The political conscience of a river that transforms into a river inside us.

The Basque identity has always been cared for at home, but not through political speeches, of course. We have always stressed that we should be proud of our identity, of being Euskaldunes, that with kindness and honesty we could not lower our heads to foreigners, that speaking in French was no better than us. This slogan was not just home, we heard it in the village and in the mouths of some school teachers. Baigorri was a very Euskaldun environment, but with the arrival of the outsiders, some realized the dangers of Basque identity.

Later, leaving Baigorri, the 1968 movement surprised me at the Uztaritze seminary. I was a 15-year-old boy, but there we started to make assemblies, lectures and demonstrations. We went to Baiona to demonstrate. That was my first demonstration. For the priests, this was a terrible boredom, we were all driven out, but the revolution was already made. In the spirits, in the attitudes, everything changed, “enough, we too have something to say,” the people proclaimed. This change of spirit has had an extraordinary impact on me and would become a militant of Iparralde's second generation of abertzales.

Was the creation of IK a natural step in the early 1970s?

In order to strengthen the movement of our self-determination, a strong armed organization was needed. We were convinced and we created it. Those of the storm seemed to us to be too warm, they did not go far, they were limited to the elections. At that time it was not urgent for us, the right conditions did not exist, the bad results weakened the movement rather than consolidated it. We thought that society was going to have a deeper and more continuous work to extend and consolidate the Basque ideas, and once the consciences had been turned on, we could turn to the votes. We knew from the beginning what the consequences of the armed struggle could be. We knew that actions would bring repression and that repression would give us grounds for further action. Action, repression, action, repression... It creates a chain that warns society of a problem. Repression appears to be part of the strategy of armed struggle. So when you choose that path, you know that they're going to be killed, injured, prisoners and militants who will have to enter the jungle. By choosing you accept the conclusions.

What is fictional life like?

For a militant it is a great advantage to keep fit, you have 24 hours a day to fight. Work, family, friends, militancy... It's very difficult to develop the organization's work with your presence. Time rests on terrible problems, it makes you uncomfortably choose, and you're more at risk of smoking. I've gone from 8 to 9 years since the creation of IK to weed, and it's very heavy and very laborious. After a bail [or robbery], seeing the police were nearby, I entered the weed and all of a sudden all the occupations of legal life disappeared. In the underground you have nothing left but the struggle, and if you are motivated and convinced you are fully added. It's a real freedom to do what you've chosen. Then, out of mistrust, it's less dangerous in weed than in reality. You choose your scrolls, your movements, and the police have no element to know where you are, because you've cut around and you don't know where you're going. We citizens had enough support and infrastructure and lived like a fish in the water.

In 1982, two gendarmes were killed in Baigorri (Iparralde). The Spanish Basque Battalion takes action but the police attribute the attack to IK and arrests all its surroundings. How does that experience weed?

In the intimate lives of the people who housed us, I saw fear. The Baigorri attack was used to strike us and, above all, to bring terror to the bones. So far, there were concerns, but it was like a game. But because it's the first few months, people start to think: it's worth it, it's not worth it. In this case, the hardest thing was not the fact itself, but the propaganda they made us. The things they had presented as they wanted had stuck with us in all the news sections, the police and gendarmes taught us how to stop people violently, and we screamed from our corner “we haven’t been us!”, but it was useless. Nobody listened to us, the people around us had been paralyzed by fear, and everyone in the brush felt everything from within. It's been hard times both on a personal level and for movement. But time overshadowed fear, trust is born again and you're going to be distributed on a healthier basis. Yes, now you know what the enemy is like, how it behaves and what strength it has.

In your misfortune, they have died on both sides, but above all, in your home. What relationship did you have with death?

From the moment you pick up arms, it's an inevitable thought. When you see the militants firing or with the artifact in your hands, you know it can happen to you. However, I decided to fight back by fully assuming its conclusions and knew that I had 90% of the chance of being killed in a shooting. I was sure it would happen, but I was striving to prevent it from happening, to keep fighting for as long as possible, to live for as long as possible, and to keep my friends alive for as long as possible. I was trying to control all the danger I was risking, but I couldn't control everything. So, you know it can happen to you, but at the same time, if you think all day about it, you don't do anything, you don't live.

You were arrested on 20 February 1988 in Bokale. What happened to you in your head?

We fell in the brow. The first reaction was to take the gun and find a way out, but we soon realized that there was no escaping other than an immense massacre. We have always taken care to prevent and survive the massacres. As long as life continues, there is hope, there is struggle. I thought, "Right now they've won -- but only right now," and I just thought I had to escape that moment as soon as possible. Hide yourself right away to continue the fight.

