Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Zapatero Exposed

Finally an article that veers away from the usual non sense coming out of Madrid's Ministry of Propaganda.

In this article appeared at Yahoo News, Zapatero is shown as the poor politician he really is, standing above the mediocrity of the Spanish political class.

Here you have it:

Spain court orders trial over ETA talks

By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 30, 10:52 AM ET

The president of the Basque region and two members of Spain's ruling Socialist party were ordered Tuesday to stand trial for meeting with a banned separatist party — a ruling that was an embarrassment for the government in Madrid.

The three may have committed a crime because the Supreme Court declared the Batasuna party illegal in 2003 on grounds it was part of the militant group ETA, said Roberto Saiz, an investigating magistrate at the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque country.

The ruling was an embarrassment for the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero because he has staunchly defended his failed bid to negotiate peace with ETA last year in secret talks. Now, two underlings must stand trial for essentially the same effort with ETA's political wing.

Patxi Lopez and Rodolfo Ares, both senior members of the Basque branch of Zapatero's party, met publicly with Batasuna leaders in July 2006 when optimism over an ETA cease-fire was high. Basque President Juan Jose Ibarretxe did so in April 2006 and January 2007.

ETA reverted to violence with a December bombing that killed two people after peace talks with the government went nowhere. ETA said Zapatero reneged on promises of political concessions.

Two activist groups in the Basque region that opposed peace talks with ETA — the Ermua Forum and Dignity and Justice — had asked the Basque region's highest court to act against Ibarretxe, Lopez and Ares for meeting with Batasuna leaders.

Prosecutors had said they saw no evidence of a crime, and that the court could not act only at the request of private parties. But Saiz rejected this argument, saying he could order a trial even though prosecutors representing the state were opposed.

A spokeswoman for Ibarretxe, Miren Azkarate, said the ruling went against "Basque society and their majority will to reach peace."

There was no immediate comment from Zapatero's government.


People around the world will soon realize that only Zapatero and his government are to blame for the failure of the Peace Process initiated by ETA's call for a cease fire.

The article also sheds some light on how things work in Spain and it goes like this: political parties in Spain are forced to maintain a level of respect towards law and justice because Spain is part of the European Union and Europeans are obsessed with presenting themselves as an open minded, progressive and law abiding lot. So Spain has resorted to a dirty little trick, it has created a number of organizations that act as NGOs but that in reality are groups designed to carry out Madrid's dirty jobs.

Ermua's Forum is just one of them.

What makes things worst for Zapatero is the Ermua's Forum is known for its extreme right inclination, they were created by Josá María Aznar's underlings, among them the philosopher in charge of coming up with a wide range of excuses for the excesses committed by Madrid in the repression of the Basque society, his name, Fernando Savater.

So, the fact that José Luis Zapatero is resorting to Aznar's mongrels to punish the Basque politicians that took part in the aborted Peace Process gives us a measure of were Zapatero's morals stand, right next to those of a genocidal maniac like José María Aznar.

This should worry Spaniards more that it worries the Basque public, in its obsession with outdoing the Francoists in the Partido Popular, Zapatero is willing to take his once upon a time Socialist party down the totalitarian path.

And all of this just because the members of the PSOE, just like the members of the PP, are unable to renounce to Spain's colonialist past and once for all allow the nations captive within the Spanish State to go their own way. Meaning, the Spanish politicians are people living in the XXI century with a XV century mentality.

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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Zapatero Betrays Ibarretxe

Away from home while in Mexico on an official visit, the Basque Autonomous Community's Prime Minister Juan José Ibarretxe just got news that the Basque-phobe Fernando Savater has succeeded in getting him and a few other Basque politicians into trouble.

Acting as as mercenary for José Luis Rodríguez (just like he did for José María Aznar), Savater delivered one more blow to the Peace Process in the Basque Country. As a consequence of a demand by his Ermua's Forum, a judge decided that Ibarretxe from the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), Patxi López and Rodolfo Ares from the PSOE and eight members of Batasuna should be incarcerated for their meetings held as part of the negotiations during the same Peace Process that Zapatero torpedoed.

Here you have the note appeared at EITb:

Politics

For meeting Batasuna leaders

Basque President Ibarretxe to stand trial

10/30/2007

Senior members of the Basque socialist party López and Ares will also stand trial, as well as Batasuna members Otegi, Barrena, Petrikorena, Dañobeitia, and Etxeberria. The eight face possible charges of disobedience.

Basque President Juan José Ibarretxe and senior members of the Basque socialist party Patxi López and Rodolfo Ares will stand trial for meeting members of the outlawed Basque party Batasuna, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Senior members of Batasuna Arnaldo Otegi, Rufi Etxeberria, Juan José Petrikorena, Pernando Barrena and Olatz Dañobeitia will also stand trial for the same meetings.

Roberto Saiz, an investigating magistrate at the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque country, said that Basque president Juan Jose Ibarretxe and the two Socialists, Patxi Lopez and Rodolfo Ares, may have committed a crime by meeting with Batasuna leaders because the Spanish Supreme Court declared Batasuna illegal in 2003.

Lopez and Ares met with Batasuna leaders publicly last July. Ibarretxe did so in April 2006 and January 2007.

Batasuna was outlawed in 2003 for refusing to denounce violence. The law of Political Parties, a specially drawn up law in Spain, insists all parties must denounce violence.

The eight politicians face possible charges of disobedience.

Under Spanish law, private parties can ask courts to bring criminal charges and that is what happened in this case. Two activist groups in the Basque Country that opposed Zapatero's peace talks with ETA, the Ermua Forum and Dignity and Justice, asked the Basque Country's highest court to go after Ibarretxe, Lopez and Ares for meeting with Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi and others.

Prosecutors had said they saw no evidence of a crime, and that the court could not act just at the request of private parties. But Saiz rejected this argument, saying he could order a trial even though prosecutors representing the state were opposed.


This is just another example of how twisted and morally corrupt is the Spanish political class. It is also a reminder to Ibarretxe that Rome does not pay traitors for Zapatero and Savater are now using against him the same Law of Political Parties for which Ibarretxe had his Minister of the Interior Xabier Balza unleashing its violent regional police against peaceful demonstrators time and again.

And Spain brags itself of being a democratic state, what a sham.

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

Franco's Pope

One can try to forget that Joseph Ratzinger, the current Pope, volunteered to be part of Hitler's Youth.

One can try to forget that Herr Ratzinger was head of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith for a long time.

But then he goes and reminds us that during his lifetime he managed to be part of not one but two of humankind's most hated organizations, the Nazis and the Inquisition.

But what did he do this time?

Well, not an easy task, following on the steps of one of his predecessors (one by the name of Eugenio Pacelli) he validated Francisco Franco's regime.

How did he do it?

Quite easy actually, he beatified 498 priests and nuns who died during Franco's uprising.

But what is the problem with that?

Let me explain, those 498 priests and nuns were killed by the Republican forces for those religious fellas decided to side with Franco's rebels. The problem being that Franco's side murdered as many priests and nuns, only that those were killed for not siding with Franco.

You still don't get it?

Ratzinger refused to beatify those killed by Franco, in doing so, he validated Franco's regime, just like Eugenio Pacelli did back when he was pope.

Times On Line covers the aftermath of Ratzinger's most recent act as a man who leans towards authoritarian views.

Here it is:

October 29, 2007

Fight at church as Pope begins sainthood for Franco’s clergy

Fighting broke out outside a church in Rome yesterday after the Pope beatified 498 priests and nuns killed in the Spanish Civil War.

Members of the congregation attacked left-wing protesters carrying a banner that read: “Those who have killed, tortured and exploited cannot be beatified.”

Around 30 people tore the banner to pieces along with a large reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica, the depiction of the bombing of a Basque town carried out by Franco’s side.

Italian police arrested seven people and impounded a van that protesters had used to film the fighting.

In a speech to 30,000 – mainly Spanish – pilgrims in St Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to the “martyrs” of the 1936-39 war and put them on the path to sainthood. “Their words and gestures of forgiveness towards their persecutors should enable us to work towards reconciliation and peaceful coexistence,” he said.

The Roman Catholic Church largely supported Franco during the war and its aftermath. Critics said it was again choosing sides by honouring victims on only one side and that the Pope should have recognised the Church’s role in supporting a fascist dictator who killed untold thousands and overthrew a democratically elected government.

