Basque Rebellion Losing Strength?

This article was on the front page of this morning's Washington Post (Dec 12). I'd be interested in reading feedback from members who are Spanish residents and/or citizens as to whether they believe ETA's days are numbered as the article implies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54614-2003Dec10.html

Doubtful.

Back in 1992 they said the same thing after arresting the top three [Operación Bidart] and then the next three who had presumably replaced the in-custody three within a matter of weeks.

We all see what's happened since the "demise" of ETA in 1992. I agree with madridmanjim

To stamp out ETA, you have to stamp out the reason it exists. If the reason still exists, they will return. History has proven that, but what does history know.. Just that it repeats itself until people realize they have to find a way to help it to change permanently.

Wolf

ETA is not going to dissapear by some miracle.

It is true that they are weak as never before. Their chiefs are falling at a faster rate, they are found and captured faster, and therefore, they are commiting less murders than never before. This may force ETA to declare a ceasefire, however I doubt it was permanent.

I still remember years ago when Arzallus, the president of PNV (Basque Nationalist Party) declared "The policial way is not the way to end with ETA". Well, it may not be the way in which nationalists may obtain the most important achievements, but undoubtfully is saving countless lives. May the history fall on those who, by action or inaction, by weapons or by words, are in any way responsible of those who were merciless killed.

Fernando

I agree with Fernando. The terrorist group ETA is now passing through hard moments. ETA members are quite young and unexperienced now, because many of the most trained members have been captured by police. Despite they're younger, they aren't less fanatical.

There is other important fact to be taken in consideration: the regional bask government, leaded by Juan José Ibarretxe (from PNV -Basque Nationalist Party) recently presented an almost-secesionist project (known as "plan Ibarretxe"), with the purpose of changing the law status of the bask region, which would become an "free associated country", with separate policies and laws. That would be the beginning of an independence process.

The current spanish government (the conservative "Popular Party" of president Aznar) is strongly opposed to the "plan Ibarretxe", and is trying to stop it using various legal procedures.

PNV has a nationalist ideology just like ETA. Of course, PNV is a peaceful party, with no direct relationship with the terrorist group. But the PNV attitude towards ETA is quite ambiguous, and its denunciation of ETA violence doesn't appear as a straightforward feeling. PNV is not violent, but ETA's violence feeds their nationalist speech, as while violence exists, the "bask affair" becomes a "political conflict" to be solved by the bask independence. PNV don't recognize the policial way as a solution, because the say that "policial persecution feeds the conflict and keeps the 'war' alive".

But the true conflict is this: Spain is a peaceful country, which has to carry on with a small group of mad people who commit terrorists acts in order to force the spanish government to give up to their independence requeriments. Add to this the fact that in the bask region, the nationalist and non-nationalist people are divided in a 50%-50% percentage (of course, not all of the nationalist peolpe supports the terrorism, in fact they are a minority) Unfortunately, it's a complex problem to solve.

The main hope of spaniards is the policial work. We hope that police will at last take to prison all of the ETA terrorists.

I hope my english is understandable, too.

Saludos.

I din't want to start another polemic here, but it seems that for some, this topic has became rather popular.

No, the basque liberation movement is NOT going to stop until the self-determination is achieved. This may be by pacifical means (those proposed by PNV, EH, EA, ...) or by the force of the guns.

We all agree that many of the higher instances of ETA have been jailed, but there is still enough baking powder to make the bread. An if there was not, it would come up anyway, because the social situation my people live supplies volunteers, and experience is the mother of science (anybody can learn improve their methods).

The current spanish government (the conservative "Popular Party" of president Aznar) is strongly opposed to the "plan Ibarretxe", and is trying to stop it using various legal procedures.

... and some illegal too, like some late reform of the laws to be able to prosecute those who act against the will of the central Government no matter that they do it within their own competences and within the law.

This law that's coming has been opposed by ALL the rest of the parties in Spain, because it's inconstitutional, just as many other procedures fascist PP party is using are against the Declaration of Human Rights, although only this one has been opposed unitarily because this kind of "state of war" or "state of exception" PP wants to start, may also apply to all the smaller parties and the PSOE , because they would never stand a chance against PP with an active censorship in press and people going to jaul for thinking differently or going to demonstrations, or by not taking decisions they don't have the power to, even if asked by a court, or anything.

There is a name for dictadorship in spanish: "dictadura". When those "dictaduras" ("dura"= hard) were softer they use to be called, popularly, "dictablanda" ("blanda"=soft). Now, we have a similar system. Like in Italy, we are destroying the State of Rights slowly, by the Parliament, controlled by ONE party or coalition, which votes laws that allow them to preserve the power forever (or try to do it), that are inconstitutional, but that go on because they have enough politicians-judges in the higher courts. This is a "Coup d'Etat"-Blando.

