The Burgos Process began a year earlier, in April and May 1969, exactly fifty years ago; and then I witnessed directly what happened. Young generations reading ARGIA will surely not know what happened, with the exception of some subtle references.

The war council had a serious situation, not only in Basque society, but also in the Spanish State and in the world. Under the Franco regime, the military authorities claimed nine death sentences against six ETA militants and leaders: Mario Onaindia, Unai Dorronsoro and Xabier Larena received death sentences; Eduardo Uriarte, Jokin Gorostidi and Xabier Izko of the Church were sentenced to death sentences. The 16 accused, for their part, were sentenced to tens of years in prison for a crime of collaboration or belonging to an armed band with eta.

As a result of the international pressure exerted by the trial, the death sentences were replaced by 30 years in prison. Others who were in that Burgos summary, such as Mikel Etxeberria or myself, ETA militant, could not judge us for being “somewhere unknown” or “rebellious”.

Deadly horizon

ETA was born in 1958. Dissatisfaction with the way the PNV acted until then, the Basque armed organization immediately showed a pro-independence and socialist vocation. However, its leaders placed the creation of ETA on July 1, 1959, according to the papers seized in the Bidar Raid to its top leader, José Luis Álvarez Santacristina.

In the 1960s, Euskal Herria was in full boiling, marked by the first hard labor strikes (Laminations of Bands, Blast Furnaces, Bacbock Wilcox…) and the illegal celebrations of the First of May and the Aberri Eguna. In addition, ETA formed a workers’ front that became increasingly important in the armed struggle. In the face of this, Franco generated brutal labor, social and union repression that led thousands of people to torture, imprison or exile society in general.

Undoubtedly, 1968 showed a mortal horizon in the relationship between the Basques and the Spanish State. The first armed confrontation between ETA and the Civil Guard took place in June of the same year. ETA member Txabi Etxebarrieta (1944-1969) and civil guard José Pardines lost their lives in Aduna and Benta-Haundi de Tolosa. The regime banned funerals in favour of Etxebarrieta, which caused great mobilizations, especially in Bizkaia, with numerous torture and detentions.

The situation was so extreme that some Biscayan priests occupied the Bishopric of Bilbao twice, in June and July, to denounce the Church's complicity with Franco. Two months later, seeing that the repressive situation persisted, we closed at the Derio Seminar for 20 days and transferred our complaint to Pope Paul VI.

Then ETA murdered the well-known police and torturer Meliton Manzanas, through whose hands many of the detainees passed. The Government of Franco responded with anger and declared a state of emergency between January and March 1969, first in Gipuzkoa and then throughout the State. The repression was brutal: hundreds of people were arrested and torturadas.Asi, ETA members who were in hiding had to reorganize, as the first goal of the police was to eliminate them at all costs. To this end, they organized a meeting of the management of the institution in April 1969 in the Cantabrian town of Mogrovejo.

The meeting could not be held. All were surprised in 24 hours by a raid that took place on April 9 at the Artekale of Bilbao [see this fact in the blog Urko Apaolazak]. This was the first severe blow against ETA's dome, following the military trial in December 1969, a separation took place between ETA V and ETA VI.aren.

In Artekale, Mikel Etxeberria Makaguen was seriously injured by police officers. On the same day, a police operation was launched to capture the ETA militant, accused of killing taxi driver Fermin Monasterio. At his death, when they asked for help and began to argue, the taxi driver was forced to kill him because he believed he was on top, according to a testimony recently known. But Etxeberria was able to escape from Orozko by the Catalan Pyrenees thanks to a surprising network of solidarity, after almost two months hidden. Hundreds of collaborators and nurses helped him and in flight we involved a group of Basque cures. However, this operation was one of the most savage and massive repression, with a large number of people being detained, tortured and exiled.

12 years in prison for a hunger strike

Faced with the silence of the Church, five members of the Abades de Bizkaia Indarra group began a hunger strike at the Bishopric of Bilbao on 30 May 1969. This strike imposed penalties of between ten and twelve years in prison and had to be carried out in full in the priestly prison of Zamora, specially designed to punish the Basque Abades, although they also imprisoned Galicians, Catalans and Madrid. Josu Naberan and Alberto Gabikagogeaskoa were sentenced to 12 years in prison; Julen Kaltzada, Xabier Amuriza and Nikola Telleria to 10 years, respectively. To do so, they were immediately tried before a military court in Burgos, eleven days after the strike.

