FUNDACIÓN VÍCTIMAS DEL TERRORISMO 93 - ENGLISH

40 ASSOCIATIONS AND FOUNDATIONS CANARY ISLANDS ASSOCIATION OF VICTIMS OF TERRORISM T he families of the 281 victims of the Polisario Front attacks are saddened by the 50th anniversary necessary for Spain's departure from the former Spanish province of the Sahara . They feel like "the big losers" in a story in which, in their opinion, "all sides of the truth" have not been told. Most of these victims were Canarian sailors from fish- ing boats that were machine-gunned by the Polisario Front and who were killed, wounded, kidnapped or disappeared in the attacks that took place until 1986 on land and in the waters of the Sahara and surrounding areas. The president of the Canary Islands Association of Victims of Terrorism (Acavite) is Lucía Jiménez, daughter of one of those people: her father was seri- ously injured and died as a result of an attack carried out in January 1976 at the Fos Bucraa phosphate mines. Jiménez emphasises that she speaks on behalf of a group of families who have never received adequate recognition, despite having been hit by "attacks against defenceless civil- ians", crimes against humanity that are not subject to a statute of limitations, she warns, but which have hardly been inves- tigated. Gargomar, Cruz del Mar, Sarita, Las Palo- mas, Mencey de Abona and Junquito are the names of some of the fishing boats caught up in these attacks explains Lucía THE WOUND STILL OPEN OF THE 281 VICTIMS OF TERRORISM BY THE POLISARIO FRONT Lucía Jiménez: "The big losers in the Sahara were the 300 Canarian victims of terrorism perpetrated by the Polisario Front over the last 50 years. And that must be redressed now" Jiménez, who recalls that the kidnapping of the last of them in 1986 led to the ex- pulsion from Spain of the Polisario Front leadership, who were living in Madrid , after the death of two soldiers from the patrol boat Tagomago, which had come to their rescue. On board the machine-gunned ships were not only sailors from the Canary Islands, but also from Andalusia, Galicia and Por- tugal, she points out. Since its creation in 2006, the Canary Islands Association of Victims of Terrorism has worked to raise awareness and dignify the memo- ry of all these people. However, despite its efforts, the recognition obtained has been "insufficient" on many occasions. In 2012, Acavite filed a complaint with the National Court against leading figures of the Polisario Front, which it attempted to reactivate in 2021 when its leader, Bra- him Ghali, was hospitalised in La Rioja for treatment of a COVID-19 infection. Lucía Jiménez has devoted her entire life to honouring the promise she made to her father. Her doctoral thesis, presented in 2021 at Carlos III University in Madrid, is one of the most comprehensive docu- ments in existence on this chapter of the Spanish Transition , a piece of research that seeks to contribute to the recognition, restitution and reparation of the damage caused by the Polisario Front. NO LAW FOR VICTIMS OF TERRORISM IN THE CANARY ISLANDS "Without getting into the territorial di- lemma of the Sahara, the big losers of these 50 years are the Canarian victims of terrorism , hence the bittersweet and sad feeling we have on this anniversary. It is the victims who were murdered, merci- lessly machine-gunned," he stresses. Despite multiple attempts to pass a law on victims of terrorism in the Canary Islands , the islands remain one of the few autonomous communities in Spain that lack such legislation, along with Galicia and Catalonia. Jiménez considers it "in- conceivable and indecent" that no presi- dent of the Canary Islands has yet taken the step of promoting this law and argues that the failure to pass it reflects "a lack of respect and institutional empathy " to- wards the victims and their families . The Canary Islands have always been one of the Spanish territories with the closest ties to the Sahara. Not only are they the closest to the former Spanish colony (100 kilometres from Fuerteventura), but the islands are also home to a large Sahrawi community and their institutions fre- quently welcome political representatives from the Polisario Front. Lucía Jiménez acknowledges that the members of her association are hurt by TEXT: EL DÍA/ EFE/ ACAVITE.