Spain’s Association for Historical Memory, which is exhuming mass graves of those killed on the Republican side to give them a proper burial: said: “As long as the Church accepts only its role as victim and not executioner, it will simply be contributing to . . . the partisan use of the past.”

The country’s Socialist Government has clashed repeatedly with the Roman Catholic Church. The Prime Minister, José Luis RodrÍguez Zapatero, whose grandfather was executed by Franco’s forces, has caused howls of protest from conservatives after introducing a law aimed at redressing the injustices suffered by victims of the regime. Among other measures, the law orders the removal of any symbols of the dictatorship, which arguably include the shrines in many Spanish churches to the dead on Franco’s side. Republican victims still lie in dozens of unmarked mass graves around the country.

On this occasion, however, the Government and the Vatican have striven to avoid confrontation. The Government sent its Foreign Minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, to lead the Spanish delegation at the ceremony.


So, who was the head of that Roman Catholic Church that largely supported Franco?

You read his name but maybe it did not ring any bells. His name was Eugenio Pacelli, none other that Hitler's pope, Pius XII.

So no matter what a religious fundamentalist (Rychlak) from Mississippi nor a Zionist (Dalin) trying to gain the favor of the ultra conservative camp in different countries have to say, the fact is, lead by backward minded thugs like Pacelli and Ratzinger, the Roman Catholic Church has a penchant for siding with infamous world tyrants like Franco, Mussolini and Hitler.

Now, how sad can it be that Spain, a country lead by a Socialist government that brags about being the political heirs to the Republic destroyed by Franco sent a representative to Rome to assist to the ceremony. That can tell you just to what extent José Luis Rodríguez is willing to go to betray the Spaniards.

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Saturday, October 27, 2007

Double Standard

Funny thing, the Spanish politicians are constantly using the country's judiciary to find a way to advance their political repression of the Basque Country. Who can forget the figure of Baltasar Garzón who without regard for the name of the person occupying in La Moncloa has managed to be the shinning star of a macabre show, one in which the Spanish judges are willing to break any law as to ensure that their masters in Madrid can freely maneuver in their crusade to maintain the colonial grip over an entire people.

Well, now that the Basque parliament requested the liberation of Batasuna's members imprisoned for exercising their democratic right to gather, some Spanish politicians dared to state that this can not be, that there is something called division of powers and that the regional parliament can not decide what the judiciary does.

Here you have the note published by the International Herald Tribune:

Spain rejects Basque regional parliament's motion to free detained separatists

The Associated Press
Saturday, October 27, 2007

MADRID, Spain: Spain's government on Saturday rejected a motion passed by the Basque regional parliament calling for the release of separatist leaders detained earlier this month on suspicion of belonging to an illegal party linked to armed group ETA.

The Basque parliament passed the motion Friday challenging the National Court's decision to order the detention of suspected members of the Batasuna party.

On Oct. 7, judge Baltasar Garzon ordered the arrest of 17 suspected members of Batasuna following a police raid on a meeting in the Basque town of Segura.

The Basque parliament's motion said that "those people who have been detained and imprisoned while exercising basic rights such as that of assembly should recover their freedom."

The motion was able to pass because of support from Basque nationalist parties, despite opposition by Socialist and conservative Popular Party lawmakers in the regional parliament.

Spain's government criticized the motion, saying the independence of the judiciary must be preserved.

"Political debate cannot and should not question something as basic and essential as judicial independence, even when one does not agree with the judgments of tribunals," Paulino Luesma, the Spanish Interior Ministry's representative in the Basque region, said in a statement.

.....

On Oct. 2, two leaders were detained in San Sebastian and two days later police cordoned off Segura and raided an alleged secret Batasuna meeting, detaining 23 purported leaders. Of those, 17 were arrested and charged with membership in an armed group.


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Eusko Flickr : Euskalduna


Euskalduna
Originally uploaded by Borja Lanseros

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Conference About Basque Diaspora

This note appeared today at EITb:

Basques around the world

Euskal Herria Mugaz Gaindi

Emigration and Basque presence abroad to examination

10/25/2007

About twenty professors and journalists, including the head of the French department in eitb24.com, take part in the IV International Conference on Basques around the world held in Bayonne and Ustaritze.

The Basque towns of Ustaritze and Bayonne host Thursday 25 and Friday 26 the IV workshop Euskal Herria Mugaz Gaindi, held by Eusko Ikaskuntza.

Professors and journalists will give lectures on the Basque emigrants, their lives abroad, their cultural legacy as well as the efforts they make to keep their identity around the world.

Lecturers will focus mainly on the different sides of the emigration and the Basque presence around the world, mainly in America where the biggest part of the Basque Diaspora lives. Some of the main themes will be the family life of the Basques in the XIX century or their participation in the Mexican revolution.

Some of the studies will focus on past events but there are also others who look into the future. Frederick Verbeke, head of the French department of eitb24.com, highlighted the importance of the new technologies in the creation of a Basque identity world wide.

Two members of EuskoSare and the Euskal Argentina organization close the workshop on Friday.

EuskoSare, a venture that promotes the growth of the Global Basque Community by increasing communication and cooperation amongst all the Basques in the world, has created a blog to give information on the workshop.


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Basque Contribution to Technology

This article about Basque scientist Pedro Miguel Etxenike appeared at EITb:

Sci/Tech

The future of electronics

Basque scientist opens new roads to future technology

10/25/2007

A research by the Basque scientist P.M. Etxenike hit the cover of the scientific magazine Nature on Thursday. The research constitutes a powerful tool for exploring electronic processes on the attosecond timescale.

A research on the dynamic behavior of electrons in condensed-matter systems hit the cover of the scientific magazine Nature on Thursday. The research, carried out by the Basque scientist P.M. Etxenike, proves that attosecond metrology constitutes a powerful tool for exploring not only gas-phase systems, but also fundamental electronic processes occurring on the attosecond timescale in condensed-matter systems and on surfaces.

Etxenike points out that the main achievement of the research, coordinated by scientists from the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science and the University of Bielefeld (Germany), was to obtain the "most precise measurement" on this scale.

It is the "first step of the way to the development of techniques of ultrafast electronics," the Basque scientist says. It is a very short time but it is the scale in which technology advances in the future will take place.

According to Etxenike, who chairs the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), this discovery "opens a new way where attosecond Physics and Nanotechnology meet".

Other Nature covers have included research works by other scientists such as Juan Luis Arsuaga, Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, Xavier Irigoyen and Salvador Moyá.


This is the link to Nature Magazine.

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Al Jazeera and Euskal Herria

EITb publishes a note regarding the visit of a reporter from the media outlet Al Jazeera, here it is:

Politics

"Basque Battles"

Al Jazeera's news report analyzes Basque conflict

10/25/2007

A journalist working for the Qatar TV station has spent some days in the Basque Country interviewing politicians, victims of ETA and relatives of ETA inmates.

Qatari TV station Al Jazeera broadcast last October 10th a wide report on the political situation in the Basque Country.

Entitled "Basque Battles," the research programme People and power takes as starting point the recent arrest and imprisonment of most of the senior members of the banned Basque leftist party Batasuna. Juliana Ruhfus, a journalist working for Al Jazeera, interviewed in the Basque Country leftist and conservative politicians, victims of ETA attacks and relatives of ETA inmates.

The report, which is made of two 15-minute long videos, analyzes the situation in the Gipuzkoan town of Lizartza, where the conservative party PP won the local election May 27th with 27 votes and a leftist platform, which had been barred from standing, had 186 votes. There were also 142 blank votes and the rest of political parties decided not to stand in the vote.

Ruhfus interviews the current mayor Regina Otaola (PP), the former mayor, José Antonio Mintegui, and Maider Agirrenabarrena, candidate for the outlawed leftist platform. "Batasuna is a terrorist organization and ANV is its successor. If Batasuna takes control of the town, this would become the Nazi Germany", Otaola says.

The interviews to ETA's victims include the statements of Gorka Landaburu, a journalist who was victim of an ETA's attack, and Pilar Elias, widow of Ramón Baglieto, a conservative councilor murdered by the armed group in 1980.

