BY JONATHAN SILBERMAN
MADRID - Herri Batasuna, the leading political party in the
struggle of the Basque people for national unity and
independence, has called mass demonstrations for early October.
These actions are in response to what Herri Batasuna leader
Joseba Permach describes as the "negative" attitude of the
Popular Party (PP), the governing party in the Spanish state,
and the Socialist Party (PSOE), the main parliamentary
opposition, to the cease-fire declared by the armed
independence movement, Basque Homeland and Liberty (ETA).
"The vast majority of Basque society has already declared itself in favor of a political and democratic solution and we must now work toward advancing a process of peace based on the will of the Basque people," Permach declared at a September 22 press conference in San Sebastián. Prime minister José María Aznar and Socialist Party leader Joaquín Almunia responded to the ETA initiative with calls that ETA give up its arms and declare a permanent end to violence before any dialogue be opened.
Jon Gorrotxategi, another central leader of Herri Batasuna, which means Popular Unity, announced that the demonstrations will take place in the four Basque provincial capitals. The action in Pamplona (Iruñea in the Basque language) is set for October 2, and the protests in San Sebastián (Donostia), Bilbao (Bilbo) and Vitoria (Gasteiz) will be the next day.
The call for the October mobilizations followed a demonstration of 4,000 people in Bilbao September 19 demanding the return of Basque political prisoners to the Basque Country, or Euskal Herria. Nearly 600 prisoners are dispersed, some hundreds of miles from their families; 535 are held in jails throughout Spain, including the Canary Isles; the remainder are in France. In a major operation, the French police arrested 14 Basques on September 1 in the latest of the joint Madrid-Paris actions against the Basque people. Euskal Herria straddles the current border of Spain and France.
Rights of prisoners, end censorship
The Bilbao demonstration was called by Senideak, the
Association of Relatives of Basque Political Prisoners,
Refugees and Deportees. Participants included representatives
of Herri Batasuna, Left Unity, trade unions, and social
movements. Also present were two representatives of Irish
political prisoners held in jails in Britain and Ireland,
Frances McHugh and Patricia Moore.
Speaking on behalf of the families, Senideak spokesperson Tomás Karrera said they consider an end to the dispersion not a gesture but a "right owed to the prisoners, their families, and the entire people." Karrera and other speakers pointed to the opportunity opened by the ETA cease-fire.
Aitor Jugo, coordinator of a prisoners amnesty organization in Vizcaya, described the situation as "the fruit of 20 years of struggle." He called on the government to put an end to its own violence against the Basque people.
At a September 23 meeting in defense of press freedom and freedom of expression hosted by the Committee for Solidarity with the Peoples here in Madrid, Pepe Rey, the former editor in chief of Egin, a pro-independence daily newspaper closed down by the Spanish government July 15, chronicled the recent attacks on democratic rights in the Basque country. These culminated in the closure of the paper and of radio Egin. They included the arrest and imprisonment for seven years of the 23 members of the national leadership of Herri Batasuna for the "crime" of "intending to show" a video that contained footage of alleged members of ETA. Those imprisoned were banned from standing for office while in prison. Five already held seats in the Basque regional parliament.
"In addition to these 23, seven other people are in prison just for their ideas," said Rey, referring to people arrested following the police raid on the Egin offices, in which files and property were destroyed and machinery confiscated. Rey spoke of the police torture of Basque independence fighters and the corruption by the ruling political parties. "On the other side are the working people of Euskal Herria" who were the base of Egin's 50,000-strong circulation.
Support was built block by block, town by town. This meant that within two days of the closure of Egin a substitute daily paper, Euskadi Information was launched. "The aim is twofold," the former editor said, "to rebuild the paper and to stimulate mobilizations, debate, criticism, and self-criticism." As part of this a festival, Egin Dugu, has been called for 27 September. "Egin Dugu," Rey explained, "was a phrase coined at the time of the shutdown by one of the paper's workers. It means `we will do it.' "
`The Basques have seized the initiativé
This sense of optimism is strong among Basque nationalists.
"The Basques have seized the initiative" declared union leader
José Elorrieta in an interview with Euskadi Information.
Elorrieta is general secretary of ELA, the bigger of the two
principle trade union organizations in Euskal Herria. The other
union is known by its acronym LAB. Both organizations
participated in the discussions that culminated in the Lizarra
Agreement (also known as the Estella Agreement), which was the
political forerunner of the ETA cease-fire.
"We must mobilize around the Lizarra agreement," Elorrieta declared. In this "we have the great advantage that the overwhelming majority of the people who live here [in Euskal Herria] have decided to live here, and it's logical that they'll take steps to acquire maximum sovereignty and participate in decision-making."
