FUNDACIÓN VÍCTIMAS DEL TERRORISMO 95 - ENGLISH

43 ASSOCIATIONS AND FOUNDATIONS Saenz, Mikel San Argimiro, and Xabier Atristain; the handover, in Bilbao, of the baton to SARE spokesperson Bego Atxa and to the son of deceased ETA member Kepa del Hoyo; the use, in Pamplona, of a child carrying the le- kuko while wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of ETA member Patxi Ruiz, murderer of Tomás Caballero; and the reading of the final "Korrika" message by Aitzol Gil de San Vicente Pla, son of former ETA leader David Pla. Both the Fernando Buesa Blanco Foun- dation and COVITE considered mora- lly unacceptable the symbolic instru- mentalization of the children of ETA members to convey the messages of the organization behind the "Korrika" and to carry the race baton. No child is responsible for the crimes of a parent, but turning that circumstance into an element of propaganda within the "Ko- rrika" is unworthy and immoral, and represents a new form of whitewashing terrorism and humiliating its victims. In the reading of the final "Korrika" message, AEK said of David Pla's son that he "lived until the age of seven" in San Sebastián and then "arrived in Iparralde as a consequence of the po- litical conflict and was a child with a backpack," as the children of ETA pri- soners under the dispersal policy are known. This clearly aligns with the whitewashing narrative about terro- rism promoted by the abertzale left. For the signatory organizations, these events are neither isolated nor inevitable. Quite the contrary: they are possible because the organizing entity, AEK, tolerates them. The excuse that "not everything can be controlled" was de- finitively discredited in this edition. AEK has shown that it can intervene and set limits when it wants to. It did so by excluding Comisiones Obreras from the "Korrika," in a veto that the Fernando Buesa Blanco Foundation and COVITE describe as "sectarian and unjustifiable." It is therefore clear that if AEK does not prevent the dis- play of images of ETA members, the handover of the baton to former mem- bers of the group, or the spread of slo- gans supporting ETA prisoners, it is not because it cannot, but because it does not want to. The signatory organizations also reca- lled that the "Korrika" is not a public initiative but a private initiative or- ganized by AEK, which nevertheless continues to receive economic, insti- tutional, and political support from numerous public administrations. They therefore consider it unacceptable that institutions continue subsidizing, sponsoring, or buying kilometers of an initiative in which, edition after edi- tion, the glorification of ETA terrorism through its former members is permi- tted. "Condemning these events is no longer enough. We must move from words to action. Every public institu- tion that continues funding the 'Korri- ka' despite everything that happens in it is helping legitimize this moral per- version," the organizations denounce. For this reason, the Fernando Buesa Blanco Foundation and COVITE con- cluded their statement by calling on the Basque Government, the provincial councils, the Basque Parliament, the Government of Navarre, the Parliament of Navarre, city councils, and all other public entities to suspend any form of economic cooperation with the "Ko- rrika" until AEK clearly and publicly condemns all acts of support for ETA members carried out within the event and adopts concrete and effective me- asures to prevent them from recurring. The signatory organizations stressed that their complaint is not directed against those who participate in the "Korrika" in good faith in defense of Basque, but against those who instru- mentalize the race to glorify ETA mem- bers and against the organization that allows it. Mixing the legitimate defen- se of a language with support for tho- se who committed murders and other terrorist crimes is indecent, immoral, and profoundly offensive to victims of terrorism and to any democratic society.