Was he at risk of being arrested on his return trip to the village?

We knew that we could not come by plane because the international arrest warrant was in force. We were waiting until the last moment, would the judge give us a certificate so that if the police were to stay on the road I would be told that I was going to court. On the eve of this, we received a letter saying that international orders were being lifted. However, when crossing the border with Euskal Herria, I was somewhat afraid.

We decided to come with a Swiss solidarity group to live that return that we have fought together, and to be legally protected and to help their daughter if she was arrested along the way. We had ten people in the van and each one had a clear role in case of arrest: who was going to call the lawyer, who was going to notify the media... I studied every possible scenario because I knew that the Civil Guard wanted a photo: to go in detention before the judge. With me they have a special curia because "I have polluted their name internationally".

That day the civil guard was very present in my people, as I said: “We know you’re here and we’re here.” I realized that in the village there is a collective trauma with them, as they associate it with my arrests and torture. I taught them that I left the police station alive and that I continue with my ideas, even if we know they are there. I'm not going to save or close.

How have you emotionally raised the return to Euskal Herria?

When I fled, I went without saying goodbye, I knew that I had bought the one-way ticket, but that I was going to depend on the struggle that we had been doing. My dream was to return all together to the people with the solution of the conflict. This has not happened.

After fifteen years I did not want to repeat the rupture of the leak: It is cut off with the house we have built in Switzerland and it is left all over again. I am clear that I do not want to choose between Switzerland and Euskal Herria. In both of them I feel good, the decisions I make affect my daughter and she also decides. It's grown in Switzerland, it's Switzerland that knows it. We stay where the needs of both are met. My dream would be to keep fighting in both places.

It allows me to look at the Basque Country from another place or from another point of view, another dimension or perspective. I think it is enriching.

How have you kept the Basque in the 15-year-old exile?

Militancy. And my being, because identity is the Basque. When I was a mother, I was clear. What should I give the child in his flight to Switzerland? I am, my feelings and experiences come from Euskera. Although we know that in exile the Basque Country can also pose a risk in identifying who I am. But without that, what am I?

I gave Euskara to my daughter in a non-Basque environment. Since there were no other people who spoke in Euskera, my help was the material of Pirritx eta Porrotx, to see the daughters that this language was not just one thing of us, that beyond there is a world that lives in Euskera, that thinks and fights in Euskera.

In secrecy, in illegality, how can we explain to a child how we should speak in Basque? I told him that we were Basque pirates, that our treasure is the Basque and that we have to keep it. And sometimes storing that means that we have to speak another language so they don't know we're Basque pirates.

When we have come, the daughter has seen that beyond us there is a people who want to live in that language. But at the same time, how am I going to tell my daughter that this is Euskal Herria, for example in public transport when everyone collides and on fire in Spanish? Why is this Euskal Herria to a pirate who has just arrived from Switzerland and speaks Basque? What is being Basque, what is not? I believe that the Basque Country has lost its vindictive character. Before, the Basque country was also related to the struggles for freedom. I have noticed great neglect and disillusionment.

Many refugees have gone red to get their daily lives through. What about you?

It's been hard. Most of all, running away as a woman. The refugee disappears from society. Illegality means that it does not exist and is not visible. But at the same time a child leads you to be visible, with a child you can't be without leaving the house and make you see it was in danger. Many times the head said one thing and the heart said the other, and many times I've cared for the heart and I've invented it.

I couldn't tell you everything, but if you don't say it, many times the risk may be higher. At school, for example, think that the child falls and takes him to the hospital, but he cannot go because his situation is not regularized... Silencing is a bigger problem than telling the school: “Our situation is very special and if something happens first call me.” Always the same dilemma: How far should I say? But don't you know how they're going to help me? Not knowing or not seeing makes it difficult to channel solidarity. The more colorful they are, the people can help them.

I've had very serious moments: I couldn't prepare the pregnancy for the child to be born in a safe place. I thought I would get to a place to give birth and the child was born almost on the way. But there was nothing else to go on. His life was in my hands.

I've seen reds, but I've always sought refuge, and I've also felt protected in exile. Solidarity would be faced as a woman, I have known empathy or fraternity as a woman and mother, people have shown willingness to help.

