From 29 September to 2 October, a march will go through Navarre with the aim of boosting the process of returning prisoners home, understanding that this process is an essential contribution to consolidating a framework of democratic coexistence and thereby closing a long historical cycle marked by violence and suffering. It is a journey of 350 kilometres, about 350,000 steps, which will travel thousands of Navarros with the aim of moving towards a goal that brings peace and freedom for all. Walking, for once, not to run away from anything or anyone, but to meet. Although no one may have noticed this, it seems that the fact of being Lesaka and Berriozar, precisely, the beginning and the end of this march. On the one hand, Lesaka, which is close to the border, where several generations of Navarros have had to flee from suffering, cross and cross (let us remember the Comète Network, which helped those fleeing Nazism); on the other hand, Berriozar, at the foot of Mount Ezkaba, witness the tragic leakage that caused the death of hundreds of prisoners who lived for their sole purpose. The idea of going home was then absolutely impossible.

But now, on the other hand, we believe that the historic time has come for prisoners to leave jail to start the process back home. Return home to become part of the life of your people. To return home, to be one more, to help consolidate an area of peace and freedom. The historic time has come to close the wounds of the past and to chart paths for the future. We are aware that we are facing a historic challenge, and that requires us all to be generous and more ambitious. Because here we've all suffered, and we all have to think about how we're going to organize political life from the equation of once and for all violence and suffering. It is a difficult challenge, there is no doubt, but as a society we cannot fail to retain it if we do not want to leave future generations a heritage poisoned by hatred. Honoring historical memory is, above all, learning from the past to build a better future.

Walking towards peace has no secret. To weave complicity, to build consensus, to speak, to listen, to debate, to decide… between everyone and for everyone. And be clear that on this wager we all win. In recent years we have made great progress on this. The agreements between the social partners and those signed in the Navarre Parliament itself show that Navarre society almost unanimously supports the resolution agenda. However, practical progress on this agenda is in the throes. Only some of the Navarros prisoners are imprisoned in the Pamplona/Iruña prison. The penitentiary policy is still being designed and implemented from Madrid, not from Pamplona. The policy of exception remains the dominant tone, and the law is not proactively applied for the final solution.

It is therefore essential to make the will of Navarre society visible on the street and to make it effective. It is essential that the roads of Navarre be filled with walkers in favour of peace and freedom. The route between Lesaka and Berriozar will undoubtedly be a milestone for the future. And we should greatly thank his mentor, our beloved Fran Balda, for this milestone that we always remember. Fran was a man clinging to his country, always on his way, always wearing sneakers on. This truth was so great that until death he had searched in a corner of the road, for he had not stopped walking. Rest now, Fran, we'll tie our shoes to the end of the road.