I find this interesting article yesterday: http://www.basquepeaceprocess.info/?p=5699
The work of Euskal Memoria to complete
“the whole truth” of the conflict is revealing the reality of many
torture victims. It happened to Periko Estomba 40 years ago. Imanol
Ostolaza suffered it in 1981. Maialen Eldua, just three years ago. Three
stories among thousands, three ways of surviving and living with it,
three voices and one purpose: that it doesn’t repeat itself.
The 70’s, 80’s and the first decade of
this century have little or nothing to do with each other. But Periko
Estomba, Imanol Ostolaza and Maialen Eldua share the same experience
with a distance of 38 years: they suffered torture. The Euskal Memoria
Foundation is putting the numbers, faces and voices to this reality.
These three, without any other
aspiration than to contribute in elaborating the truth of this conflict,
told their small dramas without sparing any details, from the bottom of
their hearts. What happened to them and, above all, how they have lived
with it.
Periko ESTOMBA (Francoist Police, 1971)
Periko Estomba’s voice breaks while
explaining why the Francoist police tortured. “It didn’t occur to me
until I left. I saw that, in some way, it was a public torture. Later
they bring you out on the street and with that the rest of the people
stopped, they were intimidated, they were intimidated a lot. Apart from
that, on a personal level, they wanted to sink you. But I was very
affected, very affected [he explained breathing hard and holding back
tears]. There were two or three years where I quit everything,
everything.”
And it’s that Periko, as he began to
say, hadn’t done anything. “I only handed out some leaflets about the
Burgos Trial to counteract what the press was saying. This was in
December of 1970, in a state of exception. They arrested me on April
4th, 1971, and it was still a state of exception”, he said.
They took him to Amara, the Civil
Government. Estomba remembers that they didn’t torture during the day so
that screams wouldn’t be heard in the centre of the city. “They began
at 11 at night.” First there were punches, then true beatings: “When I
passed out, they brought me to a bathroom; they soaked me, and then back
in again.” With that he stresses, with a clarity unclouded by the 41
years that have passed, that they didn’t allow him to sleep because they
locked him in a cell next to a room for they police, who kept shouting.
He spent 11 days this way, later things calmed down because “that
wasn’t going anywhere.” Altogether, 23 days and nights in the police
station. There were worse cases: “I’ve known people who were in up to
51.”
Estomba was asked if he reported it:
“Report it? No. I left there as fast as I could and very pleased.” Now
he would like for there to be a Truth Commission and above all, “that
the Spanish state admits that it has always used torture and that it has
been a very efficient thing. As for the rest, I don’t want to be a
victim; I don’t want to ask for anything for me.”
Imanol OSTOLAZA (Spanish police, 1981)
The memories of Ostolaza are fainter and
at the same time more composed. They are inevitably mixed with those of
prison where he spent 18 years and where he extracted the worst
consequences of 10 days of isolation, first in the Civil Government in
Donostia and later in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid.
Given that, there are things that are
impossible to forget no matter how long you live. He was arrested in
January of 1981. With Ostaloza they pounded on his inferior extremities:
“I ended up with my feet swollen and with bruises from the punches.
Later I spent 10 days in Carabanchel without being able to walk. But
before that the medical examiner came and asked ‘Anything to say?’ We
didn’t even know if he was a medical examiner or a police officer, so I
only showed him my feet and he said: ‘That comes from wearing very tight
shoes, right?’”
Not everyone is the same, not everyone
suffers the impact of torture in the same way. Ostolaza mixes those days
of isolation with prison and with what happened on his release. From
his experience he concludes “if they see you are weak, they go after you
more.” He talks about the insistent telephone calls that he received
“20 or 30 in a row, without talking, only to cause psychological
pressure.” And he mentions another very relevant episode that happened
on his release. “I liked to go to the sea and walk around at night, from
Sagues to the Peine del Viento and back, maybe I was out about 3 hours.
Well, for days two or three people were following me all the time, just
a few metres behind. At the end of one of those days while returning to
Altza I decided to go through a passageway that didn’t have any lights.
It was my way of saying ‘if you want to do something to me, this is the
place’. From then on they went and never came back.” Ostaloza had won
the psychological battle.
Maialen ELDUA (Spanish police, 2009)
November 24th of 2009 was a brutal night
against pro-independence youth: 34 arrests. Eldua avoided talking about
the treatment she received at the police station but the psychological
consequences fill in this explainable void in her story: “In the ten
months that I spent in prison, we hardly spoke about torture, they were
very depressing times and I didn’t feel like it. I noticed the
consequences more when I was back on the streets. I had an enormous
tension, it seemed like everyone was following me or following someone.
Before entering my house I even looked under the rocks. I was totally
alert. Later, for a whole year, I was waking up at 10 till 2: which is
exactly the time that they came for me. Everyday at the same time, ten
minutes earlier or later. My body had developed a defence mechanism.”
But she overcame it, she added. Or,
better said, “You can never forget, but you learn to live with it.” To
talk about it in front of a camera was a key to this liberation.
Psychologists from Torturaren Aurkako Taldea talked to her about the
so-called Istanbul Protocol, a kind of guide to know if a person has
been tortured or not. She decided to record her testimony: “when they
mentioned it to me, I felt an incredible laziness, but in the end I did
it. There were three hours of crying, laughing… but in the end it was
very positive for me, it helped me a lot. I began to stop waking up
during the night. Obviously, the comfort hadn’t been Spanish justice. “I
reported it, yes, but a while ago I received a letter saying that it
had been filed away.”
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