The Basque people, who live in northern Spain and southern France, have a long history of struggling for their national self-determination against the central government in Madrid.

Garzón issued a three-year injunction ordering the closure of all Batasuna offices and businesses, and barring the party from holding public meetings or street demonstrations. His court order also froze the party’s bank accounts and closed down its web site in Spain.

Batasuna has more than 600 elected officials in town councils and the Basque regional parliament. The party has polled between 10 percent and 18 percent of the vote in Basque elections.

The political ban is part of the Spanish government’s long-standing efforts to stifle the Basque national struggle in the name of "fighting terrorism."

"The countdown to the end of the political arm of terrorism has started," Spanish prime minister José María Aznar gloated the day before Garzón announced his decision.

Following the ruling, the Spanish parliament approved a motion asking the Supreme Court to permanently ban the party on the basis that it has refused to condemn ETA as a "terrorist organization." The two parties sponsoring the measure, the ruling right-wing Popular Party and the social-democratic Socialist Workers Party of Spain (PSOE), accused Batasuna of "fostering a climate of intimidation that has destroyed the exercise of pluralism and democracy."

The United Left electoral coalition, led by the Spanish Communist Party, abstained on the motion. The Basque Nationalist Party, which governs the Basque region, opposed the move.

Hundreds of Batasuna supporters turned out to protest the court decisions in front of party headquarters throughout the Basque region. The youthful demonstrators were violently removed by riot police using tear gas and rubber bullets. On August 23, thousands of people marched through the Basque city of Bilbao in support of Batasuna.

"If anyone thinks that Garzón, or the Popular Party or the Socialists can finish us off, they are wrong," said Joseba Permach, a Batasuna official. "This ban will find an appropriate response on every street in the Basque region."

Washington responded favorably to the decision by the Spanish rulers. U.S. State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher justified the decision saying that "the action was not directed against a legitimate political activity or freedom of expression, but because it is based in the proven links that Batasuna maintains with the terrorist group ETA."

Judge Garzón, a social democrat, has made a name for himself by asserting the authority of imperialist governments to arrest and try individuals around the world--from former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Argentine military officials--in the name of opposing "crimes against humanity."  
 
 
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