The massacre of children by ETA in Vich: this is the savagery that some have forgotten

On this day three decades ago, just after seven in the evening, the terrorist group ETA carried out one of its most savage attacks in Vich (Barcelona).

A car bomb containing 216 kilos of ammonal was used to cause a massacre of children.

Taking advantage of the fact that the gate to the compound was open, two members of that criminal gang, Juan José Zubieta Zubeldia and Joan Carles Monteagudo i Povo (the latter a former member of the Catalan terrorist gang Terra Lliure) introduced a car bomb loaded with 216 kilograms of ammonal into the courtyard of the Civil Guard Barracks in that Catalan town, at a time when most of the Civil Guards were out covering a sporting event. The two terrorists could see women and children playing in that courtyard, but the ETA murderers didn't care.

The explosion caused 9 deaths and 44 injured and mutilated.

The terrorists detonated the vehicle remotely. All three floors of the barracks collapsed as a result of the explosion, burying those in the courtyard and inside the building under the rubble. The explosion caused 44 injuries and maiming and nine deaths, including four children. These were the dead:

• María Pilar Quesada Araque, 8 years old, student.
• Ana Cristina Porras López, 10 years old, student.
• Vanesa Ruiz Lara, 11 years old, student.
• María Cristina Rosa Muñoz, 14 years old, student.
• Francisco Cipriano Díaz Sánchez, 17 years old, student.
• Nuria Ribó Parera, 26 years old, housewife and wife of Juan Chincoa.
• Juan Chincoa Alés, 30 years old, civil guard.
• Juan Salas Píriz, 48 years old, Civil Guard and father of two children.
• Maudilia Duque Durán, 78 years old, widow, retired, and mother-in-law of Juan Salas. Her daughter, Manuela Morgado, was injured in the attack..

In addition, Civil Guard officer Ramón Mayo García, 55, died after being accidentally run over by an ambulance while helping with the rescue efforts from the rubble. He is also considered a victim of the attack.

Images of the attack, especially that of a Civil Guard carrying one of the injured girls in his arms, shocked Spain and were broadcast around the world. Pope John Paul II sent a telegram, read by the Bishop of Vich at the funeral two days after the attack, expressing his condolences to the families and his "strong condemnation of this terrorist act that offends the feelings of the Spanish people".

One terrorist was arrested and two others were killed.

Following the attack, the Civil Guard launched an operation to find the perpetrators. They located them in a chalet in Llissá de Munt (Barcelona). On May 31, at the same time the funeral for the victims of the attack was being held, the Civil Guard arrested the terrorists, who opened fire on the officers. ETA members Jon Félix Erezuma and Joan Carles Monteagudo were killed in the shootout. Juan José Zubieta was arrested. At the trial, when asked if they had seen the children playing in the courtyard, he coldly replied: "That is a fact we do not value because it is not our problem that the Civil Guards use children as human shields."

The only person arrested was released in 2013 after 22 years in prison.

Zubieta was sentenced to 1,311 years in prison for 9 completed murders and 44 attempted murders. He only spent 22 years in prison. He was released on November 20, 2013, as a result of the repeal of the Parot doctrine, sought by the government of Socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who did not lift a finger to defend it before the Strasbourg Court, following the well-known negotiation process with ETA that took place during his term. A total of 120 dangerous criminals benefited from this negligence, including dozens of ETA murderers. The PSOE rushed Rajoy's government to release the latter. Was this part of the pact between the PSOE and ETA?

A tiny plaque was placed at the site 18 years later

In short: thirty years after that savage attack, there is not a single terrorist in prison for it. In Vich, it took 18 years to put up a simple plaque in memory of the victims, perhaps because it is a bastion of Catalan separatism, the same one that is now applauding the ETA member Otegui. What remained of the old Barracks was demolished, and for years the site was abandoned, later becoming a parking lot. A library is now being built on that site, in whose courtyard a tree will be planted for each person killed, with the names of each of the fatalities written on the steps, according to today's El Mundo.

Forgetfulness and its outrageous consequences

Three decades after that attack, it is sad to see the neglect to which ETA's victims are subjected, a neglect that stands in scandalous contrast to the civil war-mongering of the ruling left. The result of this neglect is an outrageous event that occurred in November of last year: for the first time, a Spanish government sealed its budget with the political heirs of ETA, with a group of miserable totalitarians who to this day continue to refuse to condemn the atrocities committed by that band of murderers, including that attack in which ETA murdered nine people, including four children and a teenager. This should be a source of shame for all Spaniards.

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Main photo: Efe / Lluis Gené. A Civil Guard member carrying his daughter, wounded in the ETA attack on the Vich Barracks on May 29, 1991.