Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
AFTER MORE THAN four decades of violence, ETA is reportedly planning to mark its dissolution with a filmed statement that could feature one of the Basque separatist group’s most wanted fugitives.
Created in 1959 at the height of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, ETA waged a relentless campaign of killings and kidnappings in its fight for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwest France, leaving at least 829 dead.
Weakened in recent years by the arrest of its leaders, ETA announced a permanent ceasefire in 2011 and began formally surrendering its arms last year.
In a leaked letter published yesterday by Spanish online newspaper El Diario, it went a step further, announcing it was fully disbanding in what marks the end of western Europe’s last armed insurgency.
“ETA has completely dissolved all of its structures and declared an end to its political initiative,” it said in the letter addressed to various groups and figures involved in recent peace efforts.
Wanted fugitive
Today ETA is expected to release a filmed declaration confirming the end of this dark chapter in Spanish history.
Spanish press have reported that Jose Antonio Urrutikoetxea, better known as Josu Ternera, will be in the video.
A veteran, high-level member of ETA, he is a wanted fugitive who disappeared in 2002. The 67-year-old is said to be suffering from cancer.
His potential presence in the video has infuriated some of ETA’s victims, who say the separatist group should first and foremost condemn its history of violence and shed light on more than 350 unsolved crimes.
“This is not the end of ETA we deserved,” said Consuelo Ordonez, head of the Covite victims’ association.
A partial apology by the separatist group last month in which it acknowledged the harm done and apologised to some of its victims — but not to those it considered legitimate targets such as police — has done little to stem the criticism.
While an overwhelming majority of Basques welcome the end of violence, many still want independence. The separatist coalition EH Bildu, the second largest grouping in the regional parliament, won 21 percent of the votes in the 2016 regional elections.
Critics charge that Basque pro-independence parties, which include among their ranks people once part of or linked to ETA, are trying to impose their version of events.
Separatists argue that Basques have been repressed for decades, even centuries, by Spain and France.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
The Basque people have genuine grievances against the Spanish state and should have a constitutional path to full independence should the Basque people choose it but the Spanish government has shown in Catalonia that they’ve no interest in democracy.
Even slower learners than the RA.
You can’t bomb and shoot people over to your point of view.
@John Mulligan: wouldn’t have power sharing in north today without the armed struggle as sad as that sounds
@John kane: no that’s incorrect. Powersharing is child of John Hume who brought Adams & Mcguinness in from the cold.
@John kane: We could probably have had powersharing a lot sooner without IRA activity. In any case, the IRA wasn’t fighting to achieve powersharing, which it rejected in 1974. It wanted a United Ireland or nothing, and got nothing.
@Brendan O’Brien: The PIRA only existed out of necessity.. Who else was going to step up and protect Catholic areas from Ethnic Cleansing? Catholic churches were being burned to the ground and Nationalists were being murdered and burned out of their homes.. Unfortunately the armed struggle had to happen, just like it did in waves down South up until 1923
@Brendan O’Brien: Meanwhile SF’s mule-like refusal to budge on abstentionism means Arlene and her wee dafties are allowed to make a dog’s dinner of things with no one to oppose them.
@John kane: this is correct
@David Garland: Even if what you say is true (and there is some truth in it as regards the early phase of the Troubles), it doesn’t affect my point.
To say ‘we wouldn’t have power sharing in the north today without the armed struggle’ is nonsense.
@Harry Whitehead: No one in the House of Commons? Labour, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Greens?
@Brendan O’Brien: the power sharing was a sacrifice by the UUP and SDLP to let the extremists get into the power positions in politics instead of violence. I guess they hoped people would leave behind sectarianism once there was peace, but they didn’t counter for the people of northern Ireland. They just love their conflict and strife! At least ETA never really made any true headway in sectarianism politics like SF.
@O’Boyle Darragh: Every seat counts. I would have thought that a mere 10 DUP seats were enough to illustrate this point.
@John Mulligan: no you can’t, Americans, British, French, they have all tried it down the years and it never works, some people still fight back.
There is another little blip in Spain at the moment though
@FlopFlipU: Replace ‘blip’ with ‘pain in the arse’.
Scary
have your say