Pilar Calcada is part of the Cedars group. On January 15th, the group called to take advantage of the “excellent opportunity” that will exist in the coming years to boost the arms industry, in an ostentatious event that resonated a lot. According to the study of the anti-militarist group Vitoria-Gasteiz, ten of the sixteen members of Zedarria have had or have some type of connection with the armaments industry, among them Calcada himself. He is also the Spanish president of the NGO Calciada Save de Children (Save the Children). In the interview he gave to Nago, he explained what led him to join the NGO: “I found it shocking to know that there was an organization that said that all wars are wars against children.”

Jokin Aperribay is the head of SAPA, one of the most important weapons companies in the Basque Country. He has been mainly involved in combat vehicles and artillery, and has recently entered the aeronautical sector. He's the president of Aperribay Real. As you can read on their website, “Real’s mission is to be the best in and out of the field. It is the duty of the Real Sociedad Foundation to be the best outside the field.” For this reason, the Foundation promotes several values: “Solidarity, inclusion, gender equality, Basque, respect for the environment”.

Mikel Torres, second vice president of the Government and Minister of Economy, Labor and Employment, responded last week to the proposal of Zedable. He called on the sector to take advantage of the “opportunity” of new products and markets and assured the “support” of the government “for the benefit of the whole country.”

President of Save the Children saving war children with one hand and encouraging the arms industry with the other; President of the Real encouraging solidarity and inclusion in the mornings, in the afternoons in trade with death in the US, Turkey, Spain or Saudi Arabia – and the blood business in Moncloa bragging with the main leaders of the Spanish arms industry, the Vice President of the Government committing himself to promote the arms industry, even if the Parliament of Vitoria-Gasteiz wanted to approve the law that the party prohibits, when the President wanted to “hide the weight in the economy of the Basque Armed Army” in 2017.

A few years ago, many of these things wouldn’t happen, and if they did, they would cause a lot of turmoil, unlike today. For what reason? The answer is given by Torres, who added the socialist after an uncomplicated apology of the armory: “Another issue is the ideological positions that each of us can have in this field.”

They want to represent the trade of death as something of pure common sense. They want to depoliticize and deideologize the arms industry and militarism in order to impose their political project and ideology without resistance both in the world and at home. Let us not allow it, because it is one of the most important trenches in deciding the direction that our societies will take in the coming years.