Two days in the bastions of Bildu with a former Civil Guard anti-terrorist commando: “We are better than the SEALs”

The sun rises at the top of Meaga; It does not let up despite the fact that Zarautz beach, at a sigh, insists on softening the atmosphere. The picture is dreamlike: sinuous curves taken by the greenery of the forest. A cartoon of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. But, as in his stories, the nightmare lurks in Pandora’s box. “It was here, on June 28, 1986,” Juan José Mateos, a veteran of the Civil Guard’s Rapid Action Group (GAR, formerly the Rural Antiterrorist Group), points to a slope that kisses the narrow road. «The ETA member detonated the bomb when my colleagues came to clean up the itineraries. He beheaded Francisco Muriel and seriously injured three others. One of them, Carlos Marrero, committed suicide shortly after because he could not bear the consequences ». Not even two hours have passed since ABC landed in San Sebastián, but we have already breathed in two things: the characteristic humidity of the north and the metallic smell of the still open wounds, of which there are many. Although the one that most irritates Juanjo, today with a green polo shirt reminiscent of his old uniform, is the one of oblivion. More than a decade after ETA put aside the murders and terrorism, the Meaga stop is without a plaque that commemorates the members of the GAR. The only memory for the families of him is a wreath left each year by a group of veterans led by him. And the same thing happens in other points of terror in which agents and politicians died. Mateos, in the cemetery of Tolosa, where several ETA DV terrorists are buried. In return, or so he promises, in many towns there are many banners evoking the terrorist struggle. We will check it with him in the next few hours. “Remembering agents is uncomfortable for politicians,” he reveals as he gets into the car. He does not give names; he prefers to ignore them. His fight is not against this or that party, but against forgetting the civil guards who fought “ETA”, as he insists on calling it. “Do we call ‘the Mafia’ just ‘Mafia’?” A few years ago Juanjo changed the G-36 rifle for the pen. He had no choice, because the aftermath of an attack ended up taking its toll on him. His scars are hearing aids that accompany him, perennial. The ones he carries inside, hidden, are the worst. And of all of them he has left testimony in his latest essay, ‘Pikoletos: The defeat of ETA and the elite of the Civil Guard’ (Arzalia). Rural elite Juanjo starts up and begins a kind of Basque ‘road movie’. Although the soundtrack is not ‘rock and roll’, but a talk in which he unravels the story of his life, always linked to ETA. On the way to the cemetery of Tolosa, where several so-called commandos lie, he explains how a boy from Salamanca fresh out of the academy fell face down with terror. It was 1996, he was 24 years old and a bomb at Reus airport welcomed him to the Corps. “It left me with severe consequences. Today I have recognized 72% disability ». But tenacity, not revenge, made him persevere. His dream was to join the GAR, a unit created in 1980 to combat ETA from the front line. Heroes who have gone unnoticed until now. ‘Pikoletos’: The defeat of ETA and the Civil Guard elite Editorial Arzalia Pages 400 «The Civil Guard had lost the towns. He couldn’t leave the barracks without fear of being shot. The GAR came to put an end to that », he sentences while he stops the engine. He continues with his narration, but, when he crosses the door of the cemetery, a sign disturbs him: «Here begins the joy of the just». Respect is palpable on his face. “Everyone, even ETA members, should enjoy a place of eternal rest.” His mind is gone for a second at eighty; days when Benemérita agents died hand over fist and were buried between secrecy and solitude. “On the contrary, they made huge delegations full of symbology.” He walks among the graves; he evokes hard moments. Those who lived “my veterans”, as he affectionately calls them while he returns to the vehicle. After that little trip to the past, Juanjo returns to his story. With the GAR in mind, he overcame the pain and, after escaping the medical examinations – “I explain the details in the book,” he says with a mischievous smile – he agreed to the special operations course. On the way to Ordizia, one of EH Bildu’s strongholds, he remembers the demands of the tests, how they were crushed to separate the weak from the elite. “400 of us showed up and 26 stayed. You marched with a 30-kilo backpack, they forced you to jump into swamps from a height of 15 meters, they didn’t let you sleep…”. He had also dived, lethal due to his hearing problems, but he knew how to avoid the instructors. “We were above the SEALs because, with less equipment, we did the same thing,” he completes. Old bastions From Tolosa to Ordizia, in Guipúzcoa, it takes a quarter of an hour. Juanjo, always at the controls, is fond of the town, today governed by a mayor of Bildu, because he participated in several operations. “My times