The report reflects the situation of the relatives of the ETA inmates and shows one of the rallies that the amnesty group Askatasuna calls every month's last Friday to ask for the imprisonment of Basque inmates in Basque prisons and not in far-away Spanish prisons.

Julen Madariaga, one of the founders of ETA, explains in an interview the creation of the armed group, its evolution and the current situation. According to Madariaga, "ETA is at one end, the PP at the other end and the Basque society in the middle.

At the end of the report, Al Jazeera calls on its viewers to give their opinion on its web site about "the fate of the Basques."


It is amazing how low the Partido Popular members can go, this Otaola lady conveniently forgets that it was his party's predecessors the ones that allied themselves to the Nazis. On top of it, today she is mayor of Lizartza because Madrid imposed her through electoral fraud when it used an less than democratic law against the opposition.

I wonder what will be the result of the poll by Al Jazeera regarding "the fate of the Basques".

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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Book About Idaho Basques

This note pertaining the Basque community in the USA was published today at EITb:

Basque Diaspora

New book will gather biography of almost 10,000 Basque Americans

10/24/2007

The book Biographical Dictionary of Idaho Basques will gather data about almost 10,000 Basque Americans in the state of Idaho.

Basque writer Koldo San Sebastian will present by year's end a biographical dictionary gathering data on almost 10,000 Basque Americans from the state of Idaho.

San Sebastian will count on the help of a group of collaborators from the United States that includes Argitxu Camus from Reno University; Patty Miller, director of the Basque museum in Boise and John Bieter, historian and professor at the Boise State University, EuskalKultura.com reports on its web site.

Almost 10,000 Basques arrived in the U.S. state of Idaho between 1890 and 1930. Most of them worked as shepherds. Although a great amount of them came back to the Basque Country some years before, others settled down and created one of the biggest Basque communities outside the Basque Country.

Their Basque-American descendants will now be able to discover their relatives lives in this new book. For example, the writer will find inside the book the story of his grandmother, Flora Bengoetxea, who claims to be 'the first Basque born in Idaho'.


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The Kerry Effect : Hillary the Basque-phobe

US Democratic presidential candidates share one obsession, the Basques.

A couple of years ago John Kerry while in Oklahoma City as part of his campaign issued an statement that angered the Sikh and the Basque communities in the USA, here it is:

'Most countries have faced terrorism through their histories, look at Ireland, the IRA; the Basque in Spain; the Sikhs in India.'


As a response to the letters sent by him by members of the Sikh and the Basque communities he proceeded to issue excuses that he insisted on calling apologies, neither one of the two communities accepted the "apology".

Well, the Democratic race for the presidency is back and guess what, the old obsession with the Basques is still there, here you have a report by TamilNet:

Hillary Clinton urges nuanced approach to ‘terrorists’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 October 2007, 21:47 GMT]

US Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton this week urged a more nuanced approach to armed non-state actors, arguing “the bottom line is, you can't lump all terrorists together. … what the Tamil Tigers are fighting for in Sri Lanka, or the Basque separatists in Spain, or the insurgents in al-Anbar province may only be connected by tactics.”

Senator Clinton made her comments to Michael Tomasky of Britain’s ‘The Guardian’ newspaper in an interview which covered Iraq, the legacy of the Cold War and ceding executive powers.

When asked “do you think that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, or do you think they have specific geopolitical objectives?”, she replied:

“Well, I believe that terrorism is a tool that has been utilized throughout history to achieve certain objectives. Some have been ideological, others territorial. There are personality-driven terroristic objectives.”

“The bottom line is, you can't lump all terrorists together. And I think we've got to do a much better job of clarifying what are the motivations, the raisons d'être of terrorists.”

“I mean, what the Tamil Tigers are fighting for in Sri Lanka, or the Basque separatists in Spain, or the insurgents in al-Anbar province may only be connected by tactics. They may not share all that much in terms of what is the philosophical or ideological underpinning.”

“And I think one of our mistakes has been painting with such a broad brush, which has not been particularly helpful in understanding what it is we were up against when it comes to those who pursue terrorism for whichever ends they're seeking.”


This time Hillary adds the label "separatist" to the word Basques as if that made such a big difference. The fact is, once again a US politician labels all Basques as "terrorists".

The question is, why?

Why do the Democrats have this Pavlov Dog Reaction to the word "terrorist"? Why always the Basques?

The Tamil Tigers, the IRA commandos, the Sikhs, the Iraqis come and go, but the Basques remain as the top terrorist organization for the US politicians. No wonder why Aznar's conspiracy theory about ETA being behind the M-11 attacks has such a huge following among US conservative bloggers and reporters.

Even more important, how many hundreds of thousands of people have the USA military and secret services murdered in the last 30 years?

Check out this paragraph by Hillary Clinton:

"Well, I believe that terrorism is a tool that has been utilized throughout history to achieve certain objectives. Some have been ideological, others territorial..."


That qualifies the USA as the largest terrorist organization in the world, through armed actions they pushed forward their economic ideology against the "communist menace", through violent actions they expanded their territories stealing land from Mexico and taking over Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines just to name a few.

Anyway, for perpetuating the Spanish government propaganda equation that establishes the words Basque and terrorist an synonyms Hillary Clinton is the Basque-phobe of the Week.

Here you have the audio at You Tube:




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The Poll

EITb published a note with the results of a poll recently conducted in Euskal Herria, here you have it:

Politics

Basque Govts's opinion poll

Sixty percent of the Basques support Ibarretxe's referendum

10/24/2007

There are no doubts regarding the dialogue between Ibarretxe and Zapatero, which is backed by 89 percent of the Basques. Sixty-five percent of the population would cast a ballot in the referendum.

Nine Basques out of ten back the dialogue between the Basque and Spanish presidents to solve the Basque conflict, an opinion poll conducted by the Basque Government shows.

The opinion poll was conducted last October 19th and 20th, three days after Ibarretxe met Zapatero in the Mocloa palace, targeting to know the opinion of the Basques on the road map proposed by Ibarretxe to solve the Basque conflict.

According to the same sources, if the Basque Parliament approved the celebration of the referendum, fifty-nine percent of the population approve of Ibarretxe calling a referendum despite what the Spanish Government's opinion.

Besides, seventy-three percent think the institutions, the political parties and the armed Basque group ETA should accept the result of the referendum.

Concerning the chance that the Spanish Government bans the referendum called by the Basque Parliament, sixty-four percent of the Basques think the Spanish Government should not do it and twelve percent approves it.

If the referendum was called, sixty-five percent of the population say they would vote, fifteen percent says they would not vote and thirteen percent say they might depending on the circumstances.

Fifty-eight percent of the population think politicians must try to solve the political conflict without waiting for ETA to announce a ceasefire, while twenty-six percent think these proposals should not be put forward as long as ETA does not announce a ceasefire.

Concerning the best way to defeat ETA, sixty-four percent is in favor of police measures and dialogue and thirty percent only backs police measures.

Zapatero's attitude

The population is divided into virtually equally parts among those who think the Spanish president will change his mind about Ibarretxe's proposal after the general elections (35%) and those who think he will not change his mind (35%).

Besides, fifty-six percent think Zapatero should not prevent the referendum whereas eighteen percent think the opposite.


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Saturday, October 20, 2007

Zapatero Says No, Again

Zapatero is out to prove that he is a poor politician, and that in a country were individuals like Jose Maria Aznar had already set the bar quite low.

The only person to blame for the failure of the peace process, Zapatero now rejects the proposal by the Basque Autonomous Community premier Juan Jose Ibarretxe to referendum.

Here you have the note from the International Herald Tribune:

Spanish premier rejects Basque leader's plan for referendum on region's future

The Associated Press
Published: October 16, 2007

MADRID, Spain: The Spanish premier, faced with a resurgence of separatist violence, was adamant in rejecting a proposed referendum on the future of the restive Basque country in talks with the region's president Tuesday.

"The Basque regional president must not call any type of a referendum," Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told reporters after meeting Basque leader Juan Jose Ibarretxe.

"Any type of referendum or so-called consultation of the people can only be authorized by the government," Zapatero said. "What can't be done won't be done."

But in a separate news conference, Ibarretxe insisted on carrying out his plan to consult Basque people about the region's future relationship with Spain in a referendum Oct. 25, 2008.

