The political crucis of being a victim of a great tragedy | Spain

Rosa Álvarez, neighbor of Catarrojawhose father He died on October 29and Rut Moyano, who still struggles to recover part of the lost when the water razed Benetússer, attended an act of « requirement of justice for the victims this Sunday. » But no, not for the victims of the Dana, the tragedy that hit them. The tribute, in Madrid and not in Valencia, was in memory of those killed in residences of seniors during the toughest phase of the pandemic while applied Some protocols that prevented hospitals from. But what do the victims of two disparate tragedies have to do? When listening to them carefully, more than it seems.

The main victims platforms of both catastrophe have established contact. The initiative started with those of the COVID. Hence an invitation to affected the Dana to go to the projection in Gandía (Valencia) of a Documentary about residencestitled 7,291 (in reference to the number of deaths in the residences of the elderly of Madrid), and now another to attend the tribute of this Sunday. “We offer support. We know they need it,” says María Jesús Valero, 70, president of the 7,291 association. « Was Feeling From the beginning, « says Rosa Álvarez, 54. Moyano, 52, reasons why the tune. » This Sunday has been exciting. Just looking at each other, we understood each other. We share the rage and outrage because we have suffered the same: negligent, irresponsible and superlexed administrations of the citizen, who see us as a hindrance in their attempt to hide the deficiencies of their management, ”he says, pointing to the governments of Carlos Mazón and Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

Beatriz Garrote (Torrent, Valencia, 53 years) understands that they do good crumbs. Sister of one of the 43 victims of the 2006 Valencia Metro accidentin his day he was related to relatives of deceased in the accidents of the YAK-42 (2003) and the ALVIA (2013). For months, he experiences a déjà vu Seeing their countrymen hit by the Dana demanding explanations, responsibilities, justice. « They are giving them, » she says, while remembering, « the same treatment as us. First, they say that the victims do not represent the general feeling, they silence them, avoid meeting with them or seek to do it individually. Then, they divert attention to the human factor. I remember that while eluding all responsibility, Francisco Camps said he took us ‘In the heart’. It was like a stab.  »

Dana: Make it heard

Following the efforts, frustrations and achievements of the organized victims of great tragedies in Spain is to watch different versions of the same film. Each case is different, but the essential coincides: the Crucis via. It is summarized by Granada Ripollés (Tetuán, 67 years old), former director of the Yak-42 Family Association: « Before a misfortune that could have been avoided, the victims are turned back. »

Mazón has not yet received at least three of the main associations of victims of a tragedy with 228 dead. The PP has accused them of being linked to the opposition. Vox has generalized that entities are not made up of « true affected. » Both parties came to exclude associations of the Investigation Commission, although now – when several have met with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and with Pedro Sánchez— They have rectified.

« They mistreat us because we are a mirror of their negligence, » says Rosa Álvarez, president of the Association of fatalities 29-O. Although it emphasizes that what you are looking for in a politician are « solutions » and not « comfort », admits that it is paradoxical to have found before « closeness » in von der read that in his Presidentwho, he says, only called her After your meeting from Sánchez: « And he was wrong. He called the vice president. And that my phone has everyone. »

Residences: five years waiting

« When I see the victims of the Dana, the empathy is total. Here we have been suffering contempt and lies for five years, » says María Jesús Valero, who in March 2020 lost his father in a residence in the Usera neighborhood, when some protocols worked – called

President of the Association 7,291, Valero gives his vision of what Ayuso feels before the organized victims: « We bother. » In the Assembly, the PP He has vetoed at least eight times investigating residences management. When the voice of the relatives has been heard, there has been conflict. A year ago, the president of the Social Affairs Commission, of the PP, urged a spokesman for the tide of residences to change the subject when he said that 7,291 people « died abandoned. »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qniryylbbj4

The main platforms have never met with Ayuso. In March, the president It has suddenly opened to the possibility. « I am waiting for them to come to see me, » he said. « After all the barbarities heard, a proposal like this is another lack of respect, » says Valero.

