You are a stranger in ARGIA. We have been our contact, always in the shadow. It's time for you to tell us. There was
a lot of talk in our house about politics during the Franco regime. In part, because the family lived in their flesh repression and exile. On the mother's side, our grandmother's brother was physician Constantino Salinas Jaka, president of the Foral Deputation prior to the 1936 uprising. He died abroad. I was still young, we heard Pirenaica Irratia, the radio stations talking about Franco, and people were hungry for democracy… I worked for a few years in the bookstore of my house in Altsasu, and there I saw the Reds, because there were always the civil guards there.

In the bookstore?
Yes. I remember they came at least twice to ask for a kidnapped book. The government hijack the book and they ask us… They made us painted, they shattered the crystals. I have a picture, a picture painted in our store: “Long live the King” and other words as death threats. They crushed the crystals three times and once they got inside and looted everything. And then they started harassing me.

What did that chase consist of? Once
the store is closed and a folder in your hand is on the side. The civil guards stopped me. They asked me what I got in the folder. I was tracked down to the folder. Then, the camouflaged cars would be placed in the parking lot opposite the store, controlling who came in and who came out. Twice, as I remember, I leave the house, take the car and follow my guard. I was arrested on the streets of Altsasu/Alsasua, asking ingenious questions. “What time will the sports newspaper come?” Like that.

Taking
the hair, civil guards… And how many traffic fines put us to the altsasuarras! In one of them we do not respect the “Stop” sign. On the other, we exceed the speed limit. We asked the governor for all the fines and filed a complaint of harassment before the city council. Some of the fines were not paid. Others do. Once, a fine for the car's parking lot. I had to pay, but I also expressed my disagreement in writing and alleging that the car was properly parked.

Persecution, fines… until you were arrested… in 1980, around the
Arbizu festivities. When I was 300 meters away from home, the civil guards stopped me: I was told I was in detention. They took me out of my car and put me in another one. Directly to the Olatzaguti civilian guard headquarters. As soon as I entered, I was tied with my hands to the handrail of a staircase on the ground floor. At 20 minutes, the noise and braking of a jeep engine. Then six civil guards came in and insulted me, threatened and played. “Let’s kill ourselves!” Then came a secret police officer, took my guard off, took me and put me in a car. And to the Civil Government of Pamplona, in whose basement was the authority of the Police of Navarra.

Didn't they tell him why they arrested him? Why should they insult and beat anyone? What was the indictment?
These questions have no answer if it is not an anti-terrorism law. Disprotection. They left me the personal stuff and they made me the file. They went down to Ziega and started a six-day calvary. They walked into the cell and ordered me to stand at the wall. Then two people came and took me to a large room on the first floor of the Civil Government. They received me a lot. It was six people in a circle and I was in the middle. And I was bound to play mercilessly, for blows, kicks and braces, and the questions on top of each other. The torturing was almost always the same person, a little fatter man, a mustache.

What asked him how long he was arrested?
The usual thing: They wanted to tell me everything I knew about ETA, to give me a name… There I had six days. Continuous interrogation sessions and most of the time standing against the cell wall. In an interrogation I was taught the Diario de Navarra, there the names of the detainees, because I was not the only detainee. Then, I got a thick phone book and I got stuck in my head. That was their method, which they used in all sessions. The pain was unbearable. Then I was hung from a wooden apparatus and completely naked. A torturer, he pulled his pants down and made himself appear as a rapist, always insulting: “That pity!” etc.

As you said, he was not the only detainee.
No, then. When I got down to Ziega, I heard the cries of several friends. They were people from Alsasua, Bakaiku and Chantrea. They told me that they had also arrested my girlfriend, but it was a lie. However, I met the leaves of a woman. I would have been detained for about four days, and once in the evening I started climbing the stairs. I have a very diffuse memory... And as I got up, I got a tremendous blow on my back: a civil guard chased me with the rifle butt. I say, I have a fuzzy memory and I also lost consciousness. And the worst, the next day, again the interrogation. They put me on the top floor and opened the access door to a room. There, a cop with his head on the table, looking sleepy, a pistol next to him and the window of the street totally open.

It fell into the trap.
Yes, then. Soon I noticed it. I was there, still. Then the police did it as they were awake, closed the window and then the usual interrogation session. Goodbye me, if I had tried to get out of the window. The torturers would put me on gloves and hit me hard, especially under the belly, and even take me to the tub area, but I wasn't subjected to torture. After the days, they made us sign a declaration and took us from Pamplona to Madrid. They told me that there they were going to ask us more questions. I don't know how I endured it. Sleepless, swollen feet and unable to walk. '97; That lace! And let the governor also accept it! When I was taken to the judge, I denounced the ill-treatment, I said the statement until then was tortured, but they did not do any investigation.

