Évole's ETA Interview Backfires as Ternera Rejects Reconciliation

Évole, Ternera and the Whitewash That Didn't Go As Planned

Can you sit down with a former ETA leader and leave without cleaning up his image? That is the question haunting Jordi Évole’s interview with Josu Ternera and, above all, the journalist’s subsequent explanations. Évole has stated that he expected to find a conciliatory interlocutor, but the result was quite the opposite. The most stinging remark was another: that he cannot judge him because he doesn’t know him personally. A man identified as a historical leader of the terrorist group, to whom, in this thread, the murder of seven children and other victims is attributed. That is where the friendly conversation ended.

What Is Criticized About Évole’s Interview

The dominant complaint is not that a former ETA leader is interviewed, but how it is done. Many replies point out that the format seeks human profile, explanation, nuance; in short, sympathy. It is argued that the interviewee never showed remorse and that the interviewer tried to turn him into a lamb. Évole’s confessed disappointment is read, from that perspective, as theater: a way to come out looking good after realizing the attempt wasn't working.

The argument that no one can judge someone they haven't met in person has an uncomfortable flip side. If that were the criterion, no court could convict anyone, because no judge shares a table with the accused. What is asked of the journalist, deep down, is the judgment he himself declines to make: an assessment of the interviewee that does not depend on personal sympathy.

The other reading points the finger at the journalist, not the terrorist. If someone has dedicated their entire life to a cause and hasn't apologized once, why would they appear conciliatory on a TV set? The initial flaw lies in the assignment itself: turning an interview into a reconciliation session that nobody requested. One comment sums it up sarcastically: the Cannes Film Festival will end up opening its edition with an interview with a convicted terrorist.

Two Interviews, Two Standards: From Ex-Nancy to Ex-ETA Member

The most repeated contrast is that of the documentary about a repentant ex-Nancy. There, the interviewee attacked his old ideology, and the product worked as a denunciation. With Ternera, the objective seems inverse: to show that everything has two sides, that we must listen, and that perhaps they weren't so bad. Two interviews and two different yardsticks for two people who, on paper, share a incivil past.

Some reverse the argument, pointing out that the ex-Nancy is the perfect puppet for something else: associating any dissent with the local lunatic. In other words, the problem wouldn't be the different standard, but the interested use of the interviewees. Under that logic, the character serves the script, and the script is almost never written by the character. The lingering question is who comes off worse in the two interviews: the one who fired or the one who held the microphone.

Miguel Ángel Blanco and the Day ETA Lost the Streets

The conversation goes back to the turning point. A direct witness recalls that the kidnapping and murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco changed the social climate: people took to the streets in the Basque Country and the rest of Spain, the group lost the support of non-politicized citizens, and some of its own began to feel antiestéticar. The same person recounts that, on the night of the outcome, a crowd tried to storm the headquarters of a formation linked to the environment on Urbieta Street in San Sebastián, which the Ertzaintza (Basque police) prevented.

The response to that evocation is brief and sharp: we refer to the facts; there are terrorists with parliamentary seats. The discussion is no longer historical; it is about what came after. Some argue that it was the beginning of the end for ETA; others, that it was the start of its institutional recycling. In between remains a generation that learned to look the other way.

From Herriko Tabernas to European Lists

Here politics enters. During the European election campaign, an event supporting the Ahora Repúblicas candidacy —EH Bildu, ERC, BNG, and other left-wing sovereignist formations— was announced for 19:30 at a Herriko Taberna, antiestéticaturing prominent names from Basque independence movements. For part of the conversation, this is proof that the gun was swapped for a seat without passing through shame. It is even recalled that the Basque Parliament appointed Ternera to chair its human rights commission, with votes attributed to HB and PNV in that legislature.

Not everyone sees it the same way. It is argued that identifying formations inheriting that environment with the terrorist group is a gross error: they are Basque independentist left, they know power isn't conquered with weapons, and that is why they have been playing the electoral game for years. On the table remains the other half of the issue: that the central government makes pacts with these groups is, for the most critical sector, the real problem, and the interview merely wraps it in gift paper. The matter also jumped to the pages of generalist headlines like El Mundo and ABC.

An Open Ending

What remains is an interview that, if it intended to bridge gaps, achieved the opposite: everyone returned to their trench with the usual arguments, and the victims are still cited from memory. The only conciliator in the whole affair was the script. And even that didn't survive the close-up.