PNV posturing has NEVER been ambiguous. They were always for independence through pacific means. When the spanish Government was not fascist, they limited themselves to complain and fight ETA. Now the central Government is forbiding political parties, closing newspapers and imprisoning innocents, PNV clearly sees that, no matter that they want still to fight ETA, they have a more worrying and inminent danger: The PP fascist state is taking control of the Media, the Courts and the State Machine, with the excuse of the terrorism.

Before fighting private terrorism, they have to fight Institutional terrorism, because this smells a lot of Mussolini and Hitler. They have opposed both ETA and Central GOvernment in the past, with a special accent in ETA because of their means. Now they still fight both, but they accent is against a Govenment that tries to make political parties disappear through false terorism accusations, and so on.

The person who is going to be tried for not abiding an order from a Court, that he did not have the power to execute, because it was a parlamentary decision and the Basque Parliament voted against it, Atutxa, was the responsible of Basque Police, he was menaced several times by ETA, I think there were also intents of killing him by ETA. He was the member of PNV that showed a most firm position against ETA, being, thus, the favourite of PP and PSOE spanish nationalist parties.

Now, he is called terrorist-friend by PP, just because he doesn't follow their commands, and he could go to jail because of the previously exposed. How could the basque people not be more and more against the spanish nationalists? The first vote summer for nationalists these days is called PP.

Because this situation is a political problem , whic is that the spanish state will under no concept allow the basques to sedece, even if most of them want so, this problem will never be solved by policial means , there will always be someone taking the torch to fight for what they want and is not allowed through the legal means.

Remember that "legal" comes from "law", which meand what politicians pact, which is VERY different for "fair", which is a concept that comes form "justice". Not always a law is fair, nor law equals justice. With PP, much less.

First - it's really nice to see both Wolf and Cali back Am guessing that, like me, you both have been lurking when time permitted ....

I think that Spaniard made a couple of very valid points as did Fernando - basically that, while a number of high ranking leaders of ETA have been arrested - others will step in. Perhaps not with the same extent of training but, sadly, with the same ultimate purposes. Funding will be there for them - that's been proven again and again. And from that base, their power / antagonist ways can continue to flourish.

It seems to me that the government does grant a great deal of independence to the Basques - and rightly so. However, the desire of some of the Basques for a separate voice from Spain in the EU seems to be taking things a bit too far for the good of all. Attempting to establish a separate unit on the political level is to dilute the effectiveness of all concerned. And, to an outsider, this certainly appears to be an attempt at succession from Spain as a whole. And that, my friends, I cannot imagine to be of an economical, social, or political value to the greatets good for millions of Spaniards - what ever part of Spain they are from.

We are witnesing the EU's attempt to create a unified Europe for the betterment of all; perhaps a listing of the benefits of such unity by those who are EU citizens will give those who support a separate Basque country specific points to answer in rebuttal.

Ignacio, if, as you say in the first line of your post, you didn't want to start another polemic, I think you've picked the wrong focus in the rest of the post. Anyway, I hope not to add gasoline to this fire, as I will answer with facts, mentioning their sources.

Facts are:
Fact 1 - PNV signed a secret (well, now it's not secret) agreement with ETA in 1998. In that agreement, PNV promised to break all previous agreements with spanish parties (PSOE and PP). In 1998, the Basque Government was integrated by PNV and PSOE; but PNV, fulfilling the agreed with ETA, broke with PSOE.
SOURCE:
PNV web page

Fact 2 - Two years later, when ETA broke the cease-fire invoking that PNV didn't completely fulfill the agreement and published in Gara the agreement (with the PNV and ETA seals), Mr. Ibarretxe was asked in the Basque Parliament about that agreement. He denied that such an agreement existed and when he was asked again, he refused to answer alleging "lies and calumnies" and that the documents were filtered by Mayor Oreja (to Gara? ).
SOURCE:
Basque Parliament Sessions Diary (see pages 104 to 108 (or 108 to 112 in the pdf file)).

Now, one opinion I've extracted from the facts:
Ibarretxe lied shamelessly to the Basque Parliament.

And finally a more debatable opinion:
You say "the basque liberation movement is NOT going to stop until the self-determination is achieved".
No. ETA wants independency and territoriality, not self-determination. PNV wants self-determination, but PNV doesn't kill people; it only signs secret agreements with those who kill people. Let's imagine an ideal world... by means of a strange planetary conjunction, Spain and France finally do what ETA wants: a referendum in the four basque provinces in Spain and the three basque provinces in France (territoriality). That referendum is won by the separatist option, so a new Basque State is born and ETA ends terrorism. But now, Nafarroa, Araba, and Iparralde (Iparralde is the name givet to the three basque provinces in France) say they also want self-determination. To deny that right after having obtained the independency in a referendum would be even more fascist than PP. Based on the elections results, I predict that the option of returning to Spain (in Araba and Nafarroa) or France (in Iparralde) would win. What kind of territoriality is an Euskal Herria composed by only two of the seven basque territories? ETA (which doesn't want self-determination, but independency and territoriality) would kill again.

