Death came quickly. He brought pain and wanted to bring oblivionbut he couldn’t. They couldn’t. 45 years after everything broke into a thousand pieces, the relatives of Mikel Arregi face a new anniversary of his murder at the hands of the Civil Guard with a mix of sensations and memories. Today the silence continues to kill them, but for the first time they feel that there has finally been institutional recognition. The first. 45 years later.
Mikel Arregi was 32 years old and was a councilor from a platform close to Herri Batasuna (HB) in Lakuntza (Navarra). On November 11, 1979, Sunday, he died due to the hail of shots that the Benemérita agents fired at the car in which he was traveling.
“All the eyewitnesses, including the four who were with him in the car they were driving in when the shots were fired, agree that there was no Civil Guard control at the moment the machine gun rounds were fired at the vehicle,” noted the magazine Point and Time in an article signed by journalist Agustín Zubillaga.
The “transition” from dictatorship to democracy had, among other characteristics, that “easy trigger” of the State Security Forces against nationalist militants. To these crimes committed by the agents would also be added the actions perpetrated by parapolice groups that they would seek to sow terror among the Basque independentists and would bet on the dirty war against ETA.
In September 1981, the Navarra Court sentenced the civil guard Ginés Cecilia Rico as the author of “a crime of simple recklessness with violation of regulations and resulting in death.” The “simple recklessness” It only cost him two months of arrest and 55,449 pesetas to repair the machine-gunned vehicle and two million pesetas for the victim’s family.
The Civil Guard never apologized for this murder committed by one of its members. Nor has the State recognized Arregi as a victim of any kind. His name, as in other cases of Basques riddled with gunshots during the Transition, it has been simply ignored. What is not there, does not exist. The 32-year-old councilor, in the eyes of the State, was only the victim of “simple recklessness with violation of regulations and resulting in death.”
Against the right-wing boycott
The only institutional recognition took 45 years to arrive, although if it had been from the right it would never have arrived. The right tried to boycott, via Constitutional Court, a law of reparation for victims of violent acts caused by extreme right groups or public officials that was promoted by the Uxue Barkos Government and that included the case of Arregi.
PP, Ciudadanos and Vox They turned to the TC in 2019 to request that this rule be annulled. However, in June 2021 the Court ruled that the regulations did not invade criminal powers and, therefore, could go ahead.
On May 30, the Government of Navarra headed by María Chivite (PSN) held an institutional event in which the vice president Ana Ollo (Geroa Bai)under the Foral Law of Recognition and Reparation of victims of politically motivated violence caused by acts of extreme right groups or public officials, officially recognized the first 12 cases of this type. Arregi’s name was among them.
In Navarra yes, in Madrid no
In Lakuntza they are preparing tribute events for the 45th anniversary of this murder with that recognition still present. “Great news that we must celebrate and feel proud of all the work carried out by the commission and family members over the years to achieve this recognition,” said the platform that keeps his memory alive.
“In the case of Mikel, as in the rest of the victims, it is a partial law that has no legal effectsbut what the official truth is questioned and opens the way for administrative and judicial reparation,” stated the platform Mikel Arregi Gogoan (in memory).
The “excitement” for that recognition obtained in Navarra “exposes the Government of Spainthat has not acted in the same way with all the victims,” they say from the town of Mikel Arregi. 45 years later, they will once again honor his name.
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