This 24 August marks the 27th anniversary of the events that took place in the Montevideo Filter. From the solidarity internationalist conscience, the Uruguayan people and numerous organizations of the popular movement claimed the right of asylum as a people to the Basque militants Jesús María Goitia, Mikel Ibáñez and Luis Lizarralde, whose extradition had been requested by the Kingdom of Spain. For the organizations, militants and citizens of Uruguay, the mobilization resulted in several days of mobilizations and more than a hundred wounded and two deaths: Fernando Morroni and Roberto Facal.

The student movement called for the strike and the political force Frente Ancha called for the demonstration of popular support for the demand for asylum. The CX36 and CX44 radios had convened by day 24 a concentration, a general strike and a demonstration, as that day ended any possibility of filing a legal remedy. About 50 parliamentarians, numerous human rights organizations and the Catholic Church in Montevideo supported political asylum. The Montevideo Departmental Council, for its part, adopted a declaration stating that “the territory that honours the Uruguayan tradition (...) is a land of asylum”. However, lehendakari, Luis Alberto Lacalle, stated that "if justice decides on extradition, one must leave here". This is a matter for the judiciary and, without further ado, they have to be available to it.” In addition, he stated that “political asylum has no place when extradition is carried out”, since it is authorized by the courts of Uruguay as a result of crimes committed in Spain by alleged members of ETA.

On the 24th, at 17:00, general repression began without warning. The police broke on horseback to evict the protesters' square, attacked the crowd and beat it hard. It was the greatest social repression since the return of the country to democracy in 1985, led by the Minister of the Interior, Ángel María Gianola.

From 20:00 a.m. onwards, you will be able to follow the game “52. the “operational code”, which is the “police code in danger of death”, was launched. The repression intensified, most of the wounded occurred at that time and the murder of Fernando Morroni also occurred. Early in the morning of 25, Roberto Facal was killed while taking photographs and transporting morning water to the concentration attendees, according to the Security Department.

On August 26, thousands of people remained silent for four hours with Fernando Morroni's coffin in the area. Her mother said: “I am not going to blame the Basques, because those who repressed are from here, those who repressed in the most cruel way were the Uruguayans; they have killed young people, including my son, they have eliminated others using all the weapons they had in their hands.”

After the success of the filter, a discussion took place. They took the ghosts out and concentrated the attacks on the Tupamarans to terrorize the frightened even more. Former Tupamaro Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro stated that “ETA can retaliate against our country” and warned that “now we have to take responsibility for all the consequences”. The right pressed for progressiveness to oppose radical organization. The Broad Front immediately claimed the failure of the 1994 elections to “radicalized and unbearable groups”. In the Central Committee of the MLN, for its part, it was argued that the massacre occurred because of the organized confrontation of repression and that, in some way, the responsibility for the killings was yours. In order not to justify the police and to avoid the repetition of killings, the strategy of creating a militant force in a spirit of struggle should be renounced, and instead to promote civil disobedience or non-violent resistance. However, Frente Ancha and MPP-Espacio 609 never developed strategies to actively use nonviolence.

A year after the events of the filter, the first demonstration was held to remember and reject what happened, and it has been repeated year after year, until today. The call was made by the Permanent Organization of Human Rights, although organizations such as the PIT-CNT Union and the Broad Front did not participate, although many of the militants of its bases, along with some smaller unions.

In the Spanish State, the 2002 BOE published the following: “To Don Ángel María Gianola, former Minister of the Interior of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay, to express my true estimation, on the proposal of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and after deliberation of the Council of Ministers at its meeting on 15 November 2002, I would like to grant him the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella Católica. Madrid, 20 November 2002. John Carlos R. Foreign Minister, ANA PALACIO VALLELERSUNDI”.

The Uruguayan people’s movement calls each year for intelligence reports on the crime of the filter in the Uruguayan capital. However, after three governments of the Frente Más (2005-2020), no research has been published, and the murderers and those who led the repression remain unpunished.

While the new center-right white government of President Lacalle Pou makes the liberal adjustments and privatizations that could be expected, Frente Ancha accuses of his defeat of the “effort and wear” that supposedly means being in the government for fifteen years. However, people believe that “in Uruguay we are clear that, despite the fact that today we have in the government a multi-reactive coalition of the National Party, if there were a minister, the Broad Front and Astori, it would be the same. In the midst of the pandemic, the foreign debt would be paid because the word given to some speculators living in the great palaces must be fulfilled or ‘honored’.”

“Among some Uruguayans, four billion dollars were raised in national and foreign banks” and, at the same time, “100,000 citizens were below the poverty line”. The Chamber of Commerce approved the loss of 100,000 jobs and 6,000 companies in a country of 3,462,000 inhabitants. Of the 300,000 people who lost their jobs, 240,000 enrolled in 15,000 “solidarity days”, in jobs worth $300.

First of all, the new government of Lacalle Pou is trying, as soon as possible, to recognize current and future impunity, further empowering the police with the Emergency Law of Pinza (LUC) and limiting and reducing manifestations, pickets, right to strike, etc. The Uruguayan Federation of Housing Cooperatives for Mutual Help, called the Federation of University Students of Uruguay, promoted a campaign to collect signatures between the feminist movement and the trade union movement to hold a referendum against this law. Finally, the Broad Front decided to join the campaign, although the decision of this party, which is now an opponent, came from its own principles and not from the leadership. In addition to the organized sectors, in the last fifteen days thousands of women and men went out to collect on their own the missing signatures and, finally, got more than 100,000 signatures.

These are some aspects of the history of the events of the Filter and the conjuncture of this year’s demonstration. The importance of Filter as part of the shared historical memory of Uruguay and the Basque Country cannot be denied. However, we must not forget that it is as important to work as keeping Filter in our historical memory so that no one responsible for these crimes can forget what has happened, nor his accomplices, nor any criminal, who have so far gone unpunished.

Filter means a failure of Basque internationalist solidarity, because no preventive action was taken. However, any failure, if not sold as it is not, can still become a victory if it remains in the memory of the people and this memory promotes mobilisation to avoid the disinterested dismemory of the criminals.

We know that “when the old world dies, the new world needs time to appear. And in this libel arise the monsters.” New women and men are not born. The revolution makes women and men new solidarity and internationalists. However, instead of “the vanity of evil” we can create “the vanity of good.” How? For “with much pessimism, which belongs to understanding”, and “with much optimism, which belongs to the will”, that is, just the opposite of what we do on the left, when we deviate towards the irrationality of a liberal progressive pragmatism.