On the morning of November 21, 2000, the socialist mayor of San Sebastián, Odón Elorza, was attending a conference on peace education in Lisbon and telephoned Ernest Lluch, who was in Barcelona, to discuss transferable pacifist initiatives in the Basque capital at an upcoming meeting. At night, Elorza recalls, they told him that ETA had assassinated, between 1982 and 1986, Ernest Lluch, the socialist Minister of Health, who was very popular for the universalisation of Spanish healthcare. This shocked him as much as everyone else, but since he knew Lluch well it didn’t surprise him.
Lluch alternated his work as professor of economic history at the University of Barcelona with long stays in San Sebastián – where he bought a house – since he ceased his role as rector of the Menéndez Pelayo University of Santander in 1995. “His mother, whom he adored, told him that San Sebastián was beautiful and being rector of Santander, given its proximity, he visited it often, ending up settling. For me father was a refuge, an ideal place to study and research in their libraries”, recalls his daughter Rosa.
Lluch had university connections, but immediately became involved in Basque social and political life. Imprisoned by the Franco regime, a PSC activist, he linked himself to the mayor of San Sebastián, the socialist Odón Elorza, and agreed to serve, free of charge, as a luxury municipal councilor. They became friends. They rode bicycles, went to Anoeta to watch Real Sociedad matches, of which Lluch became a member, making his priority clear culé.
He frequented the legendary Lagun bookshop, where he chatted with anti-Franco veterans such as María Teresa Castells, Raúl Guerra Garrido, José Ramón Recalde -whom ETA would later attack, two months before Lluch’s assassination-, José Luis López de Lacalle -whom ETA members then killed, six months before Lluch – as well as Javier Elzo and Mari Carmen Garmendia, from the environment nationalist. “He was curious about everything. He knew everything. He was passionate about history. He would have been a perfect observer of the Basques,” says Ignacio Latierro, a partner in the San Sebastian bookshop.
His main interlocutors at the University of the Basque Country were Jesús Astigarraga and Jon Arrieta. Arrieta was a professor of legal history and an expert in historical rights. Both involved Lluch and the constitutional rapporteur, the conservative Miguel Herrero de Miñón, in the summer courses of 1997 and 1998. “Lluch was passionate about researching territorial coexistence projects,” recalls Elorza.
He had deep federalist and Catalan roots, in the words of his daughter Rosa. “It was clear that in Euskadi the priority was to end the violence. He wanted to incorporate the PNV into the constitutional framework, of which he had a very open vision. It was unorthodox,” recalls Elorza. At that time, the ruler of Lehendakari Juan José Ibarretxe established the guidelines of the PNV and faced the president of the government, José María Aznar, while the socialists were in opposition.
Lluch became involved in Basque politics at his own peril. He joined Elkarri, a nationalist-inspired dialogue platform that made it easier for him to connect with moderate leaders of the nationalism. In September 1999, during the ETA truce on the Lizarra Pact, he published a very controversial text in EL PAÍS with Herrero de Miñón. The dialogue process was blocked and to relaunch it they asked the Aznar government to complete the transfer of ETA prisoners to Euskadi; They invoked point 10 of the Ajuria Enea Pact so that the Government and ETA, on the one hand, and the parties, on the other, relaunched the dialogue on legal and concrete formulas to integrate nationalism into the Constitution.
Their initiative was unsuccessful as ETA broke the truce a few weeks later. But Lluch has increased his visibility. In April he emerged from anonymity by participating in a demonstration in support of Elorza for mayor of San Sebastian in the 1999 municipal elections. Held in the heart of the Old City, the radical abertzale They interpreted it as an intrusion into their territory, explains Elorza, and responded to our interventions with shouts. When Lluch spoke, they intensified. He raised his voice and said: “You don’t know that democracy has arrived in this country. Scream, yes, because while you scream, you don’t kill.” His speech received wide coverage in the media.
The breakdown of the ETA truce and the repetition of assassinations of relevant figures in 2000 —Fernando Buesa, in February; López de Lacalle, in May; Juan María Jáuregui alerted Lluch in July. “He had lost his anonymity and felt uncomfortable in San Sebastián. But he hesitated. Disappearing meant surrendering and, moreover, he felt uncomfortable while ETA killed some of his Basque friends and the survivors remained,” says Rosa Lluch.
In August 2000, like every year, he participated in the San Sebastian Musical Fortnight. Latierro remembers him as very worried. On August 14, Lluch had dinner with Elorza at the home of a San Sebastián city councilor and they saw smoke rising from two car fires on the street. cabbage borroka. Elorza remembers him being very worried and ordering his bodyguards to accompany him to his house.
Three weeks earlier, on 22 July, he had participated in the election of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as general secretary of the PSOE in Madrid. He did it because, in addition to being attracted by his project, he had the support of Jordi Sevilla, his student and collaborator at the Faculty of Economics of Valencia. He returned to Madrid on October 9, where he introduced himself The possible Basque nation, book by former Peneuvista spokesperson of the Basque government Joseba Arregi. During the presentation they were told that ETA had assassinated the chief prosecutor of the Superior Court of Andalusia, Luis Portero. An upset Arregi said: “ETA will end up killing the PNV.” Lluch replied: “ETA wants to replace PNV.”
On the 14th he went to San Sebastián and attended the Real Sociedad-Barcelona match. A week later, ETA killed him in the Catalan capital. The outrage resulted in a massive demonstration in Barcelona with a clamor for dialogue that forced President Aznar and the PSOE general secretary, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to reopen talks which, which began months ago in response to ETA’s strategy of socializing suffering, had stalled.
Fifteen days later they signed the Pact for Freedoms, the update of the Ajuria Enea Pact, which politically surrounded ETA and its surroundings and accelerated its demise with police action, social mobilization and the process of dialogue between the government and ETA which, before the end of the decade, confronted the left. abertzale with the terrorist organization.
In its unusual statement for its duration, in which it called for the murder of Lluch, ETA made it clear that it was a target for its role in the dialogue with nationalism. ETA wanted to destroy the bridges built by Lluch because it feared that the socialists would drag the PNV into collaborating with the democratic bloc against it. Lluch’s dream came true a few years later. But even more so, the left itself abertzale Cornered, he forced a much weakened ETA to cease terrorism in 2011. “My father would be happy in Euskadi today,” says his daughter Rosa.