"My proposal is absolutely legal, legitimate and democratic," Ibarretxe said, adding that he aimed to reach "an accord to allow Spain and the Basque region to coexist in peace."

Ibarretxe said the meeting with Zapatero was "the first step" in what he hoped would be a "Basque-style Downing Street accord," a reference to the agreement between the British and Irish governments that paved the way for peace in Northern Ireland.

Ibarretxe's proposal comes as the central government faces a resumption of attacks by the armed Basque group ETA, which has killed 800 people since the late 1960s in its quest for an independent Basque state.

With general elections in March, the proposal is certain to be a campaign issue given that the right wing main opposition Popular Party accuses the Socialists of going soft on regional nationalists.

Ibarretxe, a moderate nationalist, announced the plan last month in an apparent response to the collapse of a peace process for the Basque region after ETA called off a so-called permanent cease-fire in June blaming Zapatero for lack of progress in the talks.

But a referendum plan was immediately dismissed by political parties across the board.

The Basque leader, who has been talking about a referendum for years, said the consultation would be based on an accord reached with the Spanish government and would then need to be approved by the Basque parliament.

He insisted, however, he would consult the Basque electorate regardless of whether an agreement was reached with Madrid.

Ibarretxe said the consultation would be based on two principles: rejection of ETA violence and what he called the right of the Basque people to choose their future — usually interpreted as independence.

In 2005 he included it as part of a blueprint calling for much greater Basque autonomy from Spain, including separate representation at the European Union and other international bodies and the right to choose between independence and remaining part of Spain.

The plan was approved by the Basque regional parliament, but was shot down by the national legislature in Madrid on the grounds that it was a thinly veiled, unconstitutional bid to break away from Spain.


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Guggo's 10th Anniversary

This note appeared today at Yahoo News:


Bilbao's Guggenheim celebrates 10 years of landmark museum

by Elise Santafe
Fri Oct 19, 3:33 PM ET

Bilbao celebrated the 10th anniversary Friday of its futuristic Guggenheim Museum, which helped transform this industrial Basque city into a cultural capital, with the inauguration of a massive new work of art outside.

The "Red Arches", a huge metal structure over La Salve bridge next to the titanium shingles and swooping form of the museum itself, was lit up in a night-time ceremony.

"It's a kind of door," said French painter and sculpture Daniel Buren who designed it.

"What I did was accentuate this idea of a door: you enter or you leave the town through a door, which is also related to an image that everyone has of doors which open and close all towns, at least in the Middle Ages."

He said the red was used "to give character to the bridge," and because "it's a colour that can go with the silver and gold" of the museum itself.

The "Red Arches" joins two other permanent works around the Guggenheim -- "Puppy," a dog in flowers by American Jeff Koons which "guards" the museum, and a giant spider by the French artist Louise Bourgeois.

As part of its 10th anniversary celebrations, the museum is also showing a retrospective of US art called "Art In The USA: 300 Years of Innovation" that features some 200 works from 120 artists. It will run until April 12, 2008.

The Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim has drawn an average of one million visitors per year, far above the 250,000 to 500,000 expected by authorities when it opened in 1997.

Its success, dubbed the "Bilbao Effect", has led officials around the world to hire famous architects -- or "starchitects" -- to build landmark buildings in the hope of putting their city on the map.

"The Bilbao effect is the transforming power of a cultural infrastructure on the development of a city," in a "urbanistic, economic, social and even psychological" way, explained the Guggenheim's director, Juan Ignacio Vidarte.

Officials from "almost 100 towns and cities, including Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Buenos Aires, have come to Bilbao to seek inspiration, without necessarily intending to copy it," he told AFP.

But in some, the idea "has not always been understood," he warned.

Some believe that "in a town in difficulty, it is enough to create some kind of spectacular structure by an architect who is somewhat well-known, without looking into its content and the problems of the town."

The local government of the independence-minded Basque region bid for the right to house a satellite of the Guggenheim Foundation in the early 1990s as a way to boost its economy, which was suffering from the decline of its metalwork and shipbuilding industries.

The museum was the centrepiece of an urban renewal project that includes a new subway system with caterpillar-like entrances by Norman Foster and a glass bridge and sleek new airport by Santiago Calatrava.

The Guggenheim Foundation's network of museums -- which also include outposts in Berlin, Las Vegas and Venice -- share a permanent collection that rotates amongst them.


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Friday, October 19, 2007

Fascists Dislike History and Art

This note published by Guardian Unlimited is proof that fascists have strong allergic reactions caused by history and art.

This article describes the most recent display of hypocrisy and stupidity by the Spanish extreme right:

Exhibition of Eta photos angers victims' families

Paul Hamilos in Madrid
Friday October 19, 2007
The Guardian

Photographs depicting the Eta conflict in Spain's northern Basque region that have gone on display at the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao have caused outrage among victims' families, leading to calls for them to be withdrawn.

The black-and-white images by photojournalist Clemente Bernad, entitled Basque Chronicles, have stirred up strong feelings, with the Association of Victims of Terrorism in the Basque Country and the conservative opposition People's party (PP) demanding their withdrawal.

Among the photographs is one of a man crying over the coffin of an Eta member at his funeral. The association, whose members include relatives of many of the 800 people killed in four decades of violent struggle for Basque independence, described the photographs as "highly offensive to the victims of terrorism".

The PP proposed a motion in the regional Basque parliament calling for the pictures to be removed, saying they were an "apology for terrorism". The picture captions, which describe scenes of protests as being carried out by "Eta militants" or "militant supporters of independence" rather than "terrorists", have also been criticised.

The director of the museum, Juan Ignacio Vidarte, expressed his "surprise and sadness" at the reaction, saying that he had no intention of withdrawing them unless ordered to do so by a judge. He said Bernad had contacted the families of all those who appeared in the photographs to ask for their approval.

The outcry has overshadowed what was meant to be a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Guggenheim. The museum is credited with helping to revitalise the industrial city of Bilbao and the photographs were part of a series, To Each Their Own, celebrating contemporary Basque art.


You see, the problem starts with the two organizations mentioned in the article as the chief complainers over the photographic display; the Partido Popular (PP) and its front group disguised as an NGO called Asociación Víctimas del Terrorismo (AVT). The PP is the direct heir to Francisco Franco's regime so they are closely linked to all the crimes committed by the Francoist during their reign of terror that lasted 40 years. In fact, it was Franco's violence what spawned ETA. You do not see the PP nor the AVT demanding that all the monuments that honor Francisco Franco and his minions be removed at once, so why are they so upset about some of the pictures in a photojournalism display?

Which brings us to the core of this post. The extreme right in Spain hates history and hates art. You can not issue threats against a museum's director just because you do not agree with the content of two pictures in the body or work of a photojournalists. Photojournalism is supposed to capture reality with complete disregard for what the sides think or feel regarding any given picture, just like history where the hard facts are written in black and white.

But that is the quid of the question, the Spanish ultra-nationalism dictates that history has to be reshaped in order to make the Spaniards look good and the Basques (and Catalonians, Galizans and Guanches for that matter) look bad.

So, the members of the PP and the AVT (they are the same actually) go after a picture that depicts a Basque funeral and they start tearing their robes saying that it offends them. Well, how about The Guernica? Does that painting offends them too? Their ideology is one and the same with those who ordered and conducted the bombing of civilians in Durango and Gernika were hundreds of Basques were murdered in behalf of the One Spain Under God.

Or what is it, our dead ones do not count, our sensibilities do not count, our pain and suffering do not count?

How many Basque victims of Spanish nationalism before news outlets start counting us like they do with the 800 paragraph?

I second Mr. Vidarte this is sad, although, knowing well how idiotic the members of the extreme right in Spain are, I am hardly surprised.

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Mayor Oreja : Franco's Apologist

This is great, the Partido Popular members are finally coming out of the closet to display their fascist colors in all of its rancid glory.

Here you have an excerpt of a note called "Jaime Mayor Oreja and the Historical Memory Law" appeared at Typically Spanish :

Some older Spaniards do have romantic memories about the Franco years. You sometimes hear comments such as ‘There was no crime then’ or ‘Nobody had to lock their doors’, and so on. But the general reality was one of comparative poverty and suffering, unless you had your personal ‘enchufe’ or contacts to get ahead.