How has he raised his relations with Basque citizenship in exile, knowing that in a few days they must be dismissed?

As I was, the daughter lived that. So I learned to protect myself, to protect my daughter as well. The way to protect themselves was also to build relationships in Switzerland, to have friends and an environment. I could not be in Euskal Herria, therefore, what did it bring me to be always aware of what happens in Euskal Herria? I decided, "I'm from Euskal Herria, but we live in Switzerland. This child has needs here, we have to socialize, learn and live their prayers." In migrant people, I often see that it is neither there nor here. I chose to build and fight without forgetting my own.

This has made it easier for us to greet the Basques as well: they know that in Switzerland we are not orphans, that we have a home and a political family.

Exile can therefore become the rural home of each.

My people are the place where I can fight. With this philosophy, I can turn all the places where I'm at home. I'm clear that I've been born to be free and that I'm going to fight to be free, everywhere I'm in.

Exile is an invisible prison. For the people of Euskal Herria, I'm a silhouette or a shadow on the panels and someone who doesn't exist for the people of Switzerland. But I've given that exile a fighting life to become a home.

Are all the refugees in the world political?

Yes, they are all political refugees brought about by this capitalist, patriarchal and racist system. I don't like to differentiate and rank, not even among prisoners, the difference is how the prisoner or the refugee himself gives him that character, how he understands it and how he fights.

Our persecution is for our ideas and that is why they punish us with special legislation. Therefore, oppressive states make us Basque political prisoners and at the same time try to remove that condition from us. That is why we claim to be a political prisoner.

Political asylum is also for men. Those who once obtained or demanded asylum were men. Now, on the other hand, most of us are women, but in the questionnaires we are asked to ask for asylum, there are no protocols aimed at them. With the campaign we conducted by focusing on my case, we managed to promote and make known (in the Istanbul Convention) that sexist violence was a cause for asylum. In the latest waves of refugees, the majority are women and most of them have been raped in their country or on their way. I have fought so that they can also serve them.

In these fifteen years ETA has decided to abandon the armed struggle, the roads have changed... How did you experience all this politically and emotionally from Switzerland?

When I was in a phase of confrontation, but in 2007, we already saw what society was for and the debate on strategy began.

From Switzerland I had discussions from another dimension, as an observer. Since I read, I couldn't take a picture of reality.

When ETA decided to hand over the weapons to the people, I was asked questions. I thought, And now what? How will the problem of prisoners, refugees and deportees be solved? I felt a vacuum, a sadness, an inability to end a phase, because I was alone in Switzerland, because I couldn't live the illusion that seemed to have ignited in Euskal Herria. I felt the need to share, but I couldn't escape.

It was decided to reject a form of struggle so that other forms of struggle would be strengthened and it seemed to me that the people or the people did not understand that message. Because it was a stop. On the contrary, the Spanish State was prepared to use all its apparatus and weapons. Persecution against us was still at the international level.

Over the years, I've felt deactivating the streets. That he did not approach the road, and that the issue of prisoners was entangled. We are prisoners and refugees who have given rise to conflicts and we must also be involved in the resolution. I felt incomprehensible and unable to contribute. “We’re entangled with the issue of prisoners, but where is the country project, the national construction?” I thought. I didn't understand how we can't do the two things at once as movements. But just by reading the newspapers and talking to people, I couldn't complete the map of reality.

I believe that after fifteen years I am doing so now. I want to understand what is going on and then contribute. However, I believe that today I can also work more internationally than here.

What is the picture of the situation you created when you arrived in Euskal Herria?

I have been struck by the advances or visions of globalization and neoliberalism. They have always existed, but armed conflict makes those other oppression a little hidden. For the multinationals, for the capital, this is Spain, and all messages are oriented without differences and, unfortunately, without receiving much against it.

The presence of politicians on the street has disappeared: graffiti, posters and all of them. And support for struggling political subjects, love has been taken to a private place, to closed places. That frightens me and I disagree. How can we build a memory or a future without recognizing and claiming what has happened and is happening in the people? Memory is not made from silence, memory is telling what you don't want to count, showing the violence that you want to extol in secret. I do not want the Spanish State to have defeated/overcome in a scheme what the conflict has been, and I do not want men to tell or do not count the struggle that we have made women. We have to write a feminist memory, and women's bodies are living memories. That is where I would like to tell you.

