I am still writing these lines in the hot murder of Iñigo Cabacas; to read them it will be a little bit of time, I will forget the topic a little and I will try to write not coldly, but with a kind of distance.

Looking away, we can go back to thirty years. Starting in 1982, the first promotions of the Ertzaintza began to emerge, despite the fact that the PNV had already trained its children in Araba. I am not going to enter as a historian, it is not this place and I am not a specialist, but perhaps we should say to the young people who did not know it that that time lived with illusion in the village: on the one hand, we wanted the Civil Guard and the National Police to leave Hego Euskal Herria, and to do so we needed a Basque police to replace them, at least in the Autonomous Community. A comparison at that initial time was also used to represent this police model: They would be like the bobbys of England, which would serve only to squeeze people, without a gun ... Without denying the unusual point of this image, it serves to recall the expectations with which the new police were born.

Then -- then a lot of things, and it's not easy for us all to agree on a version of the story. In the absence of an objective account, I will try to summarize my own: The Ertzaintza replaced in part the civil guards and the national police, who, unfortunately for all, have continued here, demonstrating in general their ability to perform the functions of comprehensive police, although I do not know how to measure professionalism in this field, but at the same time, in addition to occupying the place of the Sardinian and gray-brown-blue, it is clear that they have acquired some of their customs and habits, perhaps because the police are here and in all parts. In spite of everything, I would dare to say that the illusion I was awakening at the beginning was gradually overcome, and later disappointed.

How important has the fight against ETA been in this process? Big, surely. The violence of the Ertzaintza in the “fight against terrorism” was also growing according to the steps taken by the Ertzaintza: first, the head of the Ertzaintza who came from the Spanish Army, Diaz Arkotxa, was murdered; then some Ertzainas died in the deactivation of explosives, others who fell into shootings (García de Andoain, Mentxaka. On the other hand, there is also a very large black list: The murders of Juan Mari Ormazabal and Ina Zeberio, Anuk's dark death, torture cases, dirty conduct with Beroiz and many others... But not only that: remember the poor Calvo, dead in police station, or José Atanes, who shot him on the road; remember the sad funeral of Lasa and Zabala, the cheap wood that had been given to him in various demonstrations, the arrogance that had often been shown to him ...

It is not time to make an inventory of mutual insults, but to look forward. Making cipayans a bobby can be a chimera, but we need a new policeman who shows a different style and who gains the confidence of the citizens. That would not be a bad starting point if, unlike 30 years ago, all the Ertzainas from now on were Basque.