As they explained in a statement made public half a century ago, the lockdown began in the Bishopric of Bilbao “to protest and cry in favor of the oppressed in our country”. These words reflect very well the socio-political environment in which he was. “They continue to deny the most basic human rights,” they say in the same document, persecute the citizens, arrest them, torture them and sometimes have to flee in order not to be imprisoned after being sentenced by a court under the current regime.”

The Abades recalled that "about a hundred workers went through police station and were dismissed" as a result of factory strikes. A kind of human hunting with shooting and torture was also reported: “Those who struggle for a legitimate political choice are considered criminals.” For the strikers, crime was committed by the regime: Under the Terrorism and Banditry Act, a military court imposed death sentences on militants. In addition, the police "paid the whistleblowers" and the media provided false information about the case.

Thus, Bishop José María Cirarda, apostolic administrator of Bilbao, was asked to “end all this violence and denounce police torture”.

Northern influx

As a result of the “cacería” of May and June 1969, some passed through the police station and others had to cross the border. It was about three hundred people. Most of us went into exile and ended up in Donibane Lohizune, Biarritz or Baiona. Before, there were people in those villages, who had fled since the beginning of ETA’s activity. However, there was no fixed protection network, each of which was organised on its own and solved its problems as it could.

In this context, the first structure emerged in favour of Basque refugees: Anai Artea. Those who have investigated the history of the Abertzale left have as their founders Telesforo Monzón and Piarres Larzabal, and it is true that they presided over that organism, but those we set in motion needed their names, because they were people who had an official recognition in Iparralde and Hegoalde.

So the art Anai was born.

I experienced firsthand the birth of the Anai Arte. It was May 1969, when a military edict ordered me to reach. When they dismantled ETA’s leadership in Artekale and Mogrovejo, following Makaguen’s flight, I also had to leave and went to San Juan de Luz.

From the very beginning, we realized that more refugees were arriving every day and that there was nothing to take care of them. For a few days I had the opportunity to be in the house of the priest of Socoa, Piarres Lartzabal, along with my colleague and exiled Amadeo Rementeria. In view of this situation, we set out to look for a house with the intention of attracting people coming across the border. We finally rented a large house in downtown San Juan de Luz, filled it with furniture and sheltered for a time those fleeing Franco repression, without any other organization.

We paid the initial rent with the money I earned doing pawn work: in the morning I worked in the port, in the afternoon in a hotel and in the evening in a fruit store. In addition, the Hegoalde Abades also helped us with money and food; their representative, Iñaki Aurtetxe and Felix Iraurgi, visited us periodically.

Meanwhile, I retained the relationship with Piarres Larzabal and with Telesforo Monzón, who went to his house in Socoa almost every afternoon. Bergara’s Abertzale politician was often accompanied by Ángel Arrangi, who knew the local administration very well, as he had been living in San Juan de Luz for many years. They were shocked by the work done by Amadeo and I, who had so far done nothing to create any infrastructure for the benefit of refugees.

But Amadeo went to Paris. So I told those three people -- Lartzabal, Monzón and Arrangi -- that the time had come to formalize the organization for refugees. It is a bridge to the search for work and housing for refugees or to travel to Paris, Brittany or Brussels; a universal infrastructure for all people, without parties or colours – although most refugees, of course, belonged to what we now know as the Abertzale Left.

We had the germ of this structure, and it was the housing that we rented in my name. But to become known as an organization and gain recognition, it was necessary for them to preside over people as important as them. My proposal seemed interesting to you, and we agreed on the name, Anai Artea. For the organization, a commission was set up in which all refugee groups were represented (ETA, Cabra, Euzko Abertzaleak Laguntza, the Abades...) – to which the PNV was also invited, but said no, arguing that it had its own organisation. Between 1969 and 1986, Anai Artea helped over 2,000 Basque refugees.

This article is based on two passages of a book written and not published by the author himself