ZAPATERO PAYS TRIBUTE TO THE FALLEN MILITARY

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Kevin Reardon / 2010-01-13 06:47:39

Zapatero also paid tribute to “those women and families who wait at home

On Tuesday, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, presided at the tribute ceremony at La Moncloa for those members of the security forces who have lost their lives while on active duty. This is a ceremony that is carried out by the Prime Minister every year.

Government Ministers attending the service also included the First Vice-President, Minister of the Presidency and Spokesman for the Government, the Minister of Defence and the Minister of the Interior, as well as by the leader of the opposition, Mariano Rajoy, the Mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, the President of the Region of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, the President of Congress, José Bono, the President of the Senate, Javier Rojo, the President of the Constitutional Court, María Emilia Casas, and the President of the Supreme Court, Carlos Dívar. The event was “a short, simple and austere ceremony but one of the most important of the year”.

When speaking of the nine members of the security forces who lost their lives in 2009, the Zapatero said that “honouring those who defend their country is the finest demonstration of a country’s democratic unity and strength”.

The leader of the Government also took the opportunity to praise the “effectiveness” shown by the State Security Forces and Organisations “in the fight against the terrorist threat” that led to the arrest last weekend of four alleged ETA separatists in France and Portugal and underlined their “example of abnegation and sacrifice under highly difficult circumstances”.

Zapatero then paid tribute to “those women and families who wait at home while their loved ones go out and risk their lives in their daily work and for whom this ceremony also makes their absence all the more evident”. He mourned and acknowledged the nine members of the Spanish Armed Forces who lost their lives during the course of last year.
They, just like all the other members of the “essential” State Security Forces, “have the complete support and admiration of the public” when their fight against terrorism and crime is brought to the fore in such a cruel manner.

Finally, the Prime Minister greeted each of the relatives who attended the tribute ceremony personally, to whom he had previously given an official document and a commemorative plaque.

In turn, the Minister of the Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, conveyed his condolences to the families as well as his “pride” and “admiration” for the “bravery” of those fallen and emphasised that the best tribute to their passing must be a clear statement that their lives “serve as an example”. For that reason, he went on to say that they deserve to be remembered because the future “cannot be preserved by forgetting the past but rather by living in the memory”.

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