“Thanks to God and the unmentionable Francisco Franco, who diverted the course of the Turia; If not, it would have also been Valencia capital.” With these words the former president of Madrid Esperanza Aguirre has expressed herself about the DANA tragedy in the Valencian Community. Aguirre believes that, if it had not been for the dictator, the floods would have been worse.
Aguirre has also taken advantage of his statements to the press this week to attack the Government and to explicitly request the resignation of the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles. “I do not support violence at all, but the indignation of these people is understandable,” said the former ‘popular’ president about the altercations and attacks against President Pedro Sánchez this weekend in Paiporta. “The Minister of Defense, in my opinion, had to resign immediately,” Aguirre stressed, criticizing the Executive’s actions in this crisis.
Esperanza Aguirre believes that the Valencian Community should “have sent the Army, not the UME.” “Instead of the JEMAD being in charge of all this, they have put the one from the UME, who does not have to have that knowledge,” the former leader launched. “The Government, or its partners, does not want to see soldiers in uniform with the Spanish flag on the street, and that is a shame, it is a national shame,” he criticized in statements to the media.
“Who directs the emergency is the autonomous community”
The chief general of the Military Emergency Unit, Francisco Javier Marcos, appeared last week to explain the operation and the steps followed after the DANA crisis. “At alert level 2, the one who directs the emergency is the autonomous community, the one who decides where we go or where we don’t go is the community. It is the emergency director who tells us where to act, and we have done that with discipline. “I can deploy and mobilize my men but I cannot enter until the emergency director of the Generalitat authorizes me,” Marcos then pointed out.
The head of the UME explained that the battalions available in Valencia were prepared since Tuesday, October 29, the day the floods occurred. “The day the emergency broke out, the UME had been following the situation. I have two legal tools: early warning and advance deployment. When I saw what could come, I used those two tools. I ordered all the soldiers of battalion number 3 located at the Jaime I base in Valencia to go to their posts. 500 perfectly equipped soldiers. I ordered the deployment so they would be prepared. From the moment I gave the order until they left it took 15 minutes. As soon as the Generalitat gave us the green light, we were in the emergency zone in minutes,” he explained.
“As soon as I saw what could happen, I alerted 1,000 soldiers and as soon as we had the green light to intervene in the rest of the province, 1,000 soldiers were deployed so that the people of Valencia could see at dawn on Wednesday that we were there,” he continued. “It is true that we did not intervene quickly because the weather prevented us from doing so and for a matter of order and discipline: we could not add chaos to a truly chaotic situation,” he noted, referring to the fact that they waited for orders from the community chaired by Carlos Mazón.
In the last few hours it has also been learned that Mazón’s team requested the help of the UME on the fourth call from the Government and after rejecting it three times on the day of the DANA; It was not until after 2 p.m. that the Valencian Minister of Justice and Interior, Salomé Pradas, accepted the State resources, although initially limited to the Utiel area.
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