Sunday, December 28, 2008

Basque Sports Teams' Recognition

This note comes to us thanks to Google News:

Basque protest seeks team's international recognition

Dec 27, 2008

BILBAO, Spain (AFP) — Thousands of people marched through the northern Spanish city of Bilbao Saturday to demand the Basque football team be allowed to take part in international competitions.

Britain is allowed "to have teams from Scotland or from Wales play at international level and we are demanding that that same right within the states of Spain and France," said Elisa Sainz de Murieta, the head of the Basque Solidarity political party.

She said the march was aimed at "demanding the official recognition of the Basque team ... within a European framework," and called for the "political will" to make this happen.

The demonstrators marched behind a banner reading "Basque Nation, one nation, one national team, one federation."

A Basque football team, drawn from the Basque regions of both Spain and France, does exist but it is not officially recognised by the game's authorities, including European football's governing body UEFA, and is restricted to occasional friendly games.


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Monday, December 22, 2008

Spain Upset Over Gibraltar's Tax Victory

Well, seems like the Spaniards are not gaining any friends in Gibraltar according to this report by Panorama:

Spain considers backing anti-Gibraltar appeal

The Spanish foreign ministry has lost no time in saying that it is considering to appeal against the decision by the European Court of First Instance which favoured Gibraltar's position.

As reported last week, the European court threw out the position taken by the European Commission. The Commission had said that 'regional selectivity' applied in Gibraltar's case, meaning that our taxes should be the same as those of the UK.

But the court has confirmed Gibraltar's fiscal independence. And this appears to have annoyed our 'friends' in the Spanish foreign ministry.

Th Spanish ministry has stated that the Spanish government is studying the implications of the court ruling, and has pointed out at the prospect of appeal that exists within a two-month period.

The Spanish Opposition party PP has come out against the pro-Gibraltar ruling of the European court, as if it is wrong for Gibraltar to win a court case.

Both the Gibraltar and the UK Government took the Commission to court following their decision over 'regional selectivity' and 'material selectivity'. So that, in the same way that Gibraltar is content with the outcome of the court, so is the UK who have always defended that Gibraltar's taxation system differs to that of the UK.

In other words, Gibraltar is separate to the UK in respect of tax law.

But there are those in Spain who think that Gibraltar must be an integral part of the UK in everything, and worse still, that Gibraltar must align itself with Spanish practice, as if it were an integral part of Spain.

Spanish PP calls for action

Jose Ignacio Landaluce, PP member of the Spanish parliament, says that the court ruling goes against the interests of the Campo area and of Spain. As such, it should be stopped.

He urges the Spanish government to use every avenue available to reverse the court ruling.

However, the European court has already decided that the three conditions set out in the judgment on the tax regime in the Azores are met in the case of Gibraltar.

The Azores are a part of Portugal yet it was allowed to have a separate tax system, thus how can such a ruling not apply to Gibraltar which has always been independent of the UK for tax purposes.

Gibraltar, the Azores and the Basque country

If the European courts were in future to reverse the decision favourable to Gibraltar having a separate tax system to the UK, it follows that this would have repercussions in the prior ruling on the Portuguese Azores, because it is on the Azores ruling that a decision has been taken on Gibraltar.

Such a reversal would thus have repercussions with Portugal. Not only that, but in the Basque country as well.

The Basque authorities have hailed the ruling that favours Gibraltar, because they see it as strengthening their own position in respect of having a separate tax system to that of Spain.

As soon as the GDead fish and oil back on Camp Bay shorelinep6p7Pic.jpgibraltar decision became known, the Basque authorities said that the Basque position is upheld and that in Gibraltar's case, a separate tax system to that of the UK does not breach the EU treaty, thus neither are they.

The Basque country was able to make headway as well by reference to the Azores case.

The European court has confirmed the autonomy of 'this British region', the Basques say when referring to Gibraltar.

If the Spanish government were now to attack the court ruling that favours Gibraltar, it would also be attacking the position of the Basque country and the Portuguese Azores.