More than a little bit surprising then to hear the words of Jaime Mayor Oreja earlier this week. He was the Minister for the Interior in the Aznar administration, the same administration sold to the public at the time as the one which had moved to the centre of the political landscape. He was the P.P.’s unsuccessful candidate for lehendakari in the Basque region, and is now a P.P. Euro M.P.

Jaime Mayor Oreja told the ‘La Voz de Galicia’ newspaper this week that he refused to condemn the Franco years.

‘Why should I condemn the Franco years?’ he said, ‘when many families lived naturally and normally. How am I going to condemn something which, without doubt, represented a very wide section of Spaniards?’, he added.

He even went on to say that during Franco’s time the Basque Country was a tranquil place, so much so that many Guardia Civil asked for transfers there.

The current P.P. General Secretary Ángel Acebes supported the comments from Mayor Oreja, claiming the new law is breaking the agreement of consensus found during the transition to democracy.


Excellent, now judges like Baltasr Garzón, Juan del Olmo and Fernando Grande-Marlaska have all the elements to order the arrest of both Mayor and Acebes for their open apology of Francoist terrorism.

Imagine, Batasuna members are in jail for not condemning ETA's violence , without even speaking on favor. Now we have to prominent leaders of the Partido Popular supporting Franco's regime, it will be way easier to prosecute them.

Oh yes, sorry, this is the real world, that is never going to happen, the judges and the PP members are one and the same.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Picket Line for Batasuna

This information comes to us thanks to the Irish Basque Committees:

SATURDAY 20TH OCTOBER 1PM CULTÚRLANN, FALLS ROAD, BELFAST



PICKET LINE AGAINST BATASUNA'S LEADERSHIP ARRESTS AND ON SUPPORT OF DEMOCRACY FOR THE BASQUE COUNTRY



STOP SPANISH AND FRENCH REPRESSION!!

SHOW YOUR SOLIDARITY!!


Organised by: Irish Basque Committees

Please help us spreading the word.




Keep up to date on Basque struggle news at: http://www.irishbasquecommittees.blogspot.com
Listen to Basque Info every Tuesday 6.30-7pm at www.feilefm.com


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Lessons from South Africa

The web site AllAfrica has published an article about Roelf Meyer and his important roll as a consultant in different conflicts around the world.

Here you have the article, I took the liberty of highlighting the parts that the Spanish political elite should take into consideration.

South Africa: Veteran Negotiator Meyer Spreads Talks Know-How

Business Day (Johannesburg)

16 October 2007
Posted to the web 16 October 2007

Sibongakonke Shoba
Johannesburg

THE transition period in the country was not complete and SA still had a lot to learn from other countries in its transformation process, says former National Party (NP) chief negotiator Roelf Meyer .

Meyer, who is now in demand as a facilitator in conflict-ridden countries , was the NP's leader in talks with the African National Congress (ANC) that resulted in SA's first democratic elections in 1994.

The most recent request has been for him to facilitate talks between Basque separatist groups and the Spanish government over the next 10 months, which he will co-chair with South African human rights lawyer Brian Currin.

He has also been involved in peace talks in Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Burundi, Kosovo, Bolivia and Iraq.

He said SA could learn a lot from other countries such as Kosovo on "how to bring different communities together, even the lesser developed part of the community".

Meyer told Business Day yesterday that the socioeconomic transformation of SA was not complete. "We need to remind ourselves that we are still in the process of transformation," he said.

The socioeconomic transformation in SA would take "quite a lot of time", he said.

Meyer played a key role alongside ANC chief negotiator Cyril Ramaphosa in negotiating a settlement between the NP and the ANC .

He said that from his South African experience, a country in conflict should take ownership of the conflict and accept responsibility to resolve it.

"A country needs to be inclusive in finding a resolution. All relevant parties need to be involved."

He said the different groups needed to develop trust and respect for each other for negotiations to be successful.

Meyer said people also needed to be prepared to give up power when the time arrived as many conflicts "arise from the question of power".

He said that in his experience, conflicts all over the world were fuelled by ethnic and religious intolerance and the fight for power.

Meyer said SA's mistake was to start its peace talks late. "We should have started the process in 1985 instead of 1990. That period between 1985 and 1990 was the saddest period in the apartheid era.

"It was the worst part of apartheid and there was more violence and killings."

Meyer is now an ANC member. He also has businesses involved in facilitating black economic empowerment deals and strategic management consultation.


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Monday, October 15, 2007

Basque Spontaneous Poetry

This note appeared today at EITb:

Fiestas & traditions

Rooted in tradition

Bertsolaritza: Basque Country's "spontaneous poetry"

10/14/2007

Someone gives the bertsolari a topic and tells him/her which kind of verse to use. The bertsolari then creates some verses at that very moment.

Bertsolaritza (the art of the bertsolari) is a form of "poetry" that is spontaneously created from a given topic. These topics can be on anything from social problems to love.

There are many different forms of verse that are used by the Bertsolari with the most common ones being Zortziko nagusia and Zortziko txikia. Zortziko nagusia consists of alternating lines of 10 and 8 sylables. The rhyme is carried on the lines which contain 8 sylables. Zortziko txikia consists of alternating lines of 7 and 6 sylables. The rhyme for this form is carried on the 6 sylable lines.

Someone called a theme presenter gives the Bertsolari a topic such as "you have been out all night with your friends at the bar and driving home a policeman pulls you over. You must convince the policeman that although you've been drinking, you are in perfect shape to drive". The bertsolari is then told that he or she must use zotziko txikia as the meter and which tune he or she should sing his or her verse in.

Many Basque traditional songs are actually old verses made up by bertsolaris and then written down or passed orally from generation to generation. One such song is a very popular children's song in Zortziko txikia:

Maritxu Nora Zoaz Maritxu nora zoaz 7
eder galant hori 6
iturrira Bartolo 7
nahi badezu etorri 6
iturrian zer dago 7
ardotxo txuria 6
biok edango degu 7
nahi dezun guztia 6

Rap

There is quite a similarity between this art form and rap especially if you look at the rap music that is spontaneously created between individuals and not the prewritten-recorded variety that is being exported. In this rap form there is also a great variety of topics ranging from friendship to love to funny experiences.

Article published by Blas Uberaga


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Saturday, October 13, 2007

Endangered Guernica

File this one under the "strangely paranoid yet somehow appealing article" tab.

In his essay titled "A Symbol of Freedom and a Target for Terrorists" that appeared at the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman speaks about the dangers that our most beloved pieces of art face every day at the different museums where they are being exhibited.

Well, he uses The Guernica as a prime example of a masterpiece that does not count with enough protection in case someone wants to damage it.

Here you have the parts of the article that refer to The Guernica:

So the other day I stopped into the Reina Sofía here to check on Picasso’s “Guernica.” The threat of violence is nothing new in Spain, where Muslim terrorists blew up commuter trains a few years ago, killing many, and where the threat of killings by Basque extremists (there was a bomb attack in Bilbao on Tuesday, a truce with the government having broken down in June) has again become part of the daily background noise of life.

Only a simple stanchion, and a discreet alarm, as I discovered when leaning too close, separates the public from Picasso’s famous mural about a midcentury act of terror: the German bombing of the ancient Basque town of Guernica in 1936. The picture presides over a big gallery of related Picassos, each a target, I suppose, if you adopt the mindset that terrorists, and those who would exploit terrorism, like to foster.

Twenty-six years ago, when the painting arrived in Madrid from New York, it was installed in a huge bulletproof glass cage at an annex of the Prado, flanked by soldiers guarding what had become an international symbol of antifascism. Picasso had wanted it to go to Spain only when Generalissimo Francisco Franco was gone. To anyone who remembered it at the Museum of Modern Art, the sight at the Prado was sad and shocking. The picture looked forlorn, suffocated. It was almost impossible to see.

It had already been vandalized at the Museum of Modern Art when a small-time artist named Tony Shafrazi sprayed the words “Kill Lies All” on it in 1974. In the creepy, amnesiac way that celebrity and money operate in America and in the art world, Mr. Shafrazi went on to become a rich and powerful art dealer.

