The infamous reasons why some people hate to hear about Miguel Ángel Blanco

On July 1, 1997, millions of Spaniards witnessed the release of José Antonio Ortega Lara after a kidnapping of 532 days.

After announcing its support for Sánchez, Bildu votes against a tribute to Miguel Ángel Blanco
The favors to ETA for which Pedro Sánchez does not want anyone to talk about those terrorists

A monstrous blackmail and the crime it led to

That was the longest kidnapping carried out by the terrorist group ETA. The release of Ortega Lara was a moment of relief that didn't last long. Nine days later, on Thursday, July 10, ETA kidnapped Miguel Ángel Blanco Garrido, a Popular Party councilman in Ermua (Biscay). After the defeat that Ortega Lara's release represented for this criminal group, ETA attempted to bring all of Spain to its knees with a monstrous act of blackmail: it issued a statement claiming that if ETA prisoners were not transferred to prisons in the Basque Country before 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 12, 1997, the terrorist group would assassinate the councilman.

The government of José María Aznar fulfilled its duty and did not yield to ETA's blackmail. True to its macabre threat, ETA assassinated Miguel Ángel Blanco with two shots to the head that Saturday afternoon. Unlike other ETA assassinations, this was a crime announced in advance, with millions of Spaniards anxiously awaiting what would happen. The outrage provoked by this murder led to an unprecedented citizen mobilization, with attacks on the headquarters of Herri Batasuna, ETA's political wing, in various locations.

Basque separatism, the tree and the nuts

I still remember exactly where I was when I heard the news of Miguel Ángel Blanco's murder. I was out hiking with my family in the village of Prado, in Gondomar, near Mount Aloya, in a meadow by a bend in the road. I'll never forget that day. Today many young Spaniards don't even know who Miguel Ángel Blanco is, whose murder 29 years ago became proof of the inhumanity not only of his killers and their sympathizers, but also of a separatism that claimed to condemn ETA but was dedicated to trying to politically exploit its crimes: "I don't know of any people that has achieved its liberation without some driving and others arguing; some shaking the tree, but without breaking it so that the nuts fall, and others gathering them to distribute them", said Xabier Arzalluz, leader of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), in April 1990 referring to the coincidence of objectives between his party and ETA.

Thus, it is now normal for Basque separatism to view with disdain any memory of Miguel Ángel Blanco: he was murdered by its terrorists, by those criminals who shook the tree so they could gather the nuts. To clearly demonstrate how little affected they were by this abominable crime, a year later Basque separatism signed the Estella Pact with ETA's political wing, Herri Batasuna, an attempt to end the so-called "Spirit of Ermua," which arose after the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco and led to a significant increase in mobilizations against ETA and a resounding rejection of any negotiation or concessions to those murderers.

Sánchez's pacts with Bildu and his favors to ETA

Today, the memory of the PP councilman in Ermua not only provokes negative reactions among separatists. A considerable part of the left no longer hides its disdain for Miguel Ángel Blanco, because his assassination is a reminder of the cruelty of ETA and its political wing. Three years ago, in May 2023, during a speech in the Senate, Pedro Sánchez stated without any embarrassment: "ETA ceased to exist, except for the People's Party and Vox". The Socialist leader and current president of the Spanish government was responding to criticism from the PP and Vox regarding Sánchez's favors to ETA and his pacts with Bildu, the current electoral brand of the terrorist group, a party with which Sánchez had said he would not form a pact. Sánchez's pacts with the sympathizers of that criminal gang have involved things like the government's refusal to act against tributes to ETA murderers and the PSOE's rejection in the EU of investigating unsolved ETA crimes.

Thus, today we have a left that frequently invokes "historical memory," but only to talk about Francoism and the crimes of one side in the Spanish Civil War (the crimes of the other side, perpetrated by the left, are not considered relevant to remember). This same left gets angry if ETA and its crimes are mentioned because it has decided to govern with the support of ETA's political wing, a party of extremists that, after announcing its support for Sánchez's reelection in 2023, voted against a tribute to Miguel Ángel Blanco in the Parliament of Navarre, blocking an institutional declaration in memory of the murdered councilman. Today they are bothered by Miguel Ángel Blanco simply because they have allied themselves with his murderers.