They didn't make the work easier for you. You were held alone for 25 months. How is this supported?

Day after day. One day, another day... At first you don't know how long it will last, you live the moment. You organize that moment not to lose your head, to occupy the spirit, and to retain your body in as much room as possible. Despite knowing that it is almost impossible to escape from loneliness, do not cease to seek a possible solution, that is what keeps you. The problem is that in loneliness one gradually moves away from reality, that without realizing it is always doing the same, to the point that one always thinks the same, suffocates and loses all connection with reality. You run a serious risk of losing your head and don't notice it. That's white torture. I haven't been afraid to go crazy, because I haven't noticed, but for a moment I wouldn't have been so clear and resolved. I thought, from the beginning, this was all I'd known, and I thought prison was a solitude. When I was taken out of there on condition that I was changed from jail every week, I thought it was a step towards freedom. The first day I went out to the yard seemed amazing, you saw the sky, there were a lot of people, I could walk 20 meters down the road... I walked into the cell with a terrible headache. However, he soon realizes that ordinary prison has its limits, its problems.

And remembering that a few years ago you released two IK prisoners from Pau prison, the flight bug is still there...

I had that hope. We've done several trials. We had already advanced quite a few projects, but at the last moment there has always been something that has prevented our intention. It's a terrible pity, it invades you with terrible despair, you have to start from scratch every time, somewhere else, with other conditions... And time goes by. I have tried to escape from prison until the day when I have met the minimum period of 15 years of security that my eternal sentence said. Only 15 years ago that I told myself to forget about this idea, the situation had changed in the Basque Country and in IK, and the condition that I was not so necessary and was a way out legally. This led me to surrender completely to the struggle for parole, four years later, until I left the prison behind.

Before returning to Baigorri you've been to Besiers-Biterri for five years. How do you learn to live again after being incarcerated for nineteen years?

Life doesn't stop in prison. You are cut off from the outside world, but Basque prisoners have many visits, letters, we have a quick link that keeps us connected. You don't give yourself a perfect account of the changes, but you've heard them, represented by what they tell you. You know it's not going to be like before, that spirits, conceptions and trends have changed. Internet, mobile… From 1988 to 2007 there have been great changes, you know there have been changes and you know that you will have to prepare to internalize and dominate them. You prepare, but you are never completely ready. Getting out of jail is like getting into a strange village. It's a rarity that you know a lot of people in that strange country, but those people have changed with age, with life, and even though you don't realize it at first, you're not old either. I knew it was going to take time, and thanks to that forced landscape of the Biterri or that I've been slowly getting into the new reality. Now, two years ago I'm at Baigorri, at home, working with my brother, and parole occurred to me in February.

The political landscape of Euskal Herria has changed a lot since 2007.

From my captivity in Lizarra-Garazi, the discussion on the abandonment of armed struggle was on the table. IK decided in 2000 to abandon the armed struggle and to change its strategy. At that time, AB was the electoral platform and we opted for a broad political movement that would bring together the different forces of the Abertzale left of Iparralde. To accumulate forces it was essential to abandon the armed struggle. That's why we took the step. It seemed to us that the armed struggle had given what it could give, that it had had positive results, that it had changed the situation and that it had given us new instruments to keep changing, that it was time to take advantage of it. We went from the time of struggle to the time of construction. ETA’s had a similar debate. The problem, in my opinion, is that they do not realize how to get out of the armed struggle. With something achieved, with the negotiation with Madrid, it was intended to close the era of armed struggle. Rehearsing, rehearsing and rehearsing, the years have passed and trust has been deepened, credibility and effectiveness have been lost, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to resolve at least the issue of prisoners. I have been in favour of a change of strategy for a long time and when it has come, it has given me the approval. Is it too late? Maybe, but it's come and well come. In this regard, we are seeing that the change of strategy is ahead. The prisoners have been left on the way, hanging from their legs. If you have to go one by one, when will the last twenty years come? Are we prepared to accept it? That is not something we can give in, we need an amnesty. The change of strategy does not mean that what is wanted is abandoned, but that the fight continues in a different way.

How?

Armed struggle is no longer used to provoke the relationship of forces. Now, it is the Basque society that has the priority and the weight of this relationship of strength. To do so, the movement has to return to society. Sometimes it seems that the current strategy is based on denying the past, and no, the change of strategy is to value the past, to use the results and tools that the struggle has given to give rise to another strategy. Madrid and Paris will not relax anything without a relationship of forces. That's why denying the past is making the game of the enemy.