Pete Cenarrusa

Pete Cenarrusa is the Idaho Secretary of State, last week, he led the Basque community to sign a memorial aiming towards the resolution of the Basque Issue, he is the most prominent Basque politician in Idaho, where there is a community of 20,000 Basque Americans.

The original memorial came under fire from the Spanish ambassador to the US since it did not mention ETA (the Basque pro-independence group that has recently been branded a terrorist organization by the State Department), Mr. Cenarrusa talked to President Bush and agreed to add a condemn to ETA's violence into the memorial, this time the memorial was approved by every single politician in Idaho, and obtained from Bush the promise that the US government will look into a resolution to the Basque self determination.

Letters have been sent to the Prime Ministers of Spain and France, the President of Nafarroa and the Lehendakari of the Basque Autonomous Comunity.

Through pacific ways, the Basque American community brought more attention to the Basque yearn for self determination than years of violence, ironically, after the war, when the Basques were one more ally against the Fascists, they had the option of going to war (they had the weapons and they had volunteers to come and help from all over Europe, and without Hitler, Spain was weak) or negotiate (option offered by the Allies, since they have promised to clean Europe from every fascist dictator, and Franco was one of them).

The Basque society, having experienced war for 9 years decided to negotiate, negotiations never came, the Allies soon forgot their promise since they had to face a new threat, the Soviet Union. Franco imposed his reign of terror in the Basque Country, that violence generated more violence, he divided the Basque Country into two political entities, he murdered, tortured and incarcerated any Basque that opposed his regime.

But the indomitable Basque spirit survived, and today, that dream of freedom still lives in their hearts. Now they know that the children of the Basque Diaspora have the same dream, the same yearn.

What Idaho did is creating a new awareness among the Basque communities around the world, it was like a voice that awakened a concert of echoes. Many wrong doings were committed against our people, maybe is the time to make it right.

.... ... .