The painting moved some years ago from the Prado to the Reina Sofía and was finally let out of its glass prison. I’ve never loved “Guernica,” to tell the truth. Its lofty ambition obscures the detriments of its telegraphed emotions and inflated billboard-size Cubism, but time only adds to its patina of glory for the crowds that come to commune with it and who can now get almost, but not quite, close enough to touch the picture.

Proximity is the cost, and virtue, of a civil and democratic society. We run the risk that some lunatic or self-promoter will violate the public trust of an open space because we value that space as a democratic ideal. Part of what’s beautiful about an art museum, aside from what’s on view, is that it implies trust — it lets us stand next to objects that supposedly represent civilization at its best and, in so doing, flatters us for respecting our common welfare.


What I want to say to Mr. Kimmelman is that I am profoundly grateful to him for the high concept (not exactly from the artistic value point of view though) he has of The Guernica and his concern that something may happen to the iconic painting.

But I also would like to remind him that while it stays in Madrid it will be surrounded by its greatest enemies. For starters, it is on display at the Queen Sofia museum and I would like to remind Mr. Kimmelman of a small detail, the museum is named after Sofia Borbón, the wife of Juan Carlos Borbón.

And who is Juan Carlos Borbón?

A fella given a lifetime job by Francisco Franco, the fascist dictator that ordered the bombing of Gernika (and Durango a couple of days earlier) because he wanted to murder as many Basques as the Nazi weaponry would allow him.

So you see Mr. Kimmelman, The Guernica is at the heart of the same fascist Madrid that the painting denounces. So, it would be a lot safer lets say, in Bilbao at the Guggenheim Museum, protected by the same Basque society that has a powerful emotional link to the painting that is a reminder of one of the worst crimes committed against the Basques by the Spaniards.

Here you have his conclusion:

Thanks to its historic authority, the aura of “Guernica” has become like a bubble or halo that psychologically separates it from the gazing mobs, never mind that there’s no longer a glass wall. Standing before it, you can almost imagine that it has, historically speaking, passed beyond harm — that to attack it now would only make the picture a martyr, that it’s indestructible.

Of course it’s not.


No, is not indestructible, one never knows when a fascist Spanish youth will cause harm to it, I mean, just in the past few weeks a 16 year old boy was stabbed to dead while opposing a Neo Nazi parade, a Colombian man was beaten by four youths that yelled "Long Live Spain!" while they were kicking him, an African youngster was so badly hurt that he is quadriplegic for life after being attacked by a gang and a teenage girl was kicked on the head in the subway by a drunken thug. All of those crimes were committed by Spanish citizens that suscribe to the Francisco Franco/Partido Popular ideology, yet, they do not get mentioned in your article.

Yes Mr. Zimmelman, there is that other violence, do not think that a certain reference to Basque violence escaped my attention.


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Friday, October 12, 2007

Garzón Exposed

This article was published by An Phoblacht:

11 October, 2007

Other News

Spanish judge targets Batasuna

BY SALLY GALLAGHER

SPANISH Judge Baltasar Garzón is back to his normal self. This you may remember is the man possessed of the peculiar notion that all defenders of the Basque right to self-determination should be considered ‘terrorists’.

On Thursday, 4 October, Judge Baltasar once again demonstrated the judicial application of this principle when he imprisoned 21 people who had been attending a meeting of pro-independence party Herri Batasuna in the village of Segura, Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country. Four of those imprisoned were later released on bail of between €10,000 and €24,000. And among those imprisoned were, coincidentally, several members of the national executive of Herri Batasuna. Some of those jailed have been charged with “membership of a terrorist organisation”.

Pernando Barrena, who has represented Batasuna at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in recent years, denounced Garzón’s decision to order the arrest and imprisonment of Batasuna’s leadership as an act of “revenge”. Garzon, he said, wants to punish the Basque nationalist Left for the position they adopted in the recently failed negotiations with the government.

Barrena did not attend the meeting in Segura as he was hosting Sinn Féin’s Bairbre de Brún MEP and Pat Rice, who had travelled to the Basque Country to visit Arnaldo Otegi, Batasuna’s chief spokesperson, imprisoned last June, in Martutene Prison.

Otegi has been a key player in promoting the peace process and a negotiated settlement in the Basque Country. Sinn Féin has called for his immediate release.

Commenting on the arrest of the national executive of Batasuna by Spanish police in Segura, a Sinn Féin spokesperson said:

“We have argued for some time that the banning of Batasuna and the jailing of its political representatives is not conducive to the successful advancement of a peace process in the region. All legal restrictions against Batasuna should be lifted.”

Pernando Barrena said that, with elections due in Spain in a few short months, the ruling Spanish Socialist Party, PSOE, “needs to make a show to the Spanish of its capacity to be even more ruthless than the PP [the right-wing opposition party] when it wants to, when striking against the Basque pro-independence camp”.

Despite this latest attack against the political representatives of the independence movement, Pernando Barrena was insistent that the Basque nationalist Left is strongly committed to seeking “a solution and a peace deal” as a way out of the present political conflict. He had the following message for the Madrid government:

“The PSOE Government is not in dispute with the 23 people it has just arrested, or even with the whole of the nationalist Left movement. Their disagreement is with a people that wish to be their own masters. Their dispute is with the Basque Country.”

NEW ATTACK

Following the raid on Segura, police reportedly brought the Batasuna spokesperson, Joseba Permach, to witness a further raid on the offices of Communist Party of the Basque Country headquarters. Permach is not a member of that organisation.

Of late, the Spanish media has spoken of the possibility of a new attack against Batasuna. The common thread is that Garzón’s action was initiated in the office of the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

On 9 September, the Spanish daily, El Pais, pointed out that Zapatero’s strategy against the Basque independence movement would include attacks against the political leadership of Batasuna and sister organisations.

On 30 September, another paper, Público, announced that the judiciary would force “the renovation of Batasuna” as part of a strategy designed by the government to fight ETA ahead of the elections.


There is little or nothing I could add but a heart felt thank you to our Irish friends.

~ ~ ~

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Is He Sure?

First, read this article appeared at EITb:

Politics

Basque-Argentinean Meeting

Ibarretxe encourages Basque Diaspora to take part in peace process

10/08/2007

During the National Basque Week celebrated in Rosario (Argentina) Basque associations supported Basque PM’s proposal.

Basque Premier Juan Jose Ibarretxe spoke to Basque community in Argentina and all over the world in order to invite them to take part in the peace process of the Basque Country.

Ibarretxe made these statements in Rosario (Argentina) where he took part in the National Basque Week which has already finished.

“I would like to invite you to participate in this political process and to choose our future, because not only those who live in Basque Country have right to decide but those who live abroad have that right too” declared Ibarretxe. Moreover, he attended several celebrations full of Basque folklore.

79 Basque communities from different countries support Basque premier’s proposal.


Does he really mean this?

So far their tight grip of the PNV (Ibarretxe's party) over the Eusko Etxeak (Basque Centers) has prevented full time pro-independence people to feel at ease in those places.

Usually those who seat in the boards of directors at the Basque Centers stubbornly opposed for the members to freely speak about the future of Euskal Herria. Furthermore, when Basque individuals that work on projects that are alternatives to the PNV's vision they usually get rejected when they ask for permission for a space to develop their activities within the premises of any given Basque Center.

Let see what happens, I do not think things will change any time soon.

~ ~ ~

Bilbo's Island

Well, what would you know, Bilbo is getting an island.

You do not believe what I say?

Well, read this article and learn all the details:

A new island: Hadid unveils radical plan for Bilbao

· Billion pound project will cut off peninsula from city
· Neglected area to get new housing and businesses

Paul Hamilos in Madrid
Tuesday October 9, 2007
The Guardian

Ten years ago, Bilbao celebrated the opening of the Guggenheim museum that was to put the rundown industrial city in Spain's northern Basque region on the map, and draw in a million visitors a year. It has now launched an architectural project that may yet become an equally important symbol of the city's turnaround.

The British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid has presented radical plans for the city's neglected Zorrozaurre peninsula, part of a redevelopment that would see it converted into an island.

Once a crucial part of the port, the peninsula, in the estuary of the river Nervión, had been left to decay. With only around 450 people living there and a few small industries left, it seemed to have no part of Bilbao's glowing future.

