2007/V/28 Eva and Juanra, two political and moral referents
Towards Independence and Socialism
EUSKAL HERRIA, STEP BY STEP
ASKAPENA's Informative Service, n. 180
We are writing these lines before knowing the elections results, during a week marked by this imminent competition. Once the outrage carried out, this last week has been the one of the ideological bombing against the citizens who are sympathetic with the Basque left: as long as their lists of candidates have been declared illegal, the must support the vote "useful"...This is a difficult choice: to vote for a list that has been declared illegal, or to support some parties that offer usefulness to this vote. In other words, to support the ones that have surrendered and to turn their backs to the ones who have been coherent.
While many people are torn among these doubts, two luminaries have shined in the middle of the Basque Country's universe strongly irradiating a light that we need so much: Eva y Juanra. Two political and moral referents to whom we dedicate these lines with deep emotion and acknowledgement. On May 19 Eva Forest left us in the middle of vast amount of admiration and sorrow. Rest in peace. Juanra has recover his freedom after some years in prison. Congratulations and welcome. Two different lives with common elements. Two Catalonian people for whom the Basque Country wants to profess a public acknowledgement full of gratitude.
Juan Ramón Rodríguez, "Juanra", former Catalonian political prisoner
Born in Barcelona, he was engaged to the social movements and also sang in the rock music group Kop. Arrested in Amsterdam in 2002, he was charged with collaboration with ETA. Since then he has been in different prisons, the last one Zuera (Zaragoza) prison. He belonged to the Basque Political Prisoner Group.
He has just leave the prison and he has receive in Catalonia the warm welcome that deserve the honest fighters. In the moment he leave the prison, he has a thought for the companions of the Group who are still inside the prisons. He admits that these years in prison have also been a beautiful experience, although they were very hard. He has no regrets, quite the opposite, he thinks that fighting for the freedom of the Basque Country has enrich him, and that experience has given a sense to his life and has marked him for the future. He understands the solidarity as a mutual and bi-directional support. After five years of meditation his plans for the future are very clear: keep on fighting for the freedom of the peoples.
Eva Forest
Also born in Barcelona (1928) in an anarchist family. She moved to Madrid to study medicine and then she became interested in sociology. In the fifties she took part in the Gambrinus Free University that awoke a deep awareness that later became the political commitment that she has undertaken during all her life.
In 1955 she married Alfonso Sastre, brilliant and committed writer who was also indicted by Franco's court. In 1962 Eva was arrested by the same dictatorial police after a women demonstration in support of the miners in Asturias. As a result, she spent a month in prison.
In 1966 she went for the first time to Cuba, a way to start the trilling path of Solidarity. In 1967 she founded a Vietnam Solidarity Group, based in Madrid. Later, when the Spanish government was obsessed with the idea of ending the Basque people fight, she also founded the Euskadi Solidarity Group, also based in Madrid, a very risky commitment in these years. The Franco regime closely followed her activities, and on September 1974 she was being held on charges of collaboration with ETA. She was in prison for three years. During these years she wrote "Letters from Prison" and "Testimonies of Fight and Resistance". Once free, the family moved to the Basque Country in 1977, where they keep on fighting for the rights of this people. In 1979 she was one of the founders of TAT, a group against torture, a practice pitifully usual against the Basque activists: she listened the ones who have suffered it, she helped them to put words to this trauma, she collected their testimonies, she tirelessly worked to spread the information about it.
Her fight for the Basque Liberation fight led her to another liberation and anti-imperialist fights. In 1998 she traveled for the fist time to Iraq, where later she came back three more times. She wrote a book about her experience and kept on fighting against the Imperialist aggression against Iraq. She took part in the European Social Forum in Florence, in the Cuba Conference against Imperialism, in the Caracas World Meeting for the Humanity, in the Benito Juarez International Tribunal in Mexico... And at the same time, she were running the very committed publishing house "Hiru", she took care of her family, and kept on writing in the defense of the oppressed peoples.
Contribution of two exemplary activists
Two persons born in different times, and in the same city, two persons very needed in this time so hard for activists. Two persons who have their eyes wide open in front of the reality of the oppression, working to denounce the ones who cause it; two people who feel deep inside the sufferings of other people and who work hard to find solutions. Two activists for lost causes, the ones worth fighting for. Artists with words, using songs as a tool to fight. Fulltime fighters, every day fighters for the oppressed, for whom they feel a committed love. Two persons with strong revolutionary ideas, who have suffered themselves oppression.
As revolutionaries of the World, we applaud their fight, and we transfer their comforting testimony to the people who are fighting for the same aims. As citizens belonging to the Basque Left, we want to express our deep gratitude. When showing disdain towards us has become usual, and crushing us has become an habit, Eva y Juanra stand by us. And doing so, they strengthen the cause we are fighting for. As members of the Internationalist organism Askapena, we emphasize their outstanding anti-imperialist commitment and their sensibility towards solidarity. As he friend Manolo said during Eva's tribute in Hendaia, when somebody asked Eva "How can you be an internationalist and be at those nationalist side?", she answered, "How can you be an internationalist and not be committed with your people's culture and land, and fight for it? To be an internationalist is to be with the peoples who are fighting against imperialism". Manolo added that there are leftist persons who understand and agree with the right of the peoples to decide and to organize themselves, but always from the distance. He ended saying: "They were 300 kilometers away from Madrid, but they did not want to see them!". But some of us did understand once, and it was forever!!
Eva will always live in our memory reviving our socialist Utopia and encouraging our anti-imperialism. We will keep on sharing with Juanrra the same commitment to the freedom of the peoples. Our deep gratitude toward both of them.
