EH Bildu has claimed in Gernika (Vizcaya) that all military operations in Gaza be stopped and has “strongly rejected” the “premeditated attacks against the civilian population, whether Israeli or Palestinian.”
EH Bildu presented on Wednesday a manifesto on the war between Israel y Hamaswith the presence of the general coordinator, Arnaldo Otegi, the parliamentary spokespersons (from Juntas, to parliaments or Congress) and several mayors, including the councilor of Bermeo, Nadia Nemehof Palestinian descent.
In the text read by Otegi, EH Bildu shows its “utmost concern” for the “scenario of unacceptable violence” in the Gaza Strip, “with the example of the latest bombing of a hospital by Israel.”
Otegi, as he has been publishing in recent days THE WORLDkidnapped the director of the Michelin company in Vitoria on February 19, 1979, Luis Abaitua Palacios. He would hold him hostage for ten days in a “people’s prison” that he had dug out of a mountain of Elgóibar (Guipúzcoa), his hometown. It was a room 2.5 meters long by 1.5 wide and 1.8 high, similar to the cellar of José Antonio Ortega Larawhich until then had only been used as a weapons warehouse.
It is the only kidnapping for which Otegi was convicted, despite the fact that ETA members implicate him in nine kidnappings and one murder. In 1989, the National Court sentenced him to six years in prison for the crime of illegal detention, and to pay compensation “for physical and moral damages” to Luis Abaitua jointly with the other convicted person –Luis María Alcorta– worth 100,000 pesetas, which he did not pay when he declared himself insolvent.