It's time to talk about another episode of that supposedly exemplary
transition to which we are heirs. A new crime, in this case a multiplecrime, that almost 50 years later remains unsolved due to the inaction
of a democracy that daily insults the word it champions with
hypocritical levity. ---- The context in 1978 was fraught with
instability. Hope, agitation, and dictatorial repression intermingled in
a cocktail that exploded at the slightest spark. In Navarre, the events
of Montejurra had occurred, the pro-amnesty week of May 1977, and later
the murder of Gladys del Estal-which I already told you about in this
series-would take place. The context for the 1978 festivities was
disturbing, even more so with far-right groups intimidating young people
weeks beforehand. The Cristo Rey guerrillas had acted on several
occasions with baseball bats or chains. In one of these confrontations,
Civil Guard Second Lieutenant Juan Antonio Eseverri was killed. The
circumstances surrounding his death continue to generate debate. Some
versions claim that he criticized some youths for setting up a
barricade, and that's when the brawl began. Another version maintains
that the civil servant was in civilian clothes with the Cristo Rey
guerrillas that day. In any case, in the confrontation with young
anti-fascists, Eseverri suffered several knife wounds that would lead to
his death a week later.
The murder led to several arrests, some of them members of the
festival's social groups. In the run-up to the festivities, family
members, friends, and activists barricaded themselves on the second
floor of Iruña's town hall, demanding the release of the prisoners. The
chupinazo, which marks the start of San Fermín each year, had to be
fired from the first floor because the traditional second floor held the
bull run. The feeling that something serious could happen was palpable
among the people of Pamplona, who had never seen such a large police
presence during their patron saint's day. Anti-authoritarian slogans
were beginning to spread among a population that had lost its fear of
the dictatorship, but whose members, at all levels, remained a key part
of the new state. A state that did not hesitate to kill if necessary.
Commissioner Rubio, who was then the chief commissioner of operations,
said in a later interview in the documentary Sanfermines 78 that he
recommended being broad-minded before the festivities. For his part, the
civil governor said in the same documentary that he had recommended not
taking action. So what happened on July 8th? That day, the traditional
afternoon bullfight took place in the bullring. Once the procession was
over, several members of the supporters' clubs jumped into the ring with
a banner that read: TOTAL AMNESTY PRESOAK KALERA. SAN FERMÍN WITHOUT
PRISONERS. At the slogan, a few people began to heckle the young people,
who confronted this section of the stands. Commissioner Rubio, according
to his own words, gave the order to separate these two groups, but the
commanding officer misinterpreted his order and instead of sending two
or three officers to separate the groups, he called in the countless
reinforcements outside the plaza. The officers, like decontextualized
bullfighters, entered the ring and went straight toward the group
carrying the banner to lynch them. The attack was responded to by
virtually all the attendees, who began throwing objects at the officers
as they tried to stop their advance. State forces first overwhelmed the
children from the peñas (clubs) who were about to enter the bullring, as
they were barred from entering the bullfighting event. Like a mob, they
trampled several children, causing 11-year-old Jaime Zelaia to develop a
spinal deflection that has left him disabled for life. He has never
received any apology or any kind of consideration from the state.
After the initial skirmishes, the situation grew increasingly heated
until the officers began firing smoke canisters, riot control equipment,
and, for some, live ammunition. The first gunshot wounds occurred in the
arena itself, including Miguel Fernández and Ramón Vélez, who survived a
shot that pierced his liver, intestines, and stomach, a bullet that
remains lodged in his body to this day. It was around 9:00 p.m. when
everything unfolded, and the repression spread to the surroundings of
the bullring. Ramón himself sums up what happened that afternoon like
this: "We're talking about some people throwing pillows and buckets, and
the police were shooting at them with live bullets, not just baseballs
and tear gas."
A little later, at 10:15 p.m., near the Civil Government Office-where
dozens of people had gathered to protest what had happened shortly
before in the square-new clashes broke out. In response, state forces
opened fire again, killing 23-year-old Germán Rodríguez with a shot on
Roncesvalles Avenue. Germán belonged to the Revolutionary Communist
League. Mintxo, a friend of Germán's who was with him during the events,
thought the shots were blanks until he saw his friend fall, shot in the
head. At the same moment, Mintxo himself was shot in the arm.
The tragic day also ended with nearly one hundred injured-more than a
dozen of them from gunshot wounds-although investigators still do not
know exactly how many, due to the difficulty in finding evidence to
confirm what happened that day in the Navarrese capital. The obscurity
of this case is confirmed by the disappearance from the RTVE archive of
the videos showing the police's violent entry into the square. The
broadcast was broadcast live, but it disappeared from the archives, and
only a personal French recording has been able to surface.
