The fleeting and clandestine return of another president half a century before Puigdemont

BarcelonaThe fleeting return of Carles Puigdemont on August 8 of last year had already been made by another president. On April 14, 1974, Easter Sunday, Basque President Jesús María de Leizaola made a clandestine visit to Gernika on the day of Aberri Eguna to demonstrate the capacity for action of the Basque institutions in exile. With Franco dying, Basque nationalists wanted to make a statement by bringing the Basque president to the Casa de Juntas on Basque Homeland Day. This is home to the Guernica Tree, a symbol of Basque freedoms, and is where the President was sworn in.

Leizaola had been the Minister of Justice for the government in exile until he replaced José Antonio Aguirre as president when the latter died suddenly in 1960. From then on, he was responsible for keeping the flame of the Basque government in exile alive and denouncing the Franco dictatorship. After 37 years in exile, at the age of 82, Leizaola was no longer afraid. He was, in fact, the last member of the executive to leave the Basque capital before Franco's occupation in June 1937, in the midst of the Civil War.

But how did this fleeting return come about? ARA has reconstructed the story in conversation with the president of the Delegate Council of the Basque Resistance in the Interior, Fede Bergaretxe, who was the one who led Leizaola to Gernika after crossing the border. The proposal was made to him at the end of January 1974 by the president of the Euzkadi Buru Batzar (EBB) of the PNV (Basque Nationalist Party) and advisor to the Basque government in exile, Mikel Isasi, who had previously passed it on to Iñaki Durañona, also from the PNV leadership: "I told him it was nonsense for the Civil Guard to deploy him every day; Carrero Blanco and they arrested all the young people." He was even more surprised when Isasi told him that the Lehendakari knew nothing. "Don't worry; if you say yes, he won't think about it," he told Bergaretxe.

When he proposed it to the inner core of the PNV, everyone screamed and only one didn't turn up his nose. It was the party's future president, Xabier Arzalluz. "He helped convince the rest," Bergaretxe emphasized, adding that the next day they already got to work on the operation led by Juan de Ajuriaguerra, the PNV's inner president. Leizaola would say yes on just one condition: "At my age, I'm not up for walking four kilometers through the mountains," he told Isasi. "Don't worry, we'll go by car," he replied. "So, go ahead," he replied without asking any further questions.

On the eve of Aberri Eguna, Leizaola set off from the North of Euskadi towards Bilbao in a vehicle with French registration plates with three former members of the Basque army, popularly known as gudarisThe Lehendakari had the documentation of a Hendaye customs agent who had died a few months earlier and who had family ties to a PNV official. After an initial failed attempt to cross the border in Irún via Behobia, they finally crossed via Bera and ended up safely in the capital of Biscay. Bergaretxe and his wife were waiting for them there with the car that the Lehendakari would use the following day to travel to Gernika. Leizaola spent the night in Algorta, at the summer house of Sabin Zubiri, another member of the PNV leadership, where two journalists from the PNV were waiting for him.BBC and of Le Monde who had been summoned so that their clandestine visit would have international echo.

Photograph on the Guernica Tree

The next day, Leizaola headed to the Guernica Assembly House, where around fifty militants had been summoned, unaware that the Lehendakari would be there. After bribing the security guard to open the premises, using the excuse that someone who had lived outside for some time could see the tree, Leizaola was able to be photographed next to the oak tree in an image that would go around the world. "He didn't want to leave," explains Bergaretxe, who says she reluctantly got him into the car.

Bergaretxe then drove him to Autzagana, where the three soldiers were waiting for him. gudaris to cross the border again, this time through Behobia, and arrive safely at San Juan Lohitzune. Already in the town of Euskadi Nord, Leizaola was taken to the Jai Alai pelota court, where a celebratory luncheon for Aberri Eguna was held to celebrate his feat. As soon as he disembarked, Leizaola uttered a phrase that would become famous: "I come from Gernika!" Five years later, Leizaola would return to the Basque Country, and thousands of people would pay tribute to him at San Mamés. He would die on March 16, 1989, at the age of 92, fifteen years after that feat.