The Los Dolores bathrooms were probably good for Mancha Blanca. Also for the pilgrims who gather there every year in one of the most important festivities of the island. You could even say they are...
The Los Dolores bathrooms were probably good for Mancha Blanca. Also for the pilgrims who gather there every year in one of the most important festivities of the island. You could even say they are "nice", if that term can be applied to toilets. However, none of that is what is being discussed in the trial that is being held on the island this week.
Although in the next few days we will hear it again and again, Dimas Martín did not go to jail years ago for building "a bathing place for the people", nor is he now being judged for making some bathrooms. What is being judged is not the work, but whether Dimas broke the law to carry it out, and whether a Site of Cultural Interest was damaged, by building them on a historic lava flow.
Next to Dimas' criminal record, who is currently serving a sentence for embezzling public money in the management of the agro-industrial complex, and who is also one of the main defendants in the "Unión" case, of course the Los Dolores case may seem small. Even "trivial", to use the term that they seem to have coined in the PIL. However, it can also be a true reflection of Dimas Martín's way of acting.
Before taking the matter to court, the Socialist Party warned the plenary session of the Cabildo, then presided over by the leader of the PIL, that the work did not have the relevant permits. He even made it clear that if it went ahead, he would go to the Courts. And Dimas Martín's response was one of his traditional challenges. A challenge that, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office, constituted an alleged crime of prevarication and another of damage against historical heritage.
It doesn't matter if the bathrooms were necessary, if they were nice, or even if the volcanic flow had so much value. What is being judged is whether, far from setting an example to society, the highest institution on the island started some works without even having any license or authorization, on an asset that the Cabildo itself had decided to protect.
Whether a public official acted believing he was above the law.
Is an ordinary citizen allowed to build wherever he wants, without bothering to ask for a license? Aren't there dozens or hundreds of people on the island with properties on rustic land, and without being able to move a stone, or others waiting for permits to undertake a reform?
Therefore, this is not about whether Dimas Martín made some bathrooms for the people. The question is whether he did what the people are not allowed to do. If those bathrooms were necessary, for many citizens other works that they have not been able to undertake would be much more urgent. And if he was really concerned about the people, what he should have done during the years he governed, or afterwards while giving instructions from prison to his party, was to resolve basic issues of territorial planning, such as that of agricultural and livestock land, and not apply one law for the people, and another for himself.
For decades, Dimas has been much more than a politician. He managed to become almost a legend, and fueled his own image based on victimhood. The same one that he will deploy now with this trial for the Los Dolores bathrooms. But time and the courts have shown that he is not a savior, but a repeat offender. And if he embezzled funds in the agro-industrial complex, almost ruining the Teguise City Council, why would he bother to ask for permits if he wanted to build some bathrooms, even though those procedures are required of every son of a neighbor?
That is the true spirit of what is now on the table. What is being judged is whether there was a serious breach of the law, by those who should most ensure its compliance, when they held the highest positions of responsibility on the island. If Dimas is persecuted, he is persecuted by his own past, and even by his present. By his way of acting.
