000 euros because the regional Executive applies “in an unfair and arbitrary manner (…) with audacity and shamelessness” the rule to leave them without them because they were not registered in Madrid exactly at the time of the attack. The effect of his words is immediate: the PP attacks Ordóñez because he has directly pointed out Díaz Ayuso, whom before arriving at the Assembly he had accused of “preying on the victims” and using them “as merchandise” for his political interests. .

“You cannot be more unfair and more wrong, it makes use of [político] of the victims,” ​​says the representative of the PP, José Virgilio Menéndez, also a victim of ETA, who reminds him that the Community has spent 15 million in compensation, after having recognized the right of 259 petitioners, and that it hopes to approve up to 1,300 applications. totals. And he adds: “You can't insult a person like that.” [Díaz Ayuso] who decided to get into politics moved by the ETA attacks, especially that of her brother [Gregorio]Yeah”.

“I never insult your president. I don't insult anyone. I only denounce the political instrumentalization of the victims, that the victims are used to obtain political gain, with education and respect, something that you do not have,” answers Ordóñez, sister of Gregorio, murdered by ETA and since then converted into a tragic icon of the PP and also of the regional president.

And then a very strange thing happens. As it seems that Menéndez's words are not enough, the parliamentary spokesperson of the PP in the Assembly, Carlos Díaz-Pache, sends a statement to the media. “Consuelo Ordóñez has dedicated herself today to insulting the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and the PP in an absolutely unjustifiable manner,” he says.

The competition unleashed in the PP to see who defends the honor of the regional president more, better and higher at times silences the legal conflict that brings Ordóñez to Parliament.

On the one hand, the Madrid law for the Protection, Recognition and Memory of Victims of Terrorism specifies in its preamble that its scope of application includes attacks “suffered in other [regiones] by those who, for this reason, have left their Autonomous Community of origin and have established their residence in the Community of Madrid.” On the other hand, the Government Commissioner for Victims requested that it be clarified if this means that compensation can be provided to victims who are not residents of Madrid at the time of the attack, or to victims of attacks that occurred in other regions. The consequent legal report, which EL PAÍS had access to, was categorical: no, it cannot be done. For Covite, this is an incomprehensible contradiction, since the law does compensate those who moved to Madrid to escape coercion and threats, without being victims of an attack, with the only requirement that they be registered in the two years prior to the approval of the law. the rule.

“The only thing they have to give to the victims of attacks is the same solution as to those threatened and remove the requirement of registration at the time of suffering the attacks!”, Ordóñez claims, in a desperate point. “The Government does not know what it is like to be a victim of ETA in the Basque Country and does not understand what is more serious, having a family member killed, being injured, or being threatened,” she adds.

But the legal arguments are the least important thing this Monday. After several decades making the victims his banner, that rare moment of clash between a PP politician and a representative of the murdered only continues the moment of tension with which Ordóñez's appearance begins at the request of the PSOE. The president of the commission in which she is going to speak, former counselor Yolanda Ibarrola, threatens to throw out of the room the five accompanying victims of terrorism of the president of Covite, alluding to a previous agreement to enable an adjoining room so that they can continue the intervention. Finally, she rectifies, but her intervention summarizes the discomfort that Ordóñez's presence causes in the PP. Because Ordóñez does not shut up, he does not conform, nor bend, and always says what he thinks. Also when he is contrary to the interests of the PP, his brother Gregorio's party.

They know it well in the PP, because the headlines collected in the newspaper library are recent. There are those against Ayuso for using the memory of his murdered brother “for his exclusive political purposes.” There are those against the slogan launched by Ayuso for the last elections: “Let Txapote vote for you.” And there are some due to the application of a Madrid law from 2018, reformed in 2022 to protect the victims of terrorism who had been left unprotected, and which, even so, continues to leave them without compensation, as Ordóñez vehemently denounced this Monday in the Commission of Presidency, Justice and Local Administration.

“My presence here is to denounce the serious injustices that the Madrid victims of ETA who suffered their attacks in the Basque Country and who as a result of them had to come to Madrid are suffering,” he begins his intervention, in which he denounces that has been received by the Minister of Justice, Miguel Ángel García, despite his repeated requests. “[La de Madrid] “It is the worst law for victims of terrorism that has been published in the national territory.”

The PP deputies shift in their seats. Those of the PSOE and Más Madrid promise their support for any legal modification, and demand that a “pro-victim” reading of the current law be made. But it's already late. Ordóñez defends his independence, saying that he works for the victims and their rights.

“What I have stated is about justice for the victims, I am not going to fall into your political mud,” he tells the PP deputies.

But since ETA continues to be a major political argument in the conservative party, and specifically in the Madrid party, which Ayuso presides over, it seems impossible for Ordóñez to avoid being splashed. And meanwhile, a dozen victims wait to be compensated, or finally left without help.

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