Erabaki : The Right to Decide

This note appeared at EITb:

Politics

Erabaki Platform

80 prominent Basque figures back the Basques's right to decide

01/18/2008

The platform presented its official manifesto on Friday claiming the right to decide "to open the path of peace and normalization. They also presented a web site and will have their first rally next February 10th.

Several Basque celebrities from the cultural and social spheres in the Basque Country presented on Friday a manifesto signed by 80 prominent people claiming for the right to decide "to open the path of peace and normalization."

The driving forces behind this initiative have formed the platform "Erabaki" (To Decide) aiming to achieve the "capacity to decide our future as a society and as a nation." They have also presented its official manifesto under the name of " Queremos decidir y vamos a decidir!" (We want to decide and we shall decide!) and its web site.

The members of the platform at the press conference included journalist Julio Ibarra, former director of Emakunde Txaro Arteaga, president of the Sabino Arana Foundation Juan María Atutxa or general coordinator of Lokarri Paul Ríos.

Basque sculptor Néstor Basterretxea, writer Toti Martínez de Lezea, bertsolari Andoni Egaña, stone-lifter Iñaki Perurena or journalists Xabier Euskitze and Josu Loroño were also among the signatories to the proposal.

The platform seeks to look for support through the web site and call a rally in favor of the right to decide in the Kursaal Conference Center in Donostia-San Sebastian next February 10th.

The manifesto says that "all the people have the right to be asked about the problems they are concerned with and all the people have the right to decide freely their future" and, consequently, the "Basque people, one of the oldest in Europe, have the right to decide freely their own future in accordance with the right of self-determination".

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