Working Hard: The Basque Way

Don't let the media's propaganda machine fool you, they are always feeding the international community with the lie that only violent Basques are demanding independence, as a matter of fact, those are the tiny minority, a large percentage works peacefully and diligently towards Basque self-determination, here are a couple of examples, the notes appeared at Berria English:

Batasuna presents peace proposal in Rome and Brussels, too

Arnaldo Otegi, a member of the party’s executive committee, said in a speech in the Italian capital that the Basque nationalist left had made “a bid to solve the conflict”

Editorial Staff

In Rome and Brussels yesterday Batasuna spoke about the Peace Proposal it presented on November 14 at the Anoeta Cycling Stadium (Donostia-San Sebastian). Arnaldo Otegi, the spokesman for the party’s executive committee, gave a speech in Rome while Koldo Gorostiaga, the former MEP, gave a press conference in Brussels after a meeting with a number of elected representatives in the European Parliament.

Otegi gave a speech yesterday evening entitled It’s time for peace, let the Basque Country speak at the Intifada Social Centre in Rome accompanied by Mauro Bulgarelli, a Green Party MP, and Marco Santopadre, a representative of the Citta Aperta radio station. Otegi summarised the course of the last 25 years; he went on to point out that the right moment had come to bring about peace, and that the Basque nationalist left had made “a bid to overcome the conflict”. The Batasuna spokesman had an audience of about one hundred people.

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Ibarretxe maintains “the post-ETA era” has begun

The President of the Basque Autonomous Community said in Madrid yesterday that the era of dialogue between his government and the PSOE had commenced

Editorial Staff

Juan Jose Ibarretxe, the Lehendakari or President of the BAC-Basque Autonomous Community Government, was in Madrid yesterday to take part in a press conference organised by the Association of European Journalists. In reply to the journalists’ questions he said that politics today had “replaced” violence and that the “post-ETA era” had begun. He did not, however, say whether he thought it was necessary to speak to the armed organisation.

He also felt that the “lack of communication” that had until recently prevailed under the PP was over, and that the era of dialogue had been ushered in with Zapatero in power. In this respect, he was reaching out to the PSOE so that “these new opportunities” could be seized. Ibarretxe stressed that it was absolutely crucial for the Lehendakari and the head of the Spanish Government to speak to each other, despite their different viewpoints. He regarded respect for each one’s ideas as “indispensable” and consequently claimed the same respect for his own ideas.

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