Pro-Batasuna Demonstration

This report of the pro-Batasuna demonstration in Bilbao comes to us via The Militant:

Basques protest banning by Madrid

BY LAURA GARZA

MADRID, Spain--On September 14 tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of Bilbao, a major city in the Basque provinces, to oppose the Spanish govern-ment’s move to ban the political party Batasuna, which backs independence for the Basque people.

"We are protesting against the loss of fundamental political freedoms in the Basque Country, stated Unai, a student demonstrator. "This protest shows that the people oppose the authoritarian policies of the Spanish government." Marchers stepped off behind a banner reading, "Long Live the Basque People" (Gora Euskal Herria) together with a large Basque flag.

Independence for the Basque region, which straddles territory in southern France and northern Spain, is widely supported in the region. The intransigent fight by Basques had been a thorn in the side of the Spanish government, which has consistently opposed this demand.

The protest came within weeks of an August 26 order by Spanish High Court judge Baltasar Garzón declaring Batasuna banned for three years, while an investigation is under way to justify a permanent ban by linking supporters of Batasuna with the illegal pro-independence group ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom). Garzón issued orders to close offices of the political party, freeze bank accounts, and shut down taverns and other businesses in the Basque region. The order included a ban on protests by supporters of Batasuna.

Cops seek to break up march

The September 14 march, estimated to be between 30,000 and 50,000 people, greatly outnumbered the several hundred police seeking to disrupt it. The cops set up a barricade across the road at a point about halfway between the starting and ending points. When the demonstrators reached the barricade they were ordered to disperse. Shortly afterwards the police opened up on the crowd with high-powered water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets.

March leaders managed to address the crowd and most people then dispersed. Batasuna leader Arnoldo Otegi, one of those banned from publicly speaking, stated, "Today we have seen who is defending human rights. There will be new demonstrations and new opportunities. We ask that this should end peacefully."

A week earlier, hundreds protested in Guernica September 8 against the policy of transferring Basque political prisoners to prisons far from the Basque region. The next day in San Sebastian, thousands marched behind a banner reading, "The Basque Country Needs Freedom." Spanish government officials complained that the Ertzaintza, the local Basque police, had not broken up these events. Prior to the September 14 action, the Basque regional authorities agreed to hand a copy of Garzón’s orders to the marchers. The Madrid government, however, demanded that the Ertzaintza be ordered to carry out the judge’s order, and the Basque authorities complied.

These protest actions have deepened a schism between the capitalist parties ruling the Spanish state and the pro-independence bourgeois party in power in the Basque autonomous region. Officials in Madrid demanded an explanation of why the September 14 march had been allowed to take place. A spokesperson for Spanish prime minister José María Aznar’s ruling Popular Party in the Basque region complained, "ETA-Batasuna gained their objectives, they brought more than 70 buses into Bilbao, gathered their people, occupied the streets of Bilbao for more than half an hour, and held a political act addressed by no less than Arnaldo Otegi." He demanded someone be held responsible for letting tens of thousands of people take to the streets.

In response, the Basque National Party, the ruling party in the Basque region, accused Judge Garzón of perverting justice by limiting the right to free speech, and threatened to sue the judge for usurping power that belongs to the Basque regional authorities. Basque officials have also refused to abide by an order to dissolve the grouping of Batasuna representatives in the parliament, where they hold seven of 75 seats.

Madrid’s moves come in the context of the drive to war against Iraq and stepped up moves to justify repressive legislation on the basis of fighting terrorism. The government has recently proposed adding 20,000 troops to the streets under the guise of fighting delinquency, and has proposed an amendment to a law on foreigners that would allow the deportation of any immigrant found guilty of minor offenses. In the days leading up to the Bilbao march, Prime Minister Aznar told President George Bush, "We have strong reasons to support the United States," in its plans to attack Iraq, putting Spain at Britain’s side in giving full backing to Washington’s war.

Madrid is trying to use the war drive to push ahead with further measures aimed a limiting the rights of Basque activists. Previously, Spanish officials unsuccessfully tried to have Batasuna declared a terrorist group, thereby giving French and Belgian rulers a free hand in shutting down the offices of the party located in these countries. They hope to reintroduce such a proposal now that the group has been banned in Spain.

Meanwhile, the capitalist media here has given front-page coverage to a series of arrests in France of ETA members.

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