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Lies

Unbelievable, according to the Tehran Times the Basque government has issued a letter of apology in which they lie to the Iranians about the reason why the friendly match was cancelled.

Here you have the report as is:

Basque football chief apologizes to Iran

Tehran Times Sports Desk

TEHRAN - Basque Football Federation president has sent a letter of apology to Iran Football Federation (IFF) over the cancellation of the friendly match.

This friendly was scheduled on December 23 at the San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao but the Basque officials cancelled it because of quarrel between their players.

The Basque Football Federation has requested its counterpart to hold a friendly at another time.

Iran will travel to Galicia, north-west Spain, on Wednesday to play a warm up with a team from the region.


First of all, there is not such thing as a Basque Football Federation, the Basques can only dream of the day when their sports team will gain international recognition. But anyway, the real reason why the friendly match had to be canceled was because the government of the Basque Autonomous Community (which comprises only three out of the seven Basque provinces) decided to betray the players by changing the name from Euskal Herria, a designation that encompasses all of the Basque Country for Euskadi, a term that in recent years have come to include only the three provinces included in the Basque Autonomous Community. The players of the Basque national team come from all seven provinces and even Basque descendants in other countries are considered and this is why they decided to stick with the Euskal Herria designation.

Boy, those Basque politicians from the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV for its initials in Spanish) are as trecherous as their French and Spanish counterparts.

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Friday, December 19, 2008

Emir, Manu and Diego Armando

This article was published at the section Goal of The New York Times:

La Vida Maradona in Song and Film

By Jack Bell

International pop star and soccer legend wander the streets of Buenos Aires. Queue the music and vintage video footage.

Introducing the singer Manu Chao and coach of the Argentina national team, Diego Maradona in “La Vida Tombola,” a hit single off Chao’s Latin Grammy-winning album “La Radiolina.”

The song is also featured in the film “Maradona.” Here is the video for “La Vida Tombola,” which translates loosely to “Life Is a Lottery.”

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The film was directed by Emir Kusturica, the award-winning Serbian filmmaker, and was a selection at the Cannes International Film Festival last May. It has been released in several countries in Europe.

Chao, 47, who was born in France to parents from Galicia and the Basque region in Spain, has long been a fan of Maradona. In 1994, he included the song “Santa Maradona” on his “Casa Babylon” album, Chao’s last effort with his band Mano Negra.

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William Petersen Sings "Goiko Mendean"

Not everyday you wake up to find out that an US actor sings a Basque song, and is not only that it is a Basque song, he sings it in Euskera.

Here you have the note courtesy of EITb:

William Petersen, as Gil Grissom in CSI, sings a Basque song

William Petersen, as Gill Grissom in CSI, sends a greeting to the people of the Basque Country. Fragment in which he sings the Basque song "Goiko mendia". The complete version will be diffused during the reception to be offered by the Basque president Friday evening in Vitoria-Gasteiz.

Note: By accessing the page you will be able to watch the video in which he sings the song.

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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Eusko Flickr : Independence Day


Independence day
Originally uploaded by Soniko

Forgotten

We learned earlier today that the European Union is willing to turn a blind eye on Spain's dismal human and political rights' record.

They have forgotten about the Apartheid like measures, the persecution of activists, the closure of news papers and radio stations, the torture and the unfair jail sentences. Well, according to this article found at ZNet entitled "The Case of Spain, A Forgotten Genocide" by Vicente Navarro seems like they got their Alzheimer's from the Spaniards themselves!

Check out what Navarro says in his article:

A social movement has been growing in Spain, breaking the 30-year pact of silence on the enormous atrocities and genocide carried out during and after the fascist coup led by General Franco. The coup took place in 1936 with the active support of the Catholic Church and the Spanish Army, and made possible by the assistance of Hitler and Mussolini and the cowardice of the western democracies, including the U.S., which at that time did not dare to offend Hitler and Mussolini by sending arms to the democratically elected Spanish government. The coup was resisted, however, by the majority of Spain's population, which is why it took three years for the fascists to succeed. They won by imposing extremely repressive measures on the population. Terror became an explicit policy of the new regime. General Franco and other generals spoke frequently of the need to kill everyone who had supported the Popular Front, the alliance of left-wing and center parties that had won by large majorities in the last elections in Spain. As part of that repression, more than 200,000 men and women were executed by the fascist regime, and another 200,000 died in the Army's concentration camps and in the villages, subjected to hunger, disease, and other circumstances. And 114,266 people simply disappeared. They were killed by the Army and the fascist party, la Falange, and their bodies were abandoned or buried without being identified. These bodies were never found.

