They have been denouncing cases of corruption for years and exercising popular prosecution in the main cases opened on the island, although during this time they have focused that work in the Courts and have tried to stay away from the media. Now, after presenting the indictment in one of the central pieces of Unión, arising from Operation Jable, Urban Transparency has taken stock of what has been achieved so far and also of the road ahead.
"The corrupt political product is not isolated, it arises from society". That is one of the messages that the lawyer representing this association, Irma Ferrer, has launched in the first interview she has given to Radio Lanzarote – Onda Cero since she has been a lawyer for the popular prosecution in this and other cases. "When the UCO and Operation Unión arrived, it revealed conversations that not only reflect four corrupt people doing an illicit business, they reflect that society saw it and ignored it. It did not intervene. He was waiting to see what my little piece is. If we do not recognize our failures as a society, we cannot face this," Ferrer warned. "And I am generalizing, please, let me be understood well," she pointed out, stressing that it would be unfair not to recognize that there have been exceptions.
However, she believes that "it cannot be that a mayor (in reference to María Isabel Déniz) did what she did when everyone was talking about it at the bar." "On this island you sit at a bar and everyone tells you what so-and-so has done without any shame," the lawyer stressed. Therefore, she believes that "it does not matter how many Urban Transparencies there are on this island, it does not matter that Urban Transparency is not recognized much for the work it does, it does not matter that Urban Transparency fails or not in the work it has done. All that does not matter, if society does not understand that we live surrounded by a business and political mafia that is endorsed and supported by a group of citizens who do not want to confront them. And they do not want to confront them out of fear."
"Everyone's money has gone into private pockets"
Thus, although she has recognized the work done by judges such as César Romero Pamparacuatro and Silvia Muñoz, and prosecutors such as Ignacio Stampa and Javier Ródenas, she has especially highlighted the work of "everyone who has gone to the court with two pieces of paper to denounce". And it is that she considers that "without the work of the citizen and the popular accusations, it would not have been reached as far as it has been reached."
Therefore, she believes that it is essential that citizens get involved and believes that they should be aware of what corruption entails. That they should know that "from the door of their house outwards", what there is "is theirs". And that if in Playa Blanca "they do not have a nursery", or if there are missing schools on the island, or if there is not "a health center in conditions", or "if I have cancer and I have to go to Las Palmas for treatment", it is "because everyone's money has gone into private pockets". That we do not have "essential services" because that money "has gone to the Rolex, the trip to Marrakech, the Volkswagen Touareg…" And that, she believes that citizens "have to listen to it and read it", to break "the law of silence" and "fear". "They are stealing our future to put it in the hands of businessmen who take it to tax havens. How many accounts in Panama do we have to see to understand that the money from illegal hotels does not stay in Lanzarote?", she asked.
"The planning of the island is being put at the disposal of crime"
Although Irma Ferrer stresses that many "successes" have been achieved in the battle against corruption in the Courts, "no matter how much some try to deny it", she also believes that this "cancer" has not disappeared from the institutions. "The misfortune is that we can affirm that these practices of corruption and of putting the general interest at the service of the corrupt are seeing every day. We are back to having the same corrupt practices, what I do not know is to what extent or to what degree," she warned. And it is that among other things, she believes that "the planning of the island is being put at the disposal of crime."
"Public administrations are making an enormous effort not for the citizens, but to save the crime they have committed," said the lawyer, who believes that the "criminal urban planning" that has prevailed for years on the island is still in force today, among other things to legalize what was illegally built. "We are seeing that they put the same practices into operation one after another, whether you are called María Isabel Déniz or whatever you are called. It is replaceable by any other name of those who have governed us on this island and whom the citizens vote for," she insists.
In addition, she believes that it is not an issue that only affects the Arrecife City Council, although that is where most of the pieces of the Unión case are focused, nor is it a period of the past. "I do not know to what extent or to what degree, or with what real economic damage, but the cancer, the metastasis that we have denounced in Arrecife from 98 to today, is spreading to the Cabildo of Lanzarote, which until now had been the pride of the people of Lanzarote", lamented the lawyer.
Officials removed "to put the island at the service of the mafia"
In the same line, she has referred to all the officials and technicians accused (and even in some cases convicted in the first instance) that there are in the Cabildo of Lanzarote and in the Arrecife City Council, and who remain in their positions, while others have been selectively removed, to "put the island at the service of the mafia". Among others, Ferrer has referred to the case of the former head of the Island Plan Office, Leopoldo Díaz, who was dismissed shortly after issuing a devastating report on the Special Plan of La Geria and the Stratvs winery.
However, the lawyer representing Urban Transparency has also made it clear that there is "hope". "I say it clearly: four people who have gone to denounce some facts have achieved more than 200 defendants on the island. Of course there is hope. Of course there are judges who do their job, of course there are prosecutors who do their job. More than we believe. And better than we ourselves value. Of course there are people, not only Urban Transparency, who denounce this. But the whole of the citizenry does not go out into the street," she has reiterated, reiterating that it is the citizens who have in their hands to end this dynamic: "Citizens with a minimum of ethics and education - a minimum, I am not talking about the panacea of morality -, we cannot continue to allow ourselves to be governed by people who plan to save the product of a crime."
The law of silence, "the mafioso", "the cacique" and the "Don Vito"
In addition, Irma Ferrer has also referred to the "orchestrated campaign" by defendants and convicts to attack judges, prosecutors, security forces and complainants, and to prevent talk of corruption. "If we speak in general terms, the mafia takes care of that. The omertá (law of silence) in Italy is the complicit silence of the citizens who see the mafia and do not denounce it," she questioned. And it is that she considers that "in Lanzarote we can perfectly extrapolate the figure. We have the mafioso, the cacique, the Don Vito… We have the fear ingrained in society."
As for the consequences that embarking on this fight has had for the members of Urban Transparency, as complainants in some cases and as popular prosecution in others, she says that it has been worth it. "Personally, it is a pleasure to know who you are and what you do. To feel proud of what you do. To face what you have to face to defend your positions and your ideas, is a luxury that is not paid for. Do not give me a Cartier with Roman numerals. Give me a mirror in which to look at myself every day and say this is who I am and this is what I do."
She has launched a similar message when talking about the portrait that the intercepted telephone conversations make of the accused. "It is a perverse plot not only from the political and public point of view, but also from the personal point of view," she said, recalling fragments of those conversations, in which "a businessman speaks of 'cheap whore' referring to a technician". "Is it necessary to reach that level of personal degradation to drive a high-end car? If that is the personal model, forgive me but I get off," she concluded.