Hadid aims to change that: she plans to cut off the land that joins it to the mainland, and reconnect the newly formed island to the city with eight bridges. The urban development will occupy 72 hectares (180 acres), with 6,000 new houses, two technology centres and a four hectare (10 acre) park. The Basque regional government has estimated the total cost, including transport links, business development and other infrastructure, at €1.43bn (£987m)

Hadid was once famous as the architect whose buildings never made it off the page. In recent years, however, her work has started to appear across the world, and she is working on some of the most important new buildings in Spain, including the civil courts in Madrid, the Spiralling Tower on Barcelona's seafront and other important buildings in Seville and Zaragoza.

Julia Madrazo, deputy mayor of Bilbao and regional minister for town planning and the environment, said the city did not want Hadid simply to design something beautiful. "If we had wanted just a symbol, we would have asked her for one building," she said. "This is about more than just the image. It is about creating a city to live in. We all have dreams of how a city could be, and I believe this is the closest thing to those dreams."

Hadid, who was awarded the project in 2003, initially met with resistance from residents when she suggested converting the peninsula into an island. "They feared they would be isolated from the rest of the city," said Ms Madrazo.

Over the next two years, as Hadid and her team worked with residents, local businesses and the regional government, the island's potential became clear. Added to locals' concerns were those of the Basque environment ministry that, if the peninsula was built on, it could easily be flooded, making the idea of a carefully designed island, with flood protection, even more attractive. As a result, the houses will be 4.7 metres above sea level and a canal will be joined on to the river Nervión, widening the riverbed to 75 metres, rather than the 50 metres originally planned.

But it was not just environmental concerns that dictated Zorrozaurre's redesign. The city was concerned not to destroy all of the old housing and businesses, many of which are being retained.

A quarter of the land has been given over to parks and recreation, and - crucial to the success of the project in the eyes of residents and the council - much of the housing will be low-cost. "This will not be an exclusive neighbourhood," said Ms Madrazo. There will be no uniformity in design, with buildings of various heights across the island.

Plans are in place for building work to begin in 2010, but it will not be easy going, with land to be decontaminated, eight bridges to be built and a canal to be widened.

It is expected that the work will be completed between 2025 and 2030.

~ ~ ~

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Call to International Solidarity

A blog called Pan African News Wire has published a post called "Solidarity for Survival, A Call to Stop Ethnic Cleansing and the imminent assault on Gaza". The topic is an essay by someone called Kali Akuno who addresses the punitive operation being prepared by the Israeli government against the Gaza Strip.

Here you have the opening statements:

The Question

Are the revolutionary and progressive movements in the US going to sit idly by and wait for the Zionists and imperialists to raze Gaza to the ground? Or are we going to take preventative action to stop the genocidal assault being so thoroughly planned (and executed) right in front of our eyes?

What is at Stake?

The US Left, and all of its national and social sectors, must be clear about what Palestine represents in the capitalist world-system today. Palestine is the barometer of the extent to which imperialism is willing to go to in the present era to liquidate the struggles for national liberation. In Palestine, particularly since the elections of January 2006, we see the overall political and financial commitment of imperialism to crush any movement that threatens the political integration and homogenization now required for capital accumulation.

Where white supremacy, colonial occupation, capitalist patriarchy, mass incarceration, and economic strangulation are not enough to either contain or destroy the national consciousness and anti-colonial sentiments, ethnic cleansing and genocide are now wholly justifiable and permissible options for imperialism. This is what is happening to Palestine, specifically to the people and political forces in Gaza being deprived of electricity, water, medical aid and supplies, and food by the Zionist occupying forces.


After a few more paragraphs it mentions the Basque people:

It should go without saying that given Palestine's preeminent position amongst the anti-colonial struggles of the world that if imperialism is able starve and cleanse Gaza in order to liquidate its liberation movement, either in whole or in part, the prospects for the remaining national liberation struggles, either less well-known or developed (ex. the New Afrikan and Puerto Rican liberation movements against US colonialism, the Basques, the Kurds, and countless 1st Nation or Indigenous Peoples), to attain self-determination and independence will be seriously compromised, if not practically extinguished for the foreseeable future.


I recommend that you read the entire article, is well worth it.

~ ~ ~

Basque-phobe of the Week : Lavengro

Well, seems like Colin Davies is not the only English Basque-phobe living in Spain, now he has a conational by the name of Peter Harvey who uses the moniker Lavengro to publish his blog.

Lavengro decided to label all the Basques as terrorists in his recent post called "BBC and Terrorism". This is how he does it.

He starts by claiming that the BBC is too lenient when it calls ETA members "militants" or "separatists" instead of "terrorists":

We see that infatuation again here. People who kill and maim in support of political beliefs are, for the BBC, not terrorists but separatists or militants.


Then, he then goes into a rant that only he can understand, you be the judge of it:

Does the BBC tell the world that a bunch of people who, it is widely suspected, know rather more than any civilised person ought to know about a terrorist organisation that has killed getting on for a thousand people have been arrested so that the judicial authorities of a democratic country can sort things out? Err no.


So, here you have the article by the BBC (he does not link to it, not much of a pro blogger):

Basque protest urged over arrests

Batasuna spokesman Joseba Permach was among those held

Basque separatists have called for street protests over the arrest of more than 20 top members of the banned political party, Batasuna.

Spain's Attorney General, Candido Conde Pumpido, welcomed the latest arrests, saying some of those held were accused of co-operating with an armed group.

"These activities cannot be tolerated, so if the police find out about them, as they did in this case in Segura, it seems prudent that they be ordered to intervene," he told Spanish public radio RNE.

However, Basques have been urged to protest against the arrests.


This is why Mr. Harvey earns his designation as Basque-phobe of the week, the BBC article never once refers to ETA, at least not on the paragraphs he reproduced.

The article refers to Basques in general and to the members of Batasuna, a political party accused of being ETA's political wing. So lets take it step by step.

In a democratic state someone accused of something is innocent until proven guilty. Spain accused Batasuna of being ETA's political wing but since that did not stick Aznar and his Partido Popular created a law that was a throwback to the Franco regime, the Law of Political Parties was the tool that Madrid used against Batasuna claiming that its leadership had never condemned ETA's violence. This has to be the first time in recorded history in which someone is accused of apology of terrorism not for what he or she said, but for what he or she did not say.

But the problem does not stop there, the problem with Madrid's move was that on the day a political party was banned for the first time since Franco the Spanish police raided the headquarters of Batasuna and many other of the party's district offices, seizing computers and files. That was in 2003, this is 2007 and the case has not been given a court date, so much for that other tenet of democracy known as "timely trial".

This is why the BBC does not fail when it calls the members of Batasuna by militants or separatists (separatist is wrong also but that would be subject of a complete new post), innocent until proven guilty.

Funny thing is that Peter refers to a previous link in his quest against the BBC, this one called "ETA and the BBC, Again". In it, to make his point he quotes no one else than... Winston Churchill!

Here it is:

Winston Churchill once said that he refused to be neutral between the fire brigade and the fire.

Yes indeed, the Hitler minded Englishman who instigated war crimes when he ordered the airborne bombing of unarmed civilians back in the 1920's in what is today known as Iraq. Yes indeed, it was not Hitler and his Luftwaffe in Durango and Gernika, it was Churchill and his Royal Air Force the first ones to use biological weapons against the Kurdish refugee camps. Churchill then went on to commit more war crimes during the many colonialist punitive actions carried out by England, but somehow the West has managed to clean up his image to make a hero out of this clown.

Then there is the penchant by English bloggers like Colin Davies and Peter Harvey to label anyone that moves a terrorist. That coming from a country that bestowed its best honors on pirates, a country that carried out ethnic cleansing operations in America, Africa, Oceania and Europe, a colonialist power than tried to wipe away the entire population of Ireland by creating a famine. If you are going to call someone a terrorist that would be London's governments for the last 500 years.

But why do these conservative Englishmen hate the Basques so much?

Simple, the Basque quest for self-determination has inspired many others to fight for their own political rights, so now England sees how Scotland and Wales are freeing themselves from its tight colonialist-era grip.

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How Bad Press Works

At this time there is two authoritarian regimes cracking down on their opposition. One of them is Burma, called Myanmar by the military junta that rules it, there has been a lukewarm reaction to the events taken place there, after all, the USA and England benefit from the political unrest in the area.