The Lizarra agreement was concluded September 12 through discussions among 23 Basque political parties, trade unions, prisoners rights groups, and other organizations. Among them were the bourgeois nationalist Basque National Party (PNV), the largest party represented in the Basque regional parliament with 22 seats; Herri Batasuna, which holds 11 seats; a third nationalist formation, the Basque Union (EA) with 8; and Left Unity, the electoral formation led by the Communist Party, with 6 seats. The agreement cites at some length the current developments in Ireland in which both sides "were conscious that neither were going to win militarily." It provides for peace through inclusive negotiations leading to a political settlement in which "Euskal Herria must have the final word and decision-making power."
The Popular Party and the Socialist Party opposed the Lizarra declaration. The Socialist Party of Euskadi is linked to the Socialist Party of Spain and, with 12 seats, forms part of a coalition government in the Basque parliament along with the PNV and EA. The PP has 11 seats in the Basque parliament.
Spanish gov't tries to take hard line
The PP and PSOE had previously headed up the Pacto de Ajuria
Enea. Last year, after the government-sponsored anti-
nationalist mobilizations that followed the alleged kidnapping
and killing by ETA of a PP municipal councilor, signatories of
the pact endorsed a special accord, seeking to politically
isolate Herri Batasuna by uniting all parliamentary forces that
had backed the demonstrations. These included the PNV, Left
Unity, and others. Following the ETA cease-fire, the PP called
for a meeting of the signers of the Pacto de Ajuria Enea, but
has been unable to achieve this.
At the same time the government has declared itself against any political concessions to the Basque people in return for peace. Prime minister Aznar, in Peru at the time of the cease- fire declaration, went on TV to declare that Spanish people should not be lulled into joy by the cease-fire. "Caution and prudence" should be the guiding principles, he said. Minister of the Interior Jaime Mayor Oreja has issued a series of statements saying that the "state can't declare a truce toward the terrorists" and the "detentions will continue." He claimed the ETA cease-fire was the result of the independence movement's political weakness, the firm policy of the government and security forces, and the anti-nationalist mobilizations of hundreds of thousands of people last year.
The Socialist Party echoed the government's watchwords of "caution and prudence," saying "socialists won't make do with a cease-fire, we want peace," demanding that ETA give up its arms.
However, more light continues to be shed on the PSOE government's role in the kidnappings and assassinations of Basque independence fighters in the 1980s. Former Minister of the Interior José Barrionuevo Peña and former Director of State Security Rafael Vera were arrested and sentenced each to 10 years in prison for kidnapping and misappropriation of funds during the Spanish government's dirty war against the Basque nationalist movement. At least 27 Basque nationalists were murdered by PSOE government-backed death squads.
In his statement on the ETA cease-fire, the first minister of the Basque parliament, José Antonio Ardanza of the PNV, declared, "We are on the threshold of peace once and for all and we can't lose it." At the same time, Ardanza proposed to postpone until the year 2000 serious negotiations over Euskal Herria. Such a delay until after this year's Basque elections and next year's municipal, European elections, and possibly a general election, is needed, the PNV leader said, in order to consolidate the cease-fire and give "confidence" to other parties.
The Communist Party of Spain issued a statement September 19 during its annual Fiesta in Madrid, at which retiring General Secretary Julio Anguita was the main speaker. In his hour-long address, he made no mention of the Basque struggle, save to say that there are sections of the Spanish constitution that need modifying. In its written statement, the Communist Party says that the cease-fire is, in principle, positive. It calls for the return of the political prisoners and dialogue, and concludes with an appeal for a Federal Spanish State.
In its cease-fire declaration ETA reaffirmed its goal of overcoming the institutional and state division of the Basque nation and its fight for Basque unity and sovereignty embracing the provinces of Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Lapurdi, Nafarroa, and Zuberoa. It declared that there's a head-on clash between the project of Basque independence and the designs of the Spanish and French states. Referring to the magnitude of the step taken by the armed organization, the statement calls for an equivalent step to be taken in response: "We are at the threshold of achieving our liberty thanks to the generosity of thousands and thousands of brave Basque men and women."
Herri Batasuna emphasized that the cease-fire declaration did not mean that peace has broken out in Euskal Herria. HB leader Permach cited as evidence to the contrary the Basque political prisoners dispersed in the French and Spanish states, the presence of Madrid's repressive police and civil guard, and, above all, because the Spanish and French governments refuse to recognize that the Basque people "have the right to freely decide their own future."