That said, I agree with you that, in some aspects, PP government is fascist. Applying the anti-terrorist law to a newspaper director suspect of some tax issues and closing the newspaper is fascist. But, on the other hand, ETA is weaker than ever, even if it's not going to disappear, and I think we agree that's good news.

And Atutxa... is accused of not obeying a court's decision. The Navarre parliament president obeyed the decision without any problem. What kind of Parliament submits to voting a judge's verdict?

I have to leave now, I'll edit this later, but regarding Atutxa:

The Navarre Parliament voted the order of teh judge because the president couldn't fulfill it, because it was a matter further form his powers.

Atutxa did exactly the same, but the Basque Parliament members voted NO. What could he have done?

Now I ask: What kind of fascist court commands a Legislative Chamber what resolutions the MUST take, and what every deputy has to vote?

Just a thing:

The bask parliament is not a sovereign parliament. It's a regional parliament without the full range of competencies that a national sovereign parliament has. The Spain's Parliament, as the USA Parliament or the France Parliament, is a national sovereign chamber. The bask Parliament is a regional chamber as the bask government is a regional government. There are countless regional chambers and regional governments in many countries of the world. None of them are completely sovereign chambers, and I think the world will become a chaos if every regional chamber and every regional government attempt to jump over the respective nation law.

Spanish Constitution of 1978 was voted in referendum by the whole Spain population, not only bask population. The secession of the bask region implicates a change of the spanish Constitution, so it sholudn't be voted only by bask people in a referendum without the agreement of the Spain's Parliament. The "Plan Ibarretxe" includes a only-bask referendum about a constitutional question. Such referendum cannot nullify a previous referendum voted by the whole nation represented in the Spain Parliament and the Spain's Constitution.

That's true. In fact, not only by the other parties: by most journalists too. They think that it's a law created "ad personae", and that's true too.

Well..a half-true means a half-lie. That reform could be declared inconstitutional, maybe. OK. But the reform will not "prosecute those who act against the will of the central Government". The reform will prosecute those who convoke a referendum on national matters (such the Constitution) without the agreement of the nation's chamber.

Let me tell you something: I disagree with that Aznar government reform, mostly because the way it has been proposed...in a hurry. But is not less true that the Ibarretxe proposals have not been presented in a more adequate way.


That probably was true for Atutxa un the past, when he commanded the bask police. Now tell me, how many PNV party members have been attacked by ETA in the recent years? how many PNV members are pointed as well-known objectives of the terrorist group? is Atutxa currently an ETA objective? Are the PNV memeber's homes burned? are the PNV bureaus burned and attacked? are the small town's city hall PNV members killed? are the bask nationalist journalists killed or menaced?

Batasuna, the bask party which has been prosecuted and prohibited by the judge Garzón from the National Audience court, has a clear relationship with ETA: some of the main party's members are or were members of ETA. Once this relationship was established by judge investigations (long time after it was well known by everybody in Spain), the party was accused of colaboration with terrorists and its activities in both bask and spanish chambers were prohibited.
This court measure have been difficulted by the current bask chamber chairman, Atutxa, who says that a judge cannot act over a sovereign chamber like the bask chamber. But, as I said before, bask chamber is not a sovereign chamber, and its members can't stand out of the judicial range of action.

The current Atutxa attitude as the bask chamber chairman is, I'm sorry to saying it, highly shameful. He rejects to accomplish the judge measures, he is begginning to expel from the chamber sessions anyone who talks against him or his government (he did it again just the last week, with a PSOE spokesman).

Remember: bask chamber is a regional chamber which, as any other of the seventeen Spain's regional chambers, is submitted to the spanish nation's law.

I didn't hear the galician, andalucian, or valencian regional chambers pretending to be sovereing Parliaments with no liability to accomplish the law as any other institution.

Just imagine the state of Texas suddenly wanting to act as a sovereign nation, unaccomplishing the USA laws and protecting a party which support the Al Qaeda terrorists... that's the way to make the world go on peacefully?

Quoting the above post, I think it pretty well sums up the complete legal & constitutional question ....

What was enacted by the entire voting population of Spain cannot be reversed or removed by a few for the interests of the few.

Any international lawyers out there?????

Of course, as always, some people depict ETA as wonderful young people trying to liberate an oppresed country, PNV as the party in possesion of truth about the matter, fighting by political and clean means against the evil and fascist Partido Popular, similar to nazis no more! However, the truth sometimes and somehow rises to the surface.

