Gloria Moreno is the chief sergeant of the SEPRONA detachment in Lanzarote, and most of the people who have known her for some of her actions know that she has carried out her work honestly and following the constitutional mandate to prosecute crime and irregularities.
Her name became popular in the media in 2015 when, in the strict fulfillment of her duty, she ended twenty years of furtive practices on the islet of Alegranza related to the mass slaughter of protected shearwaters that starred in the banquets of a handful of powerful men.
But we also heard about her when she achieved the first prison sentence for animal abuse for the two people who dared to beat little King almost to death.
And no less famous was her tireless work and investigation at the Arrecife municipal kennel for alleged mistreatment, uncontrolled adoptions and mass sacrifices of more than 1,000 animals in recent years.
Currently and in the development of her work, Gloria Moreno endures mistreatment, harassment, persecution and cruelty, mainly for identifying and denouncing the aforementioned group of 19 well-positioned men who secretly killed and ate shearwaters in Alegranza, or for combating animal abuse by bringing the culprits to court and obtaining prison sentences as we have written.
For these works, the sergeant was the victim of six suspicious disciplinary proceedings, of which three have already been won by the sergeant; and two judicial proceedings, one of them being dismissed after proving that it was a false complaint from the veterinarian of the Arrecife municipal kennel, while another is pending oral trial.
This focuses on informing the superior body of the information received that within SEPRONA there was an alleged snitch who informed those who for years have practiced slaughtering shearwaters (and not out of food necessity as in the past) in Alegranza.
For fulfilling her obligation to inform the superior body of this information, they are asking for six years in prison.
People who do not know Gloria should understand that the offense she is subjected to is enough for her to give up working in the Civil Guard, or to remain on medical leave for years, as some of her colleagues who contribute to her current situation do.
But those of us who know her know that Gloria has internalized the high level of machismo that prevails in the Civil Guard, and that she also combats it, that her perseverance in working in SEPRONA is more resistant than that exhibited by her superiors, and that the passivity shown by the administrations that should protect her for carrying out her work honestly and following the constitutional mandate, will not make her abandon her purposes.
At this point it seems obligatory to ask who are the institutions protecting that, far from appearing in court in her favor, stage their paraplegia by not intervening in the case.
What is curious about all this is not the role played by the court, the Civil Guard, the Delegation of the Government of Spain in the Canary Islands, the Arrecife City Council, the Lanzarote Island Council, the Government of the Canary Islands, the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the Interior or Equality and their attempts to remove her from her vocation, but how weak all these efforts are so that, a year and a half later, Gloria can continue fighting against the giants to whom she has won three of the five cases opened against her, while others remain irremediably inconclusive.
The strength of Chief Sergeant Gloria Moreno is concentrated on fighting against unjust causes, although she understands that it is easier for the people responsible for the Civil Guard, including Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, to discipline her and expel her from the corps if they could, rather than purify and remove from service the higher-ranking officers who operate with high doses of impunity, who agree without speaking and conspire separately under the same tune in the cases against Gloria, regardless of the veracity of the facts.
In the origins, in the background, in the form and on the surface of the cases opened against Gloria is the persevering machismo with its displays of mistreatment, harassment, persecution and cruelty.
The internal disciplinary proceedings promoted by Colonel Ricardo Arranz and Captain Germán García focused on Gloria constitute a highly attractive subject for studying machismo in the military administration and in other public administrations that do not hesitate to remain, in the face of the murder of a woman, quiet and silent for a minute, while the activated television cameras show the world their state of paralysis and muteness, circumstances that portray them.
I propose you to direct your gaze towards these causes, to be interested in this matter that happens in this paradise island to which more than three million people come annually attracted by its beauty and with the purpose of remaining in a state of nirvana in this Biosphere Reserve.
The object of this proposal is to quantify the level of recognition of facts and situations of male preponderance that we are able to notice.
It is about analyzing the facts, not the sayings, to evaluate the distance that exists between the laws that intend to equalize the treatment between women and men and the events that we live, because without analysis we do not become aware that what is happening is happening: a high level of machismo is practiced and tolerated in the bodies and public administrations, and it is hidden by those who promote it and by their colleagues, who close ranks in the face of events.
It is the machismo that begins with the word and ends in the facts.
Laws are of little use if their compliance is not monitored, the PSOE's announcements and appointments of women to occupy ministerial portfolios are of no use if it does not then act quickly in the face of what Gloria Moreno resists, because all that this party and so many others demonstrate is the photographic pose while women continue to be murdered for being women and harassment is tolerated in the workplace.
Imperceptible fragments of potentially relevant evidence are found in Gloria Moreno's files, such as, for example, the relationship between some of the people identified in the shearwater snack with drug shipments or also with gender violence.
As a response to her work, the sergeant is the target of torture, of the denial of the importance of her work, since they cannot evade her existence. But despite this, Gloria is a woman who is more interested in justice than victory and therefore does not do everything possible to forget what she is experiencing, because she knows that it is important to remember, because memory adds wisdom to her.
When all this passes, it will turn out that Gloria will be much wiser and stronger, and will be prepared to face new challenges because she will have overthrown several uniformed giants, those who dare to apologize to others because she has done her good work.
I defend her and pin medals on her for her courage and resistance, for defeating men who with their blindness and ignorance contribute to the darkness of the women of these islands.
Nona Perera, Podemos Canarias Candidate to the Cabildo de Lanzarote
