The Permanent Social Forum has taken advantage of the anniversary of the kidnapping of young Tolosarras Joxean Lasa and Joxi Zabala to make concrete demands and has asked to “continue to make progress in the construction of democratic coexistence” to integrate the 40th anniversary of the case into the institutional agenda. Two reasons stand out: “To help overcome the categorization of victims and to repair victims and their families.”

On 16 October 1983 the GAL kidnapped Lasa and Zabala in Baiona. They were violently tortured at the premises of the Palacio de la Cumbre de la Guardia Civil de San Sebastián and taken to Alicante. They were murdered in the camp and buried in the dead lime. His remains were identified in 1995, and when they were buried in Euskal Herria, at the airport of Hondarribia and in the burial, the Ertzaintza attacked his relatives. The Social Forum has recalled that fourteen Basque cases of enforced disappearance have been documented, of which seven are still unresolved.

In the case of Lasa and Zabala, they have denounced the collection of “all human rights violations”: “Kidnapping, torture, murder, forced disappearance, concealment in the lime alive hundreds of kilometres, non-recognition as a victim and discrimination against families and, in addition, lack of respect for family mourning by the police in the collection of their remains”. And the violations have been described as “particularly serious” because the perpetrators are “public officials”.

Steps to follow

For all these reasons, the Social Forum has underlined the need to take “two fundamental steps” within the 40th anniversary: Recognition by the Government of Spain and the President of the damage caused, such as the dirty war and torture; and inclusion of the Basque Government in the institutional agenda and “pedagogical dissemination”.

The organization has valued “progress” in recent months. “However, much remains to be done to overcome the asymmetric treatment suffered by the victims of the State,” they warn.