We knew what our choice and our struggle could bring, and we have to reclaim, count and convey what we've done. The story we have to do, and the survivors have that collective responsibility. I am very afraid that the international reference to the Basque conflict is Patria. If we do not make the recognition and the story will be done by others. In this way we cannot close a work of composition and lay the foundations so that it does not happen again. We have to seek and be brave the means to count.

But the State is not prepared to accept any account other than its own...

I know there is political persecution, criminalisation... but you have to see what each one is for and take some steps. We can't get stuck in that fear, we need to look for tools. It is up to the prisoners to be taken out and we have to fight for the refugees to come, but we also have to take care of how we come. Following the persecution that began in 1999 against me, I do not want to live again in fear of going to jail as I say or think. If this is freedom, I am at the same starting point that I decided to fight before: or I have to live on my knees or fight.

After fifteen years, I realize that if those people that I left the kids haven't worked at home who I am, there's no link to me. The first prisoners and refugees were someone in the struggle for national freedom, references that have fought or given a great deal. I don't need you to walk down the street and nobody will admit me, but neither do people know that you've been a fugitive or that there are fugitives. And I've also realized how little a lot of people know about the leak, what the leak is, what the risks it entails ...

That's the contribution I can make when I get the microphone or the pencil, reclaim it and move my personal case to the collective. I feel the need to do so. Here and outside too.

There is a social fear of public speaking. How do you deal with fear and what reading of risk do you do?

Paternalistic tendencies sometimes appear. The fears are their own and many times they are put on the other. Sometimes there is a tendency to protect the other, but perhaps with that attitude we are slowing down rather than protecting the other. I would like you to talk to us and each of us to decide what you are willing to take risks for. But I'm also aware of the influence that what I do can have on a collective. You have to measure them all.

Everyone has to see what the actual situation is. The only complaint I have today is that I have had two false papers, so what I say publicly will not have very serious consequences and I am prepared to take a step that others cannot take.

I would like to analyze in the collective how we can take another step, which will not adversely affect others and which will contribute collectively.

What forms of struggle do you think should be resorted to?

To think that our utopia or our goals will be achieved from the institutions is a great mistake. I take the social-democratic melody to this.

Institutions are an instrument for achieving our utopia, but they are neither marked nor protected if there is no movement in the street. I believe that the commitment to institutionalisation has deactivated everything else. I think there is a big mistake there. I do not know how this has happened, if the point of decision, the influence that the neoliberal model has had, the need to enter into legalization and the fear of reilegalization has left many things... Ideological struggle, basic work is the essence of transformation.

Does this also apply to the camp of prisoners, refugees and deportees?

If we want to get prisoners out of the street, we need to use other methods of fighting beyond institutions, social pressure. In my case, we have also made it clear that this has driven two states.

I don't have to agree or disagree, someone says, "Look, the only way to get prisoners out is this." We have to be transparent and tell the truth to people. I see the lost people, saying that “they are going to be taking steps to get the prisoners out”, that they do something unclear and as if they were not in their hands, delegating that function to the political parties. It would be more honest to say “look, we have made this wager, until then we have all moved and pushed …”.

What about the release of prisoners and the return of refugees? So did we start building nation? We cannot confine ourselves to demonstrations and elections. A people must be made for the neighbourhoods and for the streets, the independence movement should always remain on the street. We are being assimilated by the system and the time.

Have you had time to see the movements on the street?

I've seen many new acronyms. I believe in mass movements and at European level the movement of the left is very atomized. That's what neoliberalism does, fractionating it as a class, as an identity and as a gender. And if we organize ourselves from that division, it's very comfortable like this.

I believe in an intersectional movement, in the accumulation of struggles that will free me from all oppression. Taking away the feminist movement, I see no one working this intersectionality in relation to independence, the right to self-determination.

