EH Bildu confirms that the transfer of the La Cumbre Palace will serve to “restore the memory of Lasa and Zabala”

EH Bildu’s spokesman in the Congress of Deputies, Mertxe Aizpuruawelcomed that the transfer of the Top Palace to the City Council of San Sebastián, agreed by the parliamentary group with the Spanish government in the context of the negotiations on the Law on Democratic Memory, will serve to convert it “from a place of cruelty to a place of memory, symbolism and dignity” and “repeat the memory” of Josean Lasa and Joxi Zabala, tortured in this building before being murdered and buried in quicklime in Alicante in 1983.

Speaking to the media in front of the palace of La Cumbre, Aizpurua, accompanied by the brothers of Lasa and Zabala, recalled that this building is “a very symbolic place, where Lasa and Zabala were tortured”, who were later “murdered in Alicante and buried in quicklime, one of the most emblematic, hard and painful examples of torture because they wanted to erase them so that they would disappear forever”.

“We have agreed, within the Democratic Memory Law, to leave it in the hands of the Donostia City Council to serve as a place of remembrance, for which the transfer will be made,” he stated. After stating that “the law of democratic memory will collect it so”, he announced that: “the order was made within a year”

According to the spokesperson for EH Bildu, it concerns: “Good news”, because “it helps that inclusive memory that needs to be built”. “It is a historic claim by Euskal Herria and Gipuzkoa that this was the case, that recovery was needed,” he insisted.

For Aizpurua, this assignment “opens a window so that this compensation can be given and there are no different victims.” “Here they tortured Lasa and Zabala, before taking them to Alicante and burying them in quicklime,” he emphasized, adding that “Franco also used this palace for his official receptions during his summer seasons in San Sebastian.”

“Getting this back for the people of San Sebastian, for the city council and the citizens is good news, except it is symbolic, because we have managed to visualize a hitherto silenced reality that the government has silenced,” he repeated.

For example, he has emphasized that in his opinion “an opportunity is opened to be able to restore the suffering and that a different classification of victims is made.”

The fortress of San Cristóbal, a place to remember

On the other hand, he pointed out that in the negotiations on the Democratic Memory Law, his group also reached other agreements, such as a cooperation agreement between the Spanish Government and the Government of Navarra, so that the fortress of San Cristobal de Pamplona, “in which hundreds of anti-Francoists from all parts of the state were imprisoned and the place where one of the most important escapes in Europe took place” is also becoming “a place of remembrance”. “A demand that the Navarrezen feel deeply,” he said.

Other agreements are: declare illegal the courts created in the 1936 dictatorshipdeclare the annulment of all judgments of courts and tribunals made during the dictatorship and the term has been extended from 1978 to 1983, because the transition perceived as exemplary did not reflect what a law of democratic memory should reflect and respond to this In this way, we give rise to numerous human rights violations from 1878 that can be reviewed”.

Likewise, he pointed out that it has been agreed to “establish a commission to clarify those human rights violations that are not being remedied”.