Pradales: "We can't change history, but we can learn from the lessons it has left us."

"We cannot change history, but we must learn from the lessonsit leaves us. "This was the main message of the speech that lehendakari Imanol Pradales addressed to Basque society at the central event held in Donostia on the occasion of Memory Day.

Similar commemorative events have been held throughout the day in different parts of the Basque Country, such as San Sebastián, Bilbao and Vitoria, as well as in the Basque Parliament and various municipalities.

In addition to Pradales, the Counsellor for Justice and Human Rights of the Basque Government, María Jesús San José, and the director of the Institute for Memory, Coexistence and Human Rights, Gogora, Alberto Alonso, also participated in the event.

The President of the Basque Parliament, Bakartxo Tejeria, the Director-General of Human Rights and Democratic Culture of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, Aintzane Ezenarro, and the Mayor of San Sebastián, Jon Insausti, among others, have also attended together withrepresentatives of the PNV, PSE-EE, EH Bildu, PP and Elkarrekin.

In his speech, Pradales recalled two violent deaths in the Basque Country: the young Josu Zabala Erasun, who was shot dead in 1976 by the Civil Guard in Hondarribia (Gipuzkoa) during a demonstration on the occasion of the kidnapping of ETA member Eduardo Moreno Bergaretxe, Pertur , and the former leader of ETA Dolores González Katarain, Yoyes, murdered in 1986 in Ordizia.

"Two misfortunes, two families destroyed by the horror of violence and terrorism, violence and terrorism fuelled by intransigence, fanaticism and intolerance, which denied the different the right to think, to feel and to live in freedom, "said the Lehendakari, who urged Basque society to" learn from the lessons that history leaves us. "