Patxi López, the infamous Basque scab finally met face to face with Arnaldo Otegi. I wonder what a little man like Patxi feels when he is in the presence of a person that embodies all what he hates, what he has dedicated his whole life to destroy.
When a Spaniard says that the Basque Country does not deserve independence is somewhat expected. But when individuals like Patxi insist on being Basque and then goes on to champion the big lie that the Basques do not long for self-determination then things are a bit different.
Well, I bet all of Patxi's principles were put to the test. Here is the report on the meeting between the PSE and Batasuna, although the reporter for some reason decided to switch the name of the political party and replaced it with ETA, something that turns Daniel Woolls into the Basque-phobe of the week. Someone should inform Daniel that the meetings with ETA will not take place until September, and that the accusation of Batasuna being ETA's political arm is just that, an accusation, therefore and since this is the free world, one is innocent until proven guilty.
Here it is:
Spanish ruling party official meets ETA
By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jul 6, 12:36 PM ET
A delegate from Spain's ruling party met with the leader of an outlawed Basque separatist group Thursday in historic talks hailed by both sides as a possible step toward peace.
The meeting in the Basque city of San Sebastian brought together Arnaldo Otegi, the leader of Batasuna, the political wing of the armed separatist group ETA, and Patxi Lopez, leader of the Basque branch of the governing Socialist party.
ETA declared a permanent cease-fire in March after decades of violence that claimed more than 800 lives, and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said last week he will negotiate with the group, having concluded the truce is sincere. His announcement gave the go-ahead for Thursday's talks.
Otegi, the most visible pro-independence politician in the Basque region, who once served jail time for taking part in an ETA kidnapping, said his party has had secret contacts with the Socialist party for years. He said it's now possible to envision "a historic and real opportunity to resolve the political conflict."
The prime minister's political opponents, however, were outraged by the meeting and called it a handshake with terrorists.
"The meeting was held with a terrorist organization which has neither condemned nor renounced criminal activity, and this makes the meeting especially immoral," said Mariano Rajoy, leader of the conservative Popular Party.
His party says Zapatero is wrongly allowing contacts with the outlawed Batasuna party before ETA has surrendered and dissolved.
Lopez said the meeting was legal even though Batasuna remains outlawed under a ban instituted in 2003 by the Supreme Court. That ban — put in place on the grounds the party is part of ETA — stripped it of the right to engage in political activities and shut down its offices, though it has remained legal to belong to Batasuna.
Lopez said the talks were aimed at encouraging Batasuna to renounce violence and work toward lifting the ban. "If until today they were part of the problem, we now want them to be part of the solution," he said.
Otegi insisted the Basque people have the right to decide their own future but said any accord on the region's future must be negotiated with Basques who want it to remain part of Spain.
Thursday's meeting marked the first time a representative of a governing party in Spain has conferred openly with a delegate of an outlawed party that is classified as part of a terrorist organization. Officials of past governments have met with members of Batasuna or even ETA, but those talks were always secret and disclosed only after the fact.
Zapatero has stressed that talks should focus on ETA's dissolution and the status of more than 500 ETA prisoners in Spanish jails, not the militant group's stated goal of winning independence for the Basque regions of northern Spain and southern France.
The Basque group has not killed anyone since a May 2003 car bombing that claimed the lives of two policemen, although prior to the cease-fire announcement in March it had kept up relatively low-level bomb attacks designed to extort money from local businessmen.
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