And after declaring it to the judge?
To jail. Six months. First I was in Carabanchel (Madrid, Spain), no doctor, no nurse, no pharmacy. With back pain, feet stuffy and impracticable. Instead of urinating, he made blood. They held me in the fifth module, along with other Basques, but they were also normal prisoners. When we arrived at us, officials detected a tunnel, which we knew nothing, and as punishment they took us to the prisons of Herrera de la Mancha, Ocaña and Burgos (Spain). I, Herrera, along with three other friends. There were all the prisoners of GRAPO.

Herrera de la Mancha prison is of great prestige and mention.
Yes, of course. We go down the van and, first of all, beat it! They gave me a prisoner and isolated me. I had a quarter of an hour a day to go out to the yard and always alone. The megaphony woke us at five and a half in the morning; the ranchera of Rocío Durcal always. Go to the laundry room and the official always by your side. We went on a hunger strike between me and one, lost 8 kilos in a week and took us to Soria. Six months in prison, and I walked out in the street, free of conditions, waiting for trial. Before I left, the ruler of the Spanish Police threatened me: “You go free, but many of our friends were dead.”

You went home to Altsasu.
Yes, of course. But the thing didn't end there. In November 1981, leaflets were launched in the village, with the names and addresses of four people, accused of being ETA collaborators: “ETA wants war, hunger and chaos for the Basque Country and Navarre. The culprits are the ones who help these murderers.” And they also painted it in a factory in Ziordia, with various names. Among them, mine. It looked from the road and it was signed by the GAE.

GAE, Spanish Armed Groups… Six and seven people were killed in the Basque Country in 1979-80.
And in December, I got a package in the store, in my name. It came from Vitoria. In the bookstore, we received a number of packages that looked like them. He took home, he opened up and it was a box of cigars. But I didn't smoke. She told my mother and she told me not to open up, that she could have a bomb. The emitter was Cosolsa, and they called the phone company and they told me they didn't know that Cosolsa. That night we had the package on the balcony. The next day we took the package and took it to the store. We called a mining expert. Apparently he didn't see anything suspicious, but he picked up scissors and carefully started opening: And then he saw some cables!We called the civil guard and they called the singers of Pamplona.

It was therefore a bomb.
Yes. They took the package, took it to a simple area and made it explode, being us witnesses. It was a 100-gram explosive. An exogenous plastic, which the army has no one else, the strongest explosive… If I had opened the package, in addition to myself, I would have killed the people around it. The news spread quickly and we learned that Rafa Larraza from Etxarri-Aranatz also received a similar package. Larraza acted the same way we did. Then the civil guard came up to us at home and asked us for the rolling role that the packet bombs were carrying. They say they send him to Madrid. And nothing. Since then there has been no news.

As I know, this was not the only attempt to attack you.
Unique, no. In May 1983, a bomb was put in my car. It was parked on the estate. At nine o'clock in the morning go take the car and a glass chopped! And removing the installation under the steering wheel, the loose wires, a newspaper inside -- Mom, out the window, don't get in the car! They called the civil guard, they said the thing was like a bomb and they came five hours later! & '97; Meanwhile, people, around them, on the pad and in the gaze. The civilian guards who came, the dog they brought, found the explosive and took the car, took him outside of Altsasu and made him crack. The roof of the car hit the branches of the tree of the adjacent chopsticks, while the chunks of veneer rose up to fifty meters later. The device contained 500 grams of rubber 2.

Did it have
consequences?The Alsasua Assembly drew up the document to denounce the attack, mobilizations, initiatives to support me and support me… On 8 May the municipal elections were held. And the attack on me, on the 13th. They were won by the PSOE in Altsasu. Prior to the formation of the new corporation, the former mayor convened a special plenary session, which was attended by no socialist councillor. Fifteen days later, under the command of the newly proclaimed socialist mayor, the plenary did not approve the motion of support. On the balcony of the City Hall a banner was placed in my favor and was withdrawn by the mayor of the PSOE. The municipalities of Etxarri Aranatz, Bakaiku, Arbizu and Lakuntza issued a manifesto against the attack. He manifested himself in Altsasu, the civil guards charged him... and by judicial means nothing. In May an attempted attack and on 6 July we were told that there were no perpetrators and that the case was filed. Just like in the package bombing. Both cases were also filed for “lack of author”. And so on.

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IMAZ BOOKSTORE
“After Franco’s death, people wanted to know what happened and some books began to be published. Bookshops were not to the liking of people and groups on the far right. The police were also very well controlling what was being sold. And so he controlled the Imaz bookstore of our family.”

CIVIL GUARD ORDER

“Once again, the civilian traffic guards detained me in Urdiain. The agent said to me: ‘Imaz, I’ve been ordered to stop and put a fine on you, but I don’t know why I’m going to put the fine on you.’ I got the fines one after the other, and worst of all, our father was also started to put in. I had two buses, I was doing school transportation, and they were also paralyzing at any time to finalize. He had to go to the Ministry of Education to annul the fines.”

LAST WORD

NAPKINS

“They took me from Herrera de la Mancha to Soria. Take, and the officials can't open my tips. I was tied more than I needed and my wrists were swollen. The police didn't get to open the irons and had to call a prisoner to open them. He picked up a wire and opened me up into the air.”