When democracy returned in 1978, an informal pact of silence was made - an agreement to cover over the enormous repression that had existed under the fascist dictator. The democratic transition took place under conditions that were highly favorable to the conservative forces that had controlled Francoist Spain. It became obvious to the leadership of the former fascist state, led by King Juan Carlos (appointed by General Franco), and Suarez, the head of the fascist movement (Movimiento Nacional), that the fascist regime could not continue as a dictatorship. It was a corrupt and highly unpopular apparatus, facing the largest labor agitation in Europe. In 1976, a critical year after the death of the dictator (the day he died, the country ran out of champagne), 2,085 workdays per 1,000 workers were lost to strikes (the average in Europe was 595 days). The dictator died in his bed, but the dictatorship died in the streets. The level of social agitation reached such a point that Franco's appointed monarchy was in trouble, and the state leadership was forced to open itself up and establish a limited democracy, under the watchful eye of the Army (and the Church). The left was strong enough to force that opening, but it was not strong enough to break with the old state. The Amnesty Law was passed in 1977, which protected those who had committed politically motivated crimes (a law that was of much greater benefit to the right-wing than to the left-wing forces). The repression during the Franco years was enormous. Even in his bed just before he died (1975), Franco was signing death warrants for political prisoners.

Continues...


I strongly recommend that you read the entire article, that way you will begin to wonder why both the EU and the UN are so lenient towards Spain, a country that has never shown any regret for its colonialist past let alone for being allied to Hitler and Mussolini throughout WWII.

You will also understand why both Basques and Catalonians want nothing to do with Spain, why they long for an end to the colonial occupation of their respective lands.

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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

EU Endorses Apartheid

Eighteen years ago the world celebrated the end of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, yet, today, the European Union decided to endorse Spain's own brand of political, civil, and human rights violations' state policy. In doing so the leaders of the EU deprives a large percentage of the Basque electorate of their representation which means that those who call the shots in Europe can care less about democracy.

This article was published at Nasdaq's web page:

Spanish Government: EU Adds Two Basque Parties To Terror List

MADRID (AFP)--The European Union has added two Basque separatist parties and two recently arrested ETA leaders to its list of groups and individuals supporting terrorism, the Spanish government said Tuesday.

The Communist Party of Basque Lands, or PCTV, and the Basque Nationalist Action, or ANV, will join the armed Basque separatist group ETA and its political wing Batasuna on the roster, the interior ministry said in a statement.

The E.U. also added 13 ETA members to its terror list, including the group's suspected military chief Aitzol Iriondo Yarza and his predecessor Miguel de Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, both of whom were arrested in France recently, it added.

Spain's Supreme Court voted in September to outlaw both the PCTV and the ANV in a decision based on a 2002 law allowing the exclusion of parties that back terrorism.

Both parties are suspected to have served as a front for Batasuna in elections.

Spain's top antiterrorism Judge Baltasar Garzon suspended their activities for three years in February, barring them from running in Spain's legislative elections in March.


Now, lets wait and see if twenty years from now the EU will remove Aitzol and Mikel from their terrorist list, just like the USA did with Nelson Mandela a few months ago.

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Saturday, December 13, 2008

"Cool" Basqueness

This interview with Gloria Totoricagüena comes to us courtesy of EITb:

Basque-American teenagers need to learn it is cool to be Basque

Igor Lansorena - Released 12/12/2008

In an exclusive interview for eitb.com in Boise, Gloria Totoricagüena, a prominent researcher in the field of the Basque Diaspora, talks about the future faced by Basque communities in the United States.