In 2022, the then vice president Enrique Ossorio said that the families had already « Overcome » your losses. « And what do you know, if you haven’t even given us psychological support? » Valero protests. In February of this year, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, Chief of Cabinet of Ayuso, He denied the status of victim to a person who was And he had told his story on television.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-lstepznbm

Ayuso has affirmed – without specifying who he was referring to – that in the « tide » of associations there are « bounced » of the PSOE and more Madrid.

Metro: Express Commission

Like the Dana victims platforms, those of relatives of deceased in residences trust their hopes for justice. « It is a slit to seek the truth, » says Valero about the imputation of former high positions of Ayuso. Escared by lustra of fighting, Beatriz Garrote, former president of the Association of Victims of the Valencia Metro 3J, advises patience. The sentence that condemned a year and ten months in jail Four former Railroad Directors of the Generalitat He arrived more than 13 years after the accident that took his sister and another 42 people. There were half a hundred injured. No one entered jail.

In the political field, the PP gave a quick folder to the subject: a commission of Research in the summer 2006 He blamed the machinist, who died in the accident. Years later, in 2012, a lawsuit surrounded that there were sobering appeals not to get out of the official script. Camps has always denied having given No « slogan ». « No one resigned, nobody assumed responsibilities, nobody listened to us, » says Garrote, who recalls that he was not received by Camps as representative of the victims.

Silenced in channel 9relatives kept alive for years the memory of their cause with weekly concentrations. « It is perverse that the victims, in full duel, are forced to organize and fight. Victims associations should not exist, because their rights should be guaranteed! » He laments.

When the public interest languished, a Saved He revived it in 2013. In the program Juan Cotino appearedthat he had been an agriculture advisor, refusing to respond to the accusations of offer work to a victim in exchange for not denouncing. Two years later, the exit of the power of the PP allowed to open an investigation commission. Result? 13 Responsible, including Camps, who today tries to return to the first line.

Alvia: without self -criticism

« Avoidable tragedies do not translate into political responsibilities because there is not enough social pressure. So the politician prefers to endure and wait for people to get tired, aware that the sentence will take years and years, » summarizes Jesús Domínguez (Madrid, 53 years), president of the victims victims Alvia 04155, which survived the 2013 accident in Santiago de Compostela. There were 79 dead and about 150 injured. His case has been compared to that of Valencia: a machinist indicated as guilty, zero resignations … Domínguez precise: « Not only are the subway and ours. The pattern is the same again and again: to deny responsibility, ignore the victims and wait for public opinion to forget. »

In the case of Alvia, he adds, the difficulty is even greater because the victims pointed to responsibilities of PSOE and PP governments. So, analyze, both games put deaf to the case. « It has been good for them, » says Domínguez, who sees « scandalous » that the sentence of 2024, who condemns the machinist but also at a position of Adif (Railway Infrastructure Administrator, a public entity under the Ministry of Transportation) for security failures, « has not motivated any reaction. » « Not a self -criticism, nothing. We are talking about Adif, where we all travel! » Dominguez is amazed, attentive to the final resolution of a case that is still judicially alive.

YAK-42: « Reason » without « Justice »

« We are right, but we have not had justice, » says Granada Ripollés, sister of one of the 62 military dead in 2003 in the accident of the Yak-42 plane in Türkiye. The « reason » was given, he says, the Opinion of the 2017 State Council who declared the Ministry of Defense responsible, after which He resigned as ambassador to London The one who was minister when the tragedy occurred, Federico Trillo, who has always denied All responsibility.

Regarding the « justice », Ripollés states that he is still pending because all irregularities have not been clarified judicially in the hiring of a plane without security guarantees or in the burial of the bodies without due identification.

« They did nothing but lie to us »Ripollés adds, who is proud of not having fulfilled what – he says, was the script that the government of José María Aznar had for family members. « They wanted us to go home to cry the penalty with our pain and our flag. Without asking. But we organized, » says Ripollés, who was secretary of the Family Association.

The National Court condemned sentences between a year and a half and three years in prison to three controls for the irregularities in the identifications, in a sentence confirmed by the Supreme. After the only general convicted general, the two commanders were partially pardoned in 2012 by the government of Mariano Rajoy to avoid its expulsion from the Armed Forces. « There were no political responsibilities. And there were guilty, yes, but as if there had been, » Ripollés closes.