were not the years of lead in which the GAR had to face the ETA members with gunfire,” he warns. In the 1990s, his most common mission was to apprehend suspected terrorists. “We arrived, we set up a fence in concentric circles so that no one entered or left, and a team was in charge of accessing the house.” By court order they had to call and identify themselves before entering. A danger. “We were prepared for everything. The key was to prevent a firefight from forming in which civilians could be killed. We even carried a blanket in case they had a dog attacking us. The GAR, during a course on diving and intervention tactics for JJM vessels, points to a house that he entered, it is low, like the rest, and is in a square full of posters. The majority, as he had warned us, calling for the release of the prisoners. “They are prohibited. Cleaning services will remove them in one or two days. We walk down the same street where the terrorist group assassinated Yoyes in 1986 for wanting to leave ETA; a plaque remembers her. “The GAR has made it possible for us to walk around here without problems,” she exclaims. He talks about the hardest years, about the care he had to take when he was in these areas, despite the fact that his base camp was far away, in Logroño, to prevent “the bad guys” from knowing his habits. “Those who had the worst time were the people from the villages. Many were killed while having some ‘pintxos’ with the family». Night comes, a short rest, and we resume the journey. In Oiartzun, 50 kilometers away, the scene is similar to that of Ordizia. In 2019, Bildu obtained almost 67% of the votes. Today, a large banner calling for the return of ETA prisoners to the Basque Country is displayed in the square. Above it, two purple flags. On the sides, several posters demand independence and some graffiti maintain that the police have tortured 5,657 people. “It is a false figure. It has been artificially swollen to match the 850 dead and more than 7,000 mutilated that ETA has left. Juanjo, however, does not deny madness like that perpetrated by the GAL, and they seem despicable to him, but he emphasizes that they were a minority. “In the entire history of the GAR, not one agent has been charged.” “The doctor told me that, if I continued in the Civil Guard, my family would have to take care of me” Durango, with the mayor of Bildu, is the last stop on the tour. Although we changed the plans and skipped the old town. Our guide prefers to show us the Civil Guard Barracks House in this municipality of Vizcaya. It is surprising, because the ETA wounds are visible on its main wall. “It had to be rebuilt after an attack.” Juanjo knows well this gigantic watchtower with a city in its heart. In ‘Pikoletos’ photos of him abound. «We came many times to give security to the colleagues who lived here. It was one of the GAR’s missions: to make visible controls so that families feel safe”. He also collaborated in several stalls. “We hid and controlled the vehicles that passed. In addition, we identified collaborators and ETA members to nurture a large database that was very useful », he states. Heavy Wounds End the journey. Cameras and recorders return to the case. Two intense days that have given a lot. «I hope you have breathed a little what was lived here, although it is not even half of what it was». On the way back to the airport he has to put an end to this story. «How did you leave the Civil Guard?». If until now the soldier and the veteran had spoken, now the person emerges. “Those were tough days…” He has a hard time starting. He hesitates. He drinks water. He conjures up old and painful memories. In 2001, he says, they forced him to undergo a medical examination and they confirmed that the consequences of the attack, which he had hidden until then, were serious. They offered him severance pay and release, but he refused. «He wanted to continue in the Corps». However, he had to leave the GAR. Related News standard Yes Franco’s armored beast: the forgotten supertank made with garbage to crush the Republic Manuel P. Villatoro In 1937, an artillery captain designed the Verdeja 1 to combat the power of the Soviet T-26. Although effective, the project ended up being abandoned. From then on, a tour began through various units of the Civil Guard. His maxim was to continue on the front line, but reality made him bend the knee. There were too many operations, too many neurological sequelae due to that bomb in Reus. The doctor was blunt. “He told me that if I continued like this, my family would have to take care of me.” The tone is slow. It hurts him to get the words out of him. Although he quickly recovers. «I do not want to be a victim, I have already told enough sorrows». As an epilogue, he prefers to talk about his wife – “my life partner, a woman who understands me and has known how to support me in the hardest moments” – and praise the work of a psychologist who has helped him overcome a whole life dedicated to fighting against the ETA. Today, Juan José Mateos fights in another way: with books and for the victims.