At the request of the General Secretariat for Peace and Coexistence of the Basque Government, the Institute for Human Rights of the University of Deusto has produced a report on the injustice suffered by the Ertzainas and their families as a result of the ETA threat (1990-2011). I think it is right that conflicts should be analysed and, in particular, that ETA should recognise all the suffering it has created.

But I am convinced that institutes and secretariats created as fungi in recent years pay more attention to certain injustices than to others, depending on who the author is. In addition, the imbalance in the amount of money or the means employed is clear. There are some volunteer researchers, despite the difficulties and in exchange for money, working on the historical memory or analyzing the invisible map of torture, which Europe has punished Spain for eight for not investigating torture, and others charging with all the resources the monthly salary.

What is more, I am struck by the scant attention paid, on the pretext of terrorism, to the elimination of laws and repressive attitudes that have been introduced and shaped over the years, which were considered exceptional, but which have remained forever. Do these laws not affect coexistence? At this stage there are already those who say: ETA has disappeared but we now have to deal with the jihadist risk.

Let us continue with the uprooting, invisibility and other problems that the Ertzaintza has had in these years. Of course, unfortunately all this has happened, but I am also convinced that not everything is the responsibility of ETA and its ‘supporters’. The Ertzaintza is responsible for its activity – and not the other two types of policemen – of the problems of uprooting and social integration. A couple of years ago I strongly denounced on these pages the action of the Ertzaintza in relation to the Kukutza conflict.

The Ertzaintza (all the police) is a branch of the system that generates a lot of injustice. This necessarily leads to uprooting for a part of society, even hostility. Ask the agitated workers on a strike to whom the Ertzaintza defends. Many times, moreover, it has gone beyond complying with orders. I recall that the Ertzaintza made the detainees at a peaceful demonstration against the TAV available to the National High Court. Something like what happened to the other policemen in the world. Los Angeles Police Chiefs often complain that citizens are walking against them and they themselves are outraged by the system. Even in the incidents that are taking place in France, we have heard complaints from many policemen. They do not deserve the grudge and brutal response of the demonstrators. What to say about the activity of the Mossos d´Esquadra. However, they do not ask why such a bad reputation. That is where the key lies.