Basques Support Referendum

Here you have an update from The Guardian regarding Ibarretxe's proposal:

Basques back poll on free state

Giles Tremlett in Madrid

Monday October 28, 2002
The Guardian

The Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, has suffered a blow to his attempt to prevent the Basque country voting on whether it should become "a freely associated state" by an opinion poll finding that two-thirds of the region's people support the planned referendum.

The Basque premier, Juan Jose Ibarretexe, of the Basque Nationalist Party, has said he plans to hold a referendum within a year.

The poll showed that four out of five Basques believe the Madrid government should respect whatever decision is made in the referendum. But a similar number said that they preferred that any new arrangement between the Basque country and Spain should to be agreed by them both.

A significant number were alarmed by Mr Ibarretxe's proposal. Critics have suggested say that his plan will lead to discrimination against people who have moved to the Basque country from other parts of Spain. One in five Basques said Mr Ibarretxe's plan made them "scared".

Support for the plan was not as enthusiastic as Mr Ibarretxe might have liked. Only 43% said they were "excited" by his the proposals, which are seen as a way of ending attempt to end more than 30 years of separatist violence by Eta, which has claimed 800 lives.

Fifty-two percent said that they should be allowed to have joint Spanish and Basque nationality, while 28% percent were opposed to the idea.

Nine out of 10 Basques felt that Eta should call a ceasefire first, if there was to be a referendum. Four fifths of supportingers of the radical separatist Batasuna party, which is in the process of being banned for supporting Eta - agreed that a ceasefire would be necessary.

The poll was criticised by Mr Aznar's People's party, which has accused Mr Ibarretxe of bowing to Eta's demands for independence.

I wonder if Giles will ever mention the thousands of Basques murdered by Spain.

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