I see loopholes and I see the globalization of fights. These new groups that have been created here do not differ greatly from the groups in Switzerland, and the theories, the organisations from other European countries cannot be applied without taking into account the reality here. I see a lot of theory and academia and lack of praxis. The subsequent generations of ETA have another reality and the young people have to look for ways, they understand radicality in another way and that's OK -- but what I've seen or read reminded me of old and old times of confrontation than innovation or alternative. In some groups, I see the hierarchization of oppression, and that's not worth it. I don't understand class struggle without feminism, or the other way around, feminism without class struggle. In addition, it seems to me that pyramidal structures are being repeated again. I am very attentive to that.

I'd love to share, participate in debates -- but I think there's a lack of spaces, that each one is in their strength, who's right or wrong with the other. We should put strength in what unites us. It is about what utopias and what alternatives each has. If we can all develop an alternative and build up forces.

Believe in an intersectional movement. Where and how to build?

I think we have to do the basic work, the street work, spend a lot of time on dialogue like the Zapatistas, because we have lost spaces of debate and time. We should fight ideologically from the bottom up, seeing differences as a wealth. And then organize and articulate all of that.

The activation of each political subject is the way to win the struggle. Igniting small fires, because the little revolutions that we make inside are the ones that will bring the great revolution.

We have to start again: before it was clear what our utopia was, now we have to talk about it, where each one is and if the utopia has changed, discuss. And then change the tools or the methods of fighting, look for ways to achieve our goals.

I see the greatest contribution from the feminist movement, because without it I do not imagine a process of liberation. It cannot be liberated as a Basque and remain tied as a woman. The feminist movement has the ability to unify all these oppressions to which we have referred: migration, the feminized labor sectors, the genders, the demands of pensioners... because every day these discriminations cross our bodies. Not only here, but also in Switzerland and even internationally, I have seen that it is possible to penetrate among us, because patriarchy is on us in all peoples, and the answer can be collective, with its characteristics in every place.

Since they arrested him 23 years, 15 years since he fled. What do you see looking back?

It is clear to me that I would again take the same decision from the flight, because in my mind there is no acceptance of such a political condemnation. I have been the last person on 18/98 to return to the people since the 1999 arrest. This cycle closes in some way, but the cycle of Euskal Herria has not been closed, because the root of the conflict remains intact. It's not possible to complete me to use it against me or my daughter when I have the repressive apparatus waiting for me. There are still things to fight, and when we decompose all these devices, the whole cycle will be closed looking at the Basque Country.

And have you personally closed a cycle?

The personal cycle could put an end to the recognition of torture. In fact, I have done so through the Zor association so that I can be recognised as the victim of State terrorism, but I do not want that recognition to remain in the drawer. I would like to follow the path of denunciation. In addition, a confession does not serve me if the next day I can pass the same thing.

Political recognition is not to accept us as victims, but to recognise who and for what purpose torture has been used. I do not want the torturer to ask for forgiveness, even if he asks me, I will not forgive him. I would like torturers to tell us why we have been tortured. Torture has been systematically used as a terrorist tool to scare Euskal Herria and destroy his project. I need that collective recognition, not to refer to my case.

This political recognition would allow us to denounce at international level. In fact, torture is prescribed in the Spanish State, but not in international law. Many of us cannot go legal because the allegations of torture are very old. I do not believe in these institutions, but I left the police station alive, and I will denounce torture, for myself and for all those who have not survived, where I can.

If the Basque Parliament acknowledges us as tortured, it should go on an international stage. If not, what have you done to stay in a drawer?

It's been almost a month there, and you're back again.

Let's go tomorrow and think about when we'll come back when we start packing our bags. Knowing that we can come back gives us another perspective on our life, which my daughter and I have not had so far. It makes it easy to turn around.

Greeting with those here is sad, but those there are waiting. Here is a greeting, but there is a welcome. And when we come from there, the other way around.

What do you earn with your Euskal Herriratze?

Quiet. Yesterday my sister told me that she was very anxious not to know where and how we are and to make bad representations. It was very hard to wait for news. I lived in another way, “if there is no news, better”. In fact, the news that would come would be that of arrest. My sister said “yes, yes, that’s better for you, but for us?” He told me that looking at the selfish, when his family member is a prisoner, he knows where he is and what the rules are.

My mother cannot travel and during these fifteen years the question has been in the air: Will Nekane embrace his mother? In the family, we had that need. It was time to meet.