Guess what is the other authoritarian regime getting away with flagrant human rights violations.

You do not know the answer?

Well, may be you have been reading articles like this one:

Basque separatist says Madrid has declared war with arrests

Sat Oct 6, 9:21 AM ET

A top member of banned Basque separatist party Batasuna said Saturday the arrest of most of the party's leadership was "a declaration of war" by the Madrid government.

Pernando Barrena, the most senior official of the political wing of the armed ETA group still at liberty, said the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero wanted to "slam the door" on the Basque independence movement.

"The repression will not make us back down" from the fight for independence, he said.

Barrena, accompanied by some 80 Batasuna militants, was speaking at a press conference at a hotel in the port city of San Sebastian in northern Spain.

Sporadic incidents of violence in Spain's Basque Country, including the burning of a post office on Saturday, followed Thursday's arrests, regional police said earlier.

Four masked men burst into the post office in the town of Lezo, told the single employee present to leave then sprinkled the room with petrol and set it alight, gutting it.

In other incidents, petrol bombs were thrown at a courthouse and municipal office building at Pasai San Pedro, and an attempt to set a bus on fire at Markina was thwarted by police.

The actions were typical of youthful supporters of ETA, which is fighting for independence of the Basque Country of northern Spain and southwestern France.

A total of 23 people were detained late Thursday in a police raid on a meeting of Batasuna in the Basque town of Segura. They included 19 members of the banned party's leadership, two of whom are French.

They will appear Sunday morning before Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who ordered the crackdown in a hardening of the government's stance on ETA since the group officially ended a 15-month-old ceasefire in June.

Spanish radio said some of the suspects were being transferred to Madrid Saturday, but police searches in the region were still going on.

Premises raided included a property near San Sebastian of the Communist Party of the Basque Lands, which is allied to Batasuna but not banned.

On Friday hundreds of people demonstrated in protest against the arrests in various Basque cities, including 1,000 in Bilbao, the region's financial and cultural centre.

ETA has killed 819 people during almost four decades of fighting for its cause. Both Batasuna and ETA are listed as terrorist organisations by the European Union and the US government.

Barrena said Friday that the roundup was designed to boost the Socialist government ahead of March elections, when the question of regional autonomy and the "Basque problem" are expected to be major issues.

Batasuna has been banned as a party since 2003 for refusing to condemn violence and cut its links to ETA. The detained leaders face charges related to Garzon's investigation into those links, especially the party's suspected financing of ETA's activities.


Yes indeed, the press covering the issue places a few paragraphs to distract the reader from reality and voila, nobody says nothing to demand an explanation to Madrid's totalitarian measures against Basque politicians thus violating basic human rights and civilian liberties, oh yes, I went ahead and highlighted those paragraphs.

What the note does not tell you is that despite the four years since Batasuna was banned in great part thanks to a law that is a throwback to Franco's regime the Spanish government has been unable to act accordingly to one of the cornerstones of justice, timely trial. Indeed, four years later court dates have not been established in spite of judge Garzón having access to all of Batasuna's classified information that has been is his hands since the day the political party was banned when the police stormed the headquarters seizing all the computers and files.

What else does Garzón needs to take the Batasuna members to trial? Is he that dumb as a prosecutor? Yes, what you read is not a mistake, in Spain individuals like Garzón act as district attorneys and as judges at the same time, name another democracy in the world with a judicial figure like that one.

Madrid scored big when it got the international community organizations like the UN and the European Community to consider ETA a terrorist group, shortsighted, those who followed Madrid's lead now witness how the Spanish political class accuses any Basque organization that they wish to attack as being part of ETA. That way Madrid has closed down schools, radio stations, magazines, newspapers and banned political parties. Yes, I said Madrid not Moscow, not Beijing, not Yangon but Madrid. One would thing that blatant attacks against democracy could never take place in Western Europe, but there it is, backwards Spain doing it again and again.

But as long as the UN and the EC do not demand more accountability from Madrid's actions individuals like Zapatero and this predecessor Aznar will continue to twist and bend the law in order to step up their repressive measures against the Basque people.

Yes, there has been demonstrations against the Yangon government in the last few days, but due to articles like the one I just presented there will hardly be any demonstrations against Madrid's abuse of power.

The silence of the lambs will be defeaning.

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Saturday, October 06, 2007

Eusko Flickr : freebatasuna


FREEBATASUNA
Originally uploaded by pepiñe*

Act of Revenge

Madrid has been exposed as a totalitarian and colonialist minded regime. During the past months the Basque society engaged in a peace process that Zapatero and his fellow members at the PSOE torpedoed at any chance he had. Not reported by the mean stream media, Zapatero even arrested the ETA envoys who offered to lay down the weapons, thus betraying the truce and openly telling the world that they lied when Madrid claimed that they would talk to ETA only after an unilateral disarm.

Well, incensed by the Basque compromise to a peace process that aimed at a political resolution of the Basque conflict, now Zapatero is rabidly going after everyone, just like Aznar did before him. And Zapatero is in a hurry because he knows that the backwards Spanish electorate could reinstate the Franco styled Partido Popular back in power next year, how can he forget the millions who voted for Rajoy during the past electoral process even after Aznar and the members of the PP where caught with their pants down trying to place the blame of the attacks in Madrid on the Basques knowing that all the evidence pointed at retaliation for Aznar's support of Bush's genocidal war in Iraq.

Here you have an article published by Gara that talks about how Zapatero is now striking back at all of those who demonstrated that the Basques stand for peace while the Spaniards stand for colonialist domination:

GARA > Ultima hora >

POLICE CRACKDOWN AGAINST THE PRO-INDEPENDENCE LEFT

Batasuna leader says PSOE is out for revenge against the nationalist Left

“The PSOE [Spanish Socialist Party] is looking for revenge and wants to punish the Basque nationalist Left for the position they adopted in the [recently failed] negotiations,” charged Pernando Barrena in response to Thursday night’s police operation against members of the leadership of the Basque political party Batasuna, in which 23 people have been arrested.

05/10/2007 20:50:00

DONOSTIA-. “It is perfectly clear to us that yesterday’s police operation was a political crackdown with the complicity of the Public Prosecutor’s office targeting the Basque pro-independence movement, in order to punish the movement and take revenge because the nationalist Left stuck to its guns in the negotiations and wouldn’t give in to the conditions the PSOE had tried to force on it,” explained Pernando Barrena, a prominent member of Batasuna’s collective leadership, outside Martutene prison where several of his arrested colleagues are now being held.


Mr Barrena was in the company of Bairbre de Brun and Pat Rice, politicians belonging to the Irish Sinn Féin party who had come to Martutene to visit Arnaldo Otegi, Batasuna’s chief spokesperson, who is also now in prison.


Sharing his thoughts about Thursday’s operation, Mr Barrena expressed indignation at the way in which the arrests had been carried out, violating the right of assembly, and at night-time. He pointed out that when the leaders now arrested were previously summoned by the Spanish court to declare they had presented themselves of their own free will and in an orderly fashion.


In Thursday night’s flash raid, hooded Spanish police officers positioned themselves in the street in the small Gipuzkoan town where the Batasuna leadership were holding a meeting, and forced them into police vehicles as they were leaving the premises. In Mr Barrena’s mind there can be only one explanation: “The judge himself aims to provoke and foster public alarm, which only actually exists in his own mind.”


But he added that only a few months away from upcoming elections, the ruling Spanish party, PSOE, “needs to make a show to the Spanish of its capacity to be even more ruthless than the PP [the right-wing opposition party] when it wants to, when striking against the Basque pro-independence camp.”


Pernando Barrena was insistent that the Basque nationalist Left is strongly committed to seeking “a solution and a peace deal” as a way out of the present political conflict, and had the following message for the Madrid government: “The PSOE government has no quarrel with the 23 people it has just arrested, or even with the whole movement of the nationalist Left. Their quarrel is with a people that wish to be their own masters. Their quarrel is with Euskal Herria.”


Finally, Mr Barrena called on Basques to reject these arrests and take part in protests to denounce them, and to let the PSOE know “that they have gone too far and that there is no room for such behaviour in the present political scenario; and tell them that what the Basque Country needs is a political settlement that will lead to peace and respect for all people’s rights”.


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