- In 1969, the police brutally crushed the protests that the citizens organized because of the serious pollution that they then lived in the Biscayan town of Erandio: two Francoist policemen shot two people around the peaceful demonstrations on the street. Last Sunday, 11, a tribute to Antón Fernández and Josu Murueta was restored in Erandio, claiming "truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition".
In October 1969, Erandio ' s neighbours took to the streets because they could not breathe in the village. According to Sare Antifaxista, "at that time in Erandio you had to go out with your nose and mouth covered to go out in the street, hanging clothes would become yellowish and if you approached the industrial area too much the stockings used by women were burned. In 1968, a year before the death of Antón Fernández and Josu Murueta, the throat cancer rate in Gran Bilbao was the highest in the state. It had become a real struggle to breathe and to live.
When people gathered to protest the situation, on October 28, Francoist police shot and a bullet hit Antón Fernández, who died after staying in a coma for 15 days. During those days, a police officer monitored his room.
The following day, Josu Murueta, like eleven other citizens, followed the denunciation strike for the death of Antón and also Josu was hit in the abdomen by a bullet that killed him. The hospital also, days later, called his wife claiming the costs of the health care she had received.
Days later a military trial was held, but it did not stop at all. There was no explanation. The agents who intervened in the event did not take charge of the proceedings, nor of those who gave the order to shoot, so the case was closed. They were also guarded by tanks and by civilian guards on horseback.
These events were recalled again in Erandio on Sunday 11, at an event in which Antón Fernández and Josu Murueta were honored and demanded "Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of non-repetition": "We want to know what happened, that the culprits assume their responsibilities and that Antón be recognised as a victim, because there can be no first and second victims, because it is time and justice must be done," he added.
The documentary "Gabarra baltza" summarizes what happened in Erandio in 1969, the enormous pollution, the struggle to denounce and repair it and the savage repression launched by the authorities presided over by Mayor Carmen Lekerika on citizenship.