Dolores González Catarain

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María Dolores González Catarain , called Yoyes (born May 14, 1954 in Ordizia , † September 10, 1986 in Ordizia ) was a leading figure of the Basque underground organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), who was murdered as a "traitor" after leaving.

Life

María Dolores González Catarain grew up as the second of nine children in a village in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa during the Franco dictatorship . Her grandfather owned a grocery store, and the family made a substantial living on his income.

Yoyes joined ETA in the early 1970s at the age of seventeen, which at the time was an important political force in the resistance against the Franco dictatorship . It initially acted as a legal member of ETA. In 1973 she was surprised while trying. stealing a duplicating machine from a school. Around the same time, her brother, also an ETA member, was arrested by the Spanish police. Yoyes then decided to flee to France, where she took on new tasks within the ETA. After the split of ETA in October 1974, Yoyes joined the more radical ETA militar. Since 1978 she has been a member of the Executive Committee of ETA militar. Towards the end of the 1970s, representatives of a new line prevailed within the ETA, who advocated a harder and more violent policy towards the Spanish state. Yoyes, who stood in opposition to this new leadership, then separated from ETA and first went into exile in Mexico, where she studied philosophy and sociology. Since 1984 she lived in Paris.

Since there was no legal action against them due to an amnesty law, Yoyes decided in 1985 to accept the offer of the Spanish government to reintegrate ( Reinserción ) former ETA members. In November 1985 she returned to the Spanish Basque Country with her husband and son and settled in San Sebastián .

death

For the ETA leadership, Yoyes was considered a "traitor" due to her arrangement with the Spanish government. ETA member Antonio López Ruiz, known as Kubati , received the order to murder her . Kubati shot Yoyes in front of her three-year-old son during a party in her hometown of Ordizia in September 1986.

The murder met with strong and determined opposition in large parts of Basque society. In Ordizia, parts of the population responded with a spontaneous silent march. Yoyes' funeral turned into a demonstration against ETA terrorism.

Her killer Kubati was arrested in 1987 and sentenced to a total of 1,120 years in prison for 13 murders in which he was involved. In November 2013, he was released from prison after 26 years.

Afterlife

In retrospect, the murder of Yoyes is seen as a turning point in the history of ETA, because for the first time many supporters and sympathizers of Basque nationalism turned away from ETA.

In 1999 the film Yoyes by the Spanish director Helena Taberna was released, in which Ana Torrent played the role of Yoyes.

literature

  • Yoyes: Desde su ventana , Pamplona 1987, ISBN 84-404-0330-5 (contains diary entries and other texts).
  • Pedro Ibarra Güell: Yoyes: ética y política , in: Mientras tanto, No. 29, 1987, pp. 69-76.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Volker Mauersberger: Split in the ETA. Debate on violence in the Basque Country , in: DIE ZEIT, No. 40/1986, 26.9.1986
  2. ↑ Imanol Murua: Ending ETA's Armed Campaign. How and why the Basque armed group abandoned violence , Routledge, London / New York 2017, p. 134.
personal data
SURNAME González Catarain, Dolores
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Yoyes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish member of the Basque underground organization ETA
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Ordizia
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 1986
Place of death Ordizia