One of the problems of maintaining the Basque culture and traditions in the United States is that, until five years ago, the definition of Basqueness was very traditional, Gloria Totoricagüena, a prominent researcher in the field of the Basque Diaspora, argues.

Gloria, born in Boise in the bosom of a Basque family, former Oinkari dancer and member of the Basque Center Euzkaldunak and Basque Museum and Cultural Center boards in Boise, knows very well what she is talking about.

"Accordion, 'trikitixas' (Basque diatonic button accordion) playing old songs, war songs, songs from the civil war. It was to maintain the culture of their parents and grandparents", Gloria says.

According to Gloria, who has seen her daughter Amaia grow up in the Basque block, go to Basque dancing, learn Basque songs and do some of the things she did, Basque-American teenagers need to see that "it is cool to be Basque, it is chic to be Basque". Teenagers need to see they can be Basque without having to wear a 'kaiku', she adds.

"When teenagers from Chino, from Reno, from San Francisco, when they come to Boise and they see five hundred other teenagers with 'txapelas' (Basque berets) and it is cool to wear a txapela dancing to Ene Bada, or dancing to Basque rock music, they would be like... oh, this is not something of my parents or my grandparents," Gloria explains.

When we talk about ethnic identity, Gloria thinks Basques in the United States need to realize that you can be Basque and modern at the same time, that you can be like the teenagers in the Basque Country.

"Sometimes, the parents and the grandparents, even people my generation, some people who are very traditional, would say they are not really Basque if they listen to rock music, they are American. If you go to the Basque Country and turn on the radio, and it is U2 and Cold play and Red Hot Chili Peppers, what is the difference between being in Los Angeles or being in Berriz?" she wonders.

For Gloria, there is not a problem with the stronger identity absorbing the weaker one. "Euskal Herria is connected to global culture. You can have traditional culture and global culture at the same time. We do not subtract Basque identity when we add global culture. We just add it," she argues.

However, Gloria sees there are some places in the United States where ties with the Basque Country are not as strong as in Boise, and where they don't speak Euskera, French or Spanish. In these cases, a sort of reconnection is needed to keep their Basque identity. "If those people can make a trip to Euskal Herria, if we have programs for teenagers to take them to the Basque Country and to make friends with people there, or people from the Basque Country to come here and live with families, they are much more likely to maintain that identity", Gloria says.

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Eusko Flickr : Euskal Herria


Euskal Herria
Originally uploaded by larrabetzutikmundura

Friday, December 12, 2008

Irish Judge Exposes Spain's Corruption

Unlike judges in Mexico and Canada who bought Spain's campaign of lies against Basque pro independence activists, a judge in Ireland has exposed Spain's corruption by declaring that Madrid has nothing more than a news paper's opinion to accuse Iñaki de Juana of apology of terrorism.

This article about this Irish judge's defiance against Spain's repressive and violent campaign against the right of the Basque Country to its self determination was published at The International Herald Tribune:

Basque militant fights extradition to Spain

The Associated Press
Published: December 12, 2008

DUBLIN, Ireland: A Belfast judge reserved judgment Friday in the case of a notorious Basque separatist fighting extradition to Spain — but emphasized that the Spanish authorities' case was weak.

A Spanish judge last month formally asked British authorities to ship Inaki de Juana Chaos back to Madrid to answer questions about a letter in which he allegedly "praises terrorism."

But Tom Burgess, the judge hearing the extradition case at Belfast Crown Court, expressed skepticism about the Spanish case against de Juana Chaos as he heard arguments from both sides' lawyers.

Spain says it wants to question de Juana Chaos about a letter — purportedly a message from himself to supporters of the Basque paramilitary group ETA — calling on them to continue bombing and shooting in hopes of securing an independent homeland in northeast Spain and southwest France.

Burgess heard that the Spanish case was based on a journalist's account of an ETA rally and the letter's contents — and defense claims that the message could be translated into many things besides "praising terrorism."

The judge said a journalist's characterization was not good enough as evidence. He said the message transcript itself needed to be produced and verified as coming from de Juana Chaos.