The San Fermín festivities were suspended, but the state crimes
continued. Three days after Germán's murder, a demonstration was called
in San Sebastián in solidarity with the case. There, Joseba Barandiarán
was killed by another police shot. The 1978 San Fermín festivities
resulted in two murders. Two crimes for which no one has been held
responsible to this day. The civil governor stated that the officers
acted on their own initiative, although he pointed to the reckless
responsibility of Commander Ávila, a sinister man who had been in the
Legion and had voluntarily requested that assignment. The hatred toward
the Pamplona population, as well as their aggressiveness, is evident in
statements intercepted by a radio amateur the day after Germán's murder.
Commander Ávila doesn't hesitate to call the protesters sons of bitches,
although the most blatant thing is that he asks the other officers to
kill if necessary.
This is how the Spanish state's law enforcement forces behaved, and
continue to behave. Commander Ávila was transferred from his post in
Pamplona and relocated to Madrid without serving a sentence for the
events of San Fermín in 1978. There are still no clues about who pulled
the trigger; the police themselves, for whatever reason, failed to
investigate. And if there are no perpetrators, the entire force is
responsible, either for pulling the trigger or for collaborating in this
systematic silence regarding state crimes. The lawyer for the
investigative commission-which promoted the supporters' groups-did not
hesitate to point out the tangled web surrounding the entire case, which
prevented him from working. The evidence and testimony collected were
presented to the court, and although an investigation was opened, there
was never a trial. The case was closed in 1982, with no responsibility
for the material events or for the decisions of politicians or
superiors. Regarding Joseba's murder in San Sebastián, no one was held
responsible, neither for his superiors nor for the murderers.
The Minister of the Interior at the time, the ill-fated Rodolfo Martín
Villa, did not hesitate to assert on Spanish Television that what the
state was doing was wrong, but what was happening was a crime. He thus
linked what happened in Iruña to ETA, despite the fact that Germán had
nothing to do with the Basque group.
Decades later, one of the darkest figures in the recent history of the
state, the aforementioned Martín Villa, was declared persona non grata
in Pamplona. A city that was slow to acknowledge the events of 1978.
Some time later, Germán's brother, Fermín, pointed this out in the
Navarrese parliament itself: "They arrive late and poorly, although in
recent years there has been some support from the Parliament and the
Pamplona City Council."
A significant incident reported by Ramón Vélez-remember, who was wounded
by a gunshot during the events-occurred during his hospital
convalescence. There, he received a visit from a justice of the peace,
who was firmly embedded in the statist idea of a unitary and
intimidating version: "I had a fairly consistent account because I had
seen where the shot came from. This man, while testifying, began to
raise his voice, telling me to be careful, that what I was saying was
very serious." He warned him for pointing out that real shots had been
fired from the bullring, when he himself had a bullet lodged inside him,
adding little more.
As always, only grassroots movements have made progress or given
recognition to those who died. The Sanfermines 78: Gogoan Herri Ekimena
collective has successfully brought the case to court as part of the
Argentine investigation into the crimes of Franco's regime and the
transition. Argentine judge María Servini believes the dictatorship's
judicial, political, and police structures continued during the
democratic process. This is also confirmed by Sabino Cuadra, a member of
the Sanfermines 78 collective: "We came to the conclusion that the
judiciary, today as yesterday, is absolutely complicit in the state
crime that was committed."
At the state level, the PP, PSOE, and Ciudadanos voted in 2018 against
declassifying documents about what happened in Pamplona in 1978.
Although the UCD (United Left) was in power at the time, the heirs of
the rotten social democracy played their part by continuing to sweep all
the filth that had been buried for years under the rug. The repression
experienced by the people of Navarre occurred in a context in which the
text of the constitution was being drafted, and a discussion was
underway about whether Navarre would be included among the Basque
provinces. Something that wasn't of the slightest interest to the
central government, and that's why the Navarrese issue was in the
spotlight in 1978, something that undoubtedly had a bearing on what
happened at the San Fermin festival that year.
Shortly after the events, the far-right terrorist group Acción Nacional
planted a bomb in the Alegría club in Iruña, with the following
accusation: "For centralizing the activities of the Marxist-separatist
'Peña Investigative Commission,' useful idiots in the Gipuzkoa-Vizcaya
maneuver to invade Navarre." The Navarrese issue and its possible
accession as a Basque province materialized with attacks by a far-right
group that didn't want Navarre within the Basque autonomy.
In a report, the Public University of Navarra finds that crimes against
humanity were committed in the events of 1978. It also considers that
the judicial investigation was negligent, insufficient, and biased by
the intervention of the very forces and individuals responsible for the
events. It concludes that the investigations should be reopened and a
serious and efficient investigation conducted.
Every year, family, friends, and groups remember Germán Rodríguez in
front of a plaque that reads: "In memory of Germán Rodríguez Saiz. Shot
dead by the police on July 8, 1978." At commemorative events, there is
always an aurresku in his honor, because the people do not forget their
dead. Germán, brother, we do not forget.
Andrés Cabrera, Impulso activist.
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/podcast/sanfermines-78-episodio-siete/
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