"I prefer a blak who speaks basque than a white who doesn't" (Javier Arzallus, PNV Chairman)

"...the gasoline kids..." (Javier Arzallus, PNV Chairman, speaking about urban ETA teams who used molotov cocktails against basque autonomous policemen and killed 5 of them)

"In this country [Basque Country], for 40 years there was a tremendous inmigration... Ok, they seeked jobs. But they diluted the evilness Franco did. If not for inmigration, we could have done a self-determination referendum and won it easily." (Javier Arzallus, PNV Chairman)

"We have a divided countrymen. A lot of foreign people [spaniards] has comed here. I don't think we have been bad with foreign people, and now it seems they want to take control of our country". (Javier Arzallus, PNV Chairman)

"It can't be conceived that outsiders become the owners of our home by election votes, thus losing our identity." (Javier Arzallus, PNV Chairman)

"We have a lot of inmigrants who came during Franco's regime. Thus, the same issue than in Germany is raised: Is german a turkish who has lived various decades in Germany? Does he want to be german? Not everybody who lives with us wants to be basque" (Javier Arzallus, PNV Chairman, in an interview with a Die Welt german newspaper)

"The people coming south from Alava are rats" (Mr. Caballero, PNV local leader, referring to spaniards)

"ETA is a ulcer which bleeds from time to time, but which won't kill us" (Javier Arzallus)

Of course all these pearls of elevated thinking doesn't matter at all. Also, it doesn't matter the Basque Country has the most developed autonomy (more than an american federal state, more than a german länder). It doesn't matter that the PNV Government is directly financing Batasuna (an ilegalized organization, recognized as a terrorist band part of ETA structure by European Union and USA) or that they don't comply with judges mandates. Finally, it doesn't matter that more than 800 human beings (children, journlaists, politicians, policemen, soldiers, judges, lawyers, councilmen, senators, businessmen and common people) have been killed by ETA (financed by its fellow ilegallized organizations as Seki, Segi, Egunkaria and Egin newspapers) or by Jarrai (the youngsters Batasuna organization). Never mind. Blame on the others! Sure it is responsability of those PP fascists (which didn't existed for half ETA's existence).

Well, thanks God PP hasn't follow the "the policial way is not the way to end with ETA" idea (whose author is Arzallus, PNV Chairman). At least we have now 2-5 assasinations instead of 35 a year.

Say what? It is a great big pleasure to be called a fascist by those who can't stand others opinions and ideas, and who think that assasination, coercion, blackmail, kidnapping, extorsion and menaces are valid means to reach any political goals. IT IS A HUGE PLEASURE

Fernando

End one hot topic and start another. hehehe... Debate on, but let's stay calm, okay? Thank you.

Felices Fiestas, MadridMan

PP are fascists. I agree with that. But as others have said, a half truth is also a half lie, and you must say that PNV is not less fascist, in fact is an ultra-catholic and ultra- right wing party, and it allways has been this way.
PNV's founder, Sabino Arana, was a racist that had a thinking that was clearly similar to the Nazi ideology.
At least, the PP fascists, heirs to the Franco regime, haven't an official racist thinking. (although the anti-inmigration laws go that way...)
So, it's a fascist vs fascist fight, and I hope none of them prevail. While this fight goes on, ETA and their upholders smile in the background, hoping to get the benefits of all this mess.

It seems nowadays in Spain everyone is a fascist... Even Batasuna, when it was a legal policital party, was called fascist (no matter they defined themselves as a marxist-leninist party). PNV are fascists, Batasuna are fascists, PP are fascists,... It seems there is not much to choose between...

Or perhaps, certain political parties can't accept that there are other political democratic groups which are as valid as theirs.

I have heard socialists and communists calling PP, PNV, CiU and Batasuna fascists. Of course nationalists acuse PP of being fascists, while PP says Batasuna are fascists.

You know what? The only fascists in Spain are the extreme-right parties, which obtain less than 15 thousand votes.

So please, call every party for what they are:

PP: Liberals
PSOE: Socialists
IU: Communists
CiU: Catalonian Nationalist Liberals
PNV: Basque Radical Nationalists
Batasuna: Terrorists
and so on

Fernando

Thanks for your responses -- it’s apparent that any mention of ETA stirs emotions. I didn’t mean for a political discussion to ensue, although it made for interesting and enlightening reading.

Off the subject, the labels Fernando used to describe the politics of Spain’s major political parties are interesting, especially the labels “liberal” and “socialist”. As I understand the platform(s) of Mr. Aznar’s party (right-of-center), we in the U.S. might label the PP “conservative” or “right wing”.

Here, “liberal” is generally be used for left-of-center groups. The Democrats have been so labeled since FDR’s administration (with the exception of the “Dixiecrats”). “Socialist” is used here to imply very-left-of-center and, in fact connotes “communist” (which in the U.S. remains a derogatory term). The term “socialist” is used freely to label left-of-center policies and political figures on the political talks shows with a more conservative slant.