War on terror comes to haunt Basque rights
Picasso's Guernica protested at Franco's bombing of innocents. Now the war on terror risks crushing civil rights in the Basque country.
Dispatch Editor Gavin Stewart reports -- part 2 of 3.
MARTXELO Otamandi, 45, says he was deprived of sleep and made to crouch naked. A plastic bag was pulled over his head for minutes at a time, in sessions lasting two or three hours.
He became so desperate he told police: "Go ahead, take my life once and for all." He reported the assaults to a doctor, he told Associated Press, but the torture continued.
We hear the echoes of South Africa's security police offices years ago. But this is Spain's Guardia Civil headquaters in Madrid. Last week.
Otamnandi was one of 10 editors and managers arrested after Judge Juan del Olmo shut down the Basque newspaper Egunkaria. The paper was accused of being a tool used by ETA's "terrorist" commandos to communicate.
Otamnandi says editor Peio Zubiria was so severely tortured he tried to commit suicide. Respected Basque linguist Juan Maria Torrealdi, in his 60s, was also tortured.
AP reports that the claims were rejected by Spanish justice minister Joseba Azkarraga as "pure invention".
Three years ago the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) noted the persistent reports of torture in a report published in April 2000. It urged Spanish authorities to be vigilant in their treatment of prisoners, and urged that prisoners held incommunicado be guaranteed the right to see a doctor of their choice.
Basques say little has changed. Spain's government continues to suppress Basque institutions and publications. The European Union, its Human Rights Commission and its Court file reports.
But the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC have not helped.
Amnesty International's last annual report noted: "The war on terrorism launched by the United States is being used by different governments to repress dissidence and cut back liberties".
Basque hopes of deciding their own future and taking their place in the new Europe next year are among the victims.
Batasuna, perhaps the major Basque nationalist party, was suspended in September for three to five years, on the grounds that it was associated with "terrorist" groups. When that order expires, the party can be suspended again for three to five years, pending legal action.
The bishops of three of the seven Basque provinces rejected the order and warned of "dark consequences".
But the Spanish parliament has amended the electoral law to allow the government to ban political parties, groups associated with banned parties, any new party resembling a banned party, people previously associated with any banned party...
To hear Fernando Berrana tell the story is to drop back 50 years to South Africa's Suppression of Communism Act of 1950, later renamed the Internal Security Act.
The Communist Party was banned immediately, the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress in 1960, after the shootings at Sharpeville. Their leaders were issued with banning orders, or listed as communists, which meant they could not be quoted anywhere. Leaders of all the congress movements, the Liberal Party and even Defence and Aid, a legal fund, were similarly silenced. Dispatch editor Donald Woods was banned; World editor Percy Qoboza was imprisoned.
Replace "communism" with "terrorism", add 50 years, and the old South Africa resonates through the new Spanish law.
The Law of Political Parties allows any party to be declared illegal -- if it attacks constitutional principles. The principles include Spanish as the only language and the present borders of Spain.
Many Basques want their language and territory -- which straddles the border of Spain and France -- recognised.
"Nearly 800 councillors, 70 mayors, 25 MPs and provincial MPs are members of Batasuna," says Barrana. If the suspension is not lifted, none of them will be able to contest Spain's local government elections on May 25.
"Sixty percent of the popular vote in the Basque regions is nationalist."
In darker moments, even the leading members of Udalbiltza admit that the banning and the new law could be devastating. Udalbiltza is the first assembly of Basque elected public representatives and almost half of them are from Batasuna.
The Batasuna party survives in France, but its offices in all the Spanish Basque cities have been sealed.
Hopes of finding a space for a Basque national identity in the new Europe next year are uncertain.
The heads of government of the European Union could not agree on a definition of terrorism when they met in Laeken, so they adopted a definition which takes into account the causes and intention of actions.
The effect, argues the Basque Observatory on Human Rights, is that any dissidence can be considered terrorist in Europe.
That makes it easy to group all Basque opposition to the Spanish government as terrorist -- the objectives of all Basque nationalists groups are indeed very similar.
The United Nations special representative on human rights, Ms Hina Jilani, noted last year that "while spuriously equating legitimate and peaceful advocacy of the right to self-determination with terrorism -- however defined -- is not a new phenomenon it is certainly assuming greater resonance, and human rights defenders working for the realisation of peoples' quests for self-determination are experiencing some of their darkest hours" because they are "under new and sustained attack world-wide".
Appeals to the Spanish courts and even to the European Court of Human Rights appear to offer some hope.
"Not really," says Barrana. "The new act does not comply with the Spanish constitution's declaration on human rights. But it could take five to six years to get a hearing in a Spanish court." The European court offers an equally distant glimmer.
"Seven years ago the Turks banned a Kurdish party and the European court has just decided. It could take five to six years for them do decide our case. The elections are in a few months."
Batasuna is appealing anyway.
Barrana shrugs.
Banning judge
JUDGE Baltasar Garzón argues that virtually all Basque nationalist groupings "act at the service of the terrorist organistation" ETA.
ETA, he says, is "a sum of structures that give cohesion, sense and objectives to a whole wide range of multi-formed criminal activities". Their objective is to "subvert the constitutionsal order, seeking the dismembering or 'self-determination' of a part of Spanish territory and the serious agitation of the public peace".
Garzón names in the network of organisations: "txonas", mobile street bars which appear at fiestas, the sale of subscriptions, lotteries, business, an advertising agency, ventures selling Latin American products.
Garzón is one of six investigating judges in the Spanish National Court, a similar position to director of public prosecutions here. He investigates cases, gathers evidence and decides whether to prosecute.
Now 48, Garzón led the indictment of Augusto Pinochet and other leaders of the Chilean junta, on charges of genocide, terrorism and torture.
He banned KAS, an association of Basque independence groups; the newspaper Egin and Egin radio and ordered the arrest of members of Ekin, an organisation accused of being the successor to KAS. In September he suspended the Batasuna party.
According to one biography he ran for a seat in the Spanish parliament in 1993 on the socialist ticket, but soon resigned. One version is that the party failed to implement the reforms it had promised, the other is that he was not made minister of justice.
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