Basque Separatists Declare Halt to Violence
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: October 20, 2011
LONDON - After nearly half a century of violence in its struggle for independence in the traditional Basque homeland in Spain and France, the separatist group ETA declared a unilateral end to its campaign of bombings and shootings on Thursday, saying it wished to seize a “historical opportunity to reach a just and democratic resolution” of the conflict.
The group’s announcement of “the definite cessation of its military activity” came in the form of a written statement and an accompanying video that was made available to The New York Times and the BBC in London under an embargo stipulating that the statement not to be made public until 6 p.m. British time, 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time in the United States. ETA’s officials said they planned to release the statement simultaneously to two sympathetic Basque-language newspapers , Garra and Berria, published in San Sebastian, the political center of the main Basque homeland in Spain.
The video showed the statement being read in Spanish by one of a group of masked and hooded men, and intermediaries with access to ETA identified the men as members of the group’s General Command.
The announcement was carefully choreographed to follow an appeal to ETA issued by a group of informal peace negotiators who met in San Sebastian on Monday. Those negotiators, who included Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, and Gerry Adams, the leader of the Irish nationalist group Sinn Fein, said in their statement that “it is time to end, and possible to end, the last armed confrontation in Europe.”
Although the announcement met longstanding demands from the Spanish and French governments, the United Nations and human rights groups for an end to the violence that has characterized the militants’ struggle, it appeared to fall short of guaranteeing that the armed struggle would never resume. For one thing, the ETA statement, far from renouncing the group’s goal of independence, reasserted it emphatically, with the commanders joining at the video’s end with traditional ETA rallying cries reaffirming their demands for freedom.
“The fight for independence for the Basque homeland goes on!” they cried.
Analysts who have followed ETA’s course in recent years said another cause for wariness about the group’s intentions lay in the fact that it has made previous cease-fire declarations that have been quickly abandoned, most egregiously in 2006, when a truce declared after negotiations with the government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez failed and ETA militants mounted a deadly car bomb attack at Madrid’s main international airport. Last January, ETA declared a “permanent cease-fire,” which some analysts said on Thursday was broadly similar, if less comprehensive, than the declaration of the end to armed struggle in its new declaration.
Against this, some Spanish commentators said the declaration amounted to a recognition by ETA’s commanders that the group had effectively been routed by a harsh crackdown mounted in recent years by the Spanish and French governments, with a leading role played by Nicolas Sarkozy as France’s interior minister until 2006, and as the French president since then. With hundreds of its activists rounded up and imprisoned, some estimates have said that ETA, in recent times, has had only 50 active militants capable of mounting an attack.
Skepticism about the announcement also centered on the fact that Spain’s Socialist government and the main center-right Popular Party, which is a strong favorite to win a general election on Nov. 20, appeared to have played no part in the behind-the-scenes preparations for the ETA announcement.
Indeed, the Popular Party, which appears headed for an absolute parliamentary majority in the election, has strongly opposed any quick peace deal, insisting that ETA not only renounce its violence and disarm, but dissolve on terms to be negotiated with the authorities in Madrid.
In addition, the ETA statement, contrary to demands that have been made by the Madrid government, offered no apology to the victims of its past actions. According to tallies kept by Spanish human rights groups and others, these include at least 800 people who have been killed, many of them in bombings and shootings that have occurred outside the main Basque population centers in southwest France and northeastern Spain. On the contrary, the ETA statement emphasized the “violence and oppression” it said had been inflicted on its followers and on the Basque population.
“In response to violence and oppression, dialogue and agreement ought to characterize the new era,” the ETA statement said, according to an unofficial translation of the statement’s original Spanish version. “The recognition of the Basque homeland and respect for the popular will should prevail over the attempt to impose. This is the desire of Basque citizens.”
In the statement’s key passage, it added: “ETA has decided the definitive cessation of its military activity. ETA calls on the governments of Spain and France to open a process of direct dialogue whose objective is the resolution of the consequences of the conflict and thus the end of the armed confrontation.
“Finally, ETA calls on Basque society to involve itself in the process of solutions to construct a situation of peace and liberty,” the statement said.
The ETA commanders appeared to have based their declaration on a formulation suggested by the peace negotiators. In the key passage, the commanders used almost identical wording to that used by the negotiators when they urged ETA in their statement to make “a public declaration of the definitive cessation of all armed action.”
SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/europe/eta-basque-separatists-declare-halt-to-violence-in-spain-and-france.html?_r=1&emc=na
Published: October 20, 2011
LONDON - After nearly half a century of violence in its struggle for independence in the traditional Basque homeland in Spain and France, the separatist group ETA declared a unilateral end to its campaign of bombings and shootings on Thursday, saying it wished to seize a “historical opportunity to reach a just and democratic resolution” of the conflict.
The group’s announcement of “the definite cessation of its military activity” came in the form of a written statement and an accompanying video that was made available to The New York Times and the BBC in London under an embargo stipulating that the statement not to be made public until 6 p.m. British time, 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time in the United States. ETA’s officials said they planned to release the statement simultaneously to two sympathetic Basque-language newspapers , Garra and Berria, published in San Sebastian, the political center of the main Basque homeland in Spain.
The video showed the statement being read in Spanish by one of a group of masked and hooded men, and intermediaries with access to ETA identified the men as members of the group’s General Command.
The announcement was carefully choreographed to follow an appeal to ETA issued by a group of informal peace negotiators who met in San Sebastian on Monday. Those negotiators, who included Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, and Gerry Adams, the leader of the Irish nationalist group Sinn Fein, said in their statement that “it is time to end, and possible to end, the last armed confrontation in Europe.”
Although the announcement met longstanding demands from the Spanish and French governments, the United Nations and human rights groups for an end to the violence that has characterized the militants’ struggle, it appeared to fall short of guaranteeing that the armed struggle would never resume. For one thing, the ETA statement, far from renouncing the group’s goal of independence, reasserted it emphatically, with the commanders joining at the video’s end with traditional ETA rallying cries reaffirming their demands for freedom.
“The fight for independence for the Basque homeland goes on!” they cried.
Analysts who have followed ETA’s course in recent years said another cause for wariness about the group’s intentions lay in the fact that it has made previous cease-fire declarations that have been quickly abandoned, most egregiously in 2006, when a truce declared after negotiations with the government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez failed and ETA militants mounted a deadly car bomb attack at Madrid’s main international airport. Last January, ETA declared a “permanent cease-fire,” which some analysts said on Thursday was broadly similar, if less comprehensive, than the declaration of the end to armed struggle in its new declaration.
Against this, some Spanish commentators said the declaration amounted to a recognition by ETA’s commanders that the group had effectively been routed by a harsh crackdown mounted in recent years by the Spanish and French governments, with a leading role played by Nicolas Sarkozy as France’s interior minister until 2006, and as the French president since then. With hundreds of its activists rounded up and imprisoned, some estimates have said that ETA, in recent times, has had only 50 active militants capable of mounting an attack.
Skepticism about the announcement also centered on the fact that Spain’s Socialist government and the main center-right Popular Party, which is a strong favorite to win a general election on Nov. 20, appeared to have played no part in the behind-the-scenes preparations for the ETA announcement.
Indeed, the Popular Party, which appears headed for an absolute parliamentary majority in the election, has strongly opposed any quick peace deal, insisting that ETA not only renounce its violence and disarm, but dissolve on terms to be negotiated with the authorities in Madrid.
In addition, the ETA statement, contrary to demands that have been made by the Madrid government, offered no apology to the victims of its past actions. According to tallies kept by Spanish human rights groups and others, these include at least 800 people who have been killed, many of them in bombings and shootings that have occurred outside the main Basque population centers in southwest France and northeastern Spain. On the contrary, the ETA statement emphasized the “violence and oppression” it said had been inflicted on its followers and on the Basque population.
“In response to violence and oppression, dialogue and agreement ought to characterize the new era,” the ETA statement said, according to an unofficial translation of the statement’s original Spanish version. “The recognition of the Basque homeland and respect for the popular will should prevail over the attempt to impose. This is the desire of Basque citizens.”
In the statement’s key passage, it added: “ETA has decided the definitive cessation of its military activity. ETA calls on the governments of Spain and France to open a process of direct dialogue whose objective is the resolution of the consequences of the conflict and thus the end of the armed confrontation.
“Finally, ETA calls on Basque society to involve itself in the process of solutions to construct a situation of peace and liberty,” the statement said.
The ETA commanders appeared to have based their declaration on a formulation suggested by the peace negotiators. In the key passage, the commanders used almost identical wording to that used by the negotiators when they urged ETA in their statement to make “a public declaration of the definitive cessation of all armed action.”
SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/europe/eta-basque-separatists-declare-halt-to-violence-in-spain-and-france.html?_r=1&emc=na