Problems generate needs. Therefore, in the worst years of Etarra terrorism the urgency of a particular defense that went beyond the patrol emerged. Suddenly, many more people had to be protected that until that moment and in any situation. Each possible objective of ETA should be defended, something unraverable for security agents. Spain needed escorts.
ABC Podcast premieres ‘escorts: the shadow that protected me from ETA’, a story built through the testimonies of five private escorts, one of the Ertzaintza, three protected politicians and a journalist threatened in the toughest years of terrorism.
But why would someone want to risk their lives in this way?
Leave everything to protect a stranger
«Some came because they needed money, or by the adventurous spirit, without knowing the reality of the Basque Country. Others were security guards and seemed like a good professional promotion. It was a very varied group, ”they explain. “People were chosen in a bad way, between what there was, not much selection was not done,” they say. «They thought they came to save Spain from the Basques. They thought that they came to Kosovo, that people were on the street with submachine guns and guns, that everyone who spoke Basque was Etarra ».
“They thought they came to save Spain from the Basques and they thought that everyone who spoke Basque was Etarra»
One of them, Orlando, who traveled 25 years ago from the Canary Islands to Bilbao, acknowledges that at that time he did not stop the pros and cons: «You come because you like and throw yourself. I had my life guaranteed, but I needed this adrenaline. I was bored in the Canary Islands, I felt uselessdid something that was useless and nobody appreciated, and on top of it was badly looked. And suddenly I do something that I like, I am more important and people appreciate it». But soon he discovered the real face of terror, of the uncertainty that permeated every work day: “My brothers did not know if I was going home,” he confesses.
But it wasn’t just men. ABC has also talked about Two Basque women who felt called by this vocation. Rosa and Isabel, who are now 53 and 54 years old, also left everything to be private bodyguards. The two were rejected by Ertzaintza, the first for height and the second, for not passing the oppositions, and found a hole in this new profession.
A precarious training
The training had to be improvised. It was organized A “express course” of 60 hours. Some basic notions, a theoretical dossier and a handful of powerpoints. This was followed by a few days in which issues such as personal defense, driving or shot were reviewed. They also passed a “tactical week” locked in a convent abandoned they rent to practice. The competition was null.
«I wasn’t prepared for this, but no one else did. We were the only ones who took the bull by the horns »
«He was a local police, what accredited me? Nothing. I was not prepared for this. Like almost none of the escorts, but no one else did. Four more and I were the only ones who took the bull by the horns, ”recalls an agent.
Among the new escorts, there were very few who had had contact with the Firearmsand even less with those they were going to use. “There was such a need that they began to get them out of where there weren’t,” they explain. One of them tells that he felt very sorry for some police officers who did not choose that path: “They told you that I had touched them and there were”.
You can hear here the first episode of ‘Escort: the shadow that protected me from ETA’.
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