It is nice to see that during these years solidarity has not only been for me, but also for my relatives. There is a people, a community that has been protected. They have also thanked the friends who have come with me from Switzerland for their solidarity, because when they came to Switzerland, they were with their doors open to sleep, and someone was with them because they didn't know the language -- now solidarity is being given back to friends coming from Switzerland. The union of the two solidarity networks has been very beautiful.

"WHEN WILL I BE ABLE TO DENOUNCE TORTURE IN EUSKERA?"

"I have never been able to make my allegations of torture in Basque. I have had to do so in Spanish at the Spanish Court and in German in Switzerland.

This has allowed me to protect myself on the one hand, to make a less profound story, to do so from a distance, so it has been a form of defense. But other times I have felt that communication has been cut off. When can I denounce politically in Basque?

I have not chosen the translation because the translation is not correct: they say "this has been said..." and in that indirect it is not transmitted the same. I wanted them to listen directly through my mouth to what happened, so they wouldn't say they didn't know or report."

WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT SITUATION IN THE COURTS?

How have they managed to get the complaint of belonging to the armed organization annulled?

When Spain first requested my extradition to Switzerland, we organized the Free Nekane campaign. In 2017, I left Switzerland prison because we fought on the street and that pressure forced the two states to find a solution: in the hegemonic media they also recognized me as tortured and the Swiss Government was entering a narrow port. Through the prescription, they abandoned extradition and took me out into the street.

When he was going out on the street, Spain launched a procedure for making another extradition request, claiming that he had false documentation. From the outset, both in Switzerland and here we have demonstrated that we are ready for a second campaign, that we would not accept extradition to a torturing state.

We saw that, over time, the Spanish State was trying to activate the request for extradition every six months, but Switzerland was not actively involved. We believe that Switzerland did not want to get wet in the second request for extradition, because in the first it was in a bad position. Switzerland asked the Spanish state what exactly it had against me. And the issue has fallen by its weight, because having two false papers does not support the denunciation of ETA membership.

On the street, but we were in a limbo, in the administrative and political kidnapping, we didn't know if they were ever going to activate the extradition request. Nor could my daughter’s situation be regularised, at 13 years old she could not leave Switzerland and I could. Switzerland was a prison without bars. That's what we had to break.

Given the situation in Euskal Herria and the situation that may exist if the extreme right moves to rule in Spain... We wanted to close the issue, and that was what we had to do in the Spanish Court. The lawyer also told me that this could be the time, which would then be harder. I said: “Ask us, but don’t offer them.” It was important to me that I did not offer solutions to the two states. My conditions were to guarantee me and my daughter the possibility of travelling around the world as Basques. I didn't want to come to Euskal Herria and stay fit, not move and not be able to speak.

The legal solution has been given before what was expected, within the conditions achieved through the struggle.

Why have you had to go to Madrid, to the National Audience of Spain, before returning to the town?

He was in a state of “rebellion.” In 2019, I got a call from the National Audience to go to Bern and make a video call. We decided to go when I was called Swiss justice, but not to cooperate with anything that came from the Spanish Court, because it has protected torture and because the political judgment against me is based on statements subjected to torture. I went to Bern, and the prosecutor there I told her that. By refusing to declare, they ordered international detention against me and declared me “in absentia.”

We had to go through the Spanish National Court to suspend the international arrest warrant. I balanced what that step was going to take, what freedom my daughter, yours and me are going to bring, and I decided it wasn't so much political wear, although I don't accept that court that defends the torture apparatus. The procedure lasted very short and I didn't have to declare.

Having false documents is the complaint that is now against you. What risk does this pose to you?

Yes, I am accused of having two false cards at the time I was arrested in Switzerland. I have never denied that. Switzerland has never had an interest in these cards. For the people of Switzerland it is very difficult to understand why the Court of Spain harasses me by the documentation I had in Switzerland.

According to counsel, the crime is not serious and involves a maximum of six months ' imprisonment. And it's not going to be judged by a room in the National Court, but by the Central Criminal Court that's within its structure.

In the autumn it will face two false cards. Since by then I will not have a criminal record, the execution of the prison sentence that they may impose will be suspended and I will not have to go into prison.