"I have no idea what this document is," Burgess said, referring to third-hand accounts of the letter's contents. "It seems to be potentially dangerous for this court to start looking at a document for the purpose of whether or not a crime is involved. Is it hearsay, double-hearsay, triple hearsay?"

Burgess adjourned the case without saying when he would give his verdict.

De Juana Chaos denies any connection to the letter. One of his Belfast lawyers, Kevin Winters, said someone else read out a speech at a pro-ETA rally shortly after Spain freed de Juana Chaos from prison in August — but denies that the speech amounted to a letter authored by his client.

De Juana Chaos was convicted in 1987 in a string of ETA bombings and shootings in Madrid that killed 25 police officers, military personnel and civilians. He twice pursued lengthy hunger strikes in prison, and Spanish authorities also convicted him of issuing death threats while behind bars.


Kudos to judge to Tom Burguess for standing for justice and reason.

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Thursday, December 11, 2008

Basque Shrimp Ragout with Couscous

This recipe comes to us courtesy of a local Tulsa TV station:

Basque Shrimp Ragout With Couscous

2 Tbs. olive oil, divided
1 c. yellow onion slices (1/2 small onion)
1 can (15 1/2 oz.) diced tomatoes
12 oz. shelled, deveined shrimp
1/2 to 1 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 red bell pepper, sliced into 1/4 inch strips
1 green bell pepper, sliced into 1/4 inch strips
1 pkg. (5.8 oz.) Near East Roasted Garlic and Olive Oil Couscous

In a large skillet, heat 1 Tbs. olive oil 1 minute over medium heat. Add onion sliced and saute 1 minute.

Add tomatoes, shrimp and red pepper flakes. Simmer 5 minutes or until shrimp turn opaque and pink.

Meanwhile, in a second skillet, heat remaining 1 Tbs. olive oil for 1 minute. Add red and green bell peopper slices, saute for 2 minutes.

Add 1 1/4 c. water and contents of Near East spice sack. Bring to a boil.

Stir in couscous, cover and remove from heat. Let stand 5 minutes. Fluff couscous lightly with fork.

Serve shrimp mixture over bed of couscous


Try it this Christmas!

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Olentzero in Boise

This article comes to us courtesy of EITb:

Ancient tradition

Olentzero arrives at Boise's Basque center

Dozens of children met in the Basque center in downtown Boise on Sunday afternoon to meet the Basque Christmas character Olentzero and receive their Christmas presents.

Basque mythical character Olentzero arrived at a crowded Basque center in dowtown Boise for the Euzkaldunak Children's Christmas Party on Sunday afternoon.

Immediately after dozens of children heard the story of Olentzero, narrated by Basque professor Nere Lete and sang "Olentzero begi gorri", led by Nere's husband, John Bieter, Olentzero came into the great hall of the Basque center, sitting on a chair carried by his four assistants.

Once there, he talked to all the children in the Basque Center and handed out presents.

Undoubtedly, Olentzero, a Christmas tradition most deeply rooted in the Basque Country, is the equivalent to Santa Claus or Father Christmas in other Western cultures.

There are many variations to the Olentzero traditions and stories connected to him, sometimes varying from village to village. In most of them, Olentzero is a coal man who comes down from the mountains to hand out chestnuts and wine, and of course, presents for the little ones.

This mythical character has a big head, a large belly and, according to local traditions, is capable of drinking ten "arrobas" (one arroba is about twenty-five pounds in weight) of wine.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Human Rights and the Balkan Lesson

Today the international community celebrates the 6oth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN. It has been 60 years in which both Spain and France have institutionally violated the rights of the Basque people. They have been able to do this only because they count with the silent complicity of many other countries.

Even worst, both Spain and France have created a special status quo for Euskal Herria that is tantamount to the Apartheid regime in South Africa, something that not even Nadine Gordimer has the guts to point out.

But not only Nadine Gordimer has excused the colonial occupation of Euskal Herria by Spain and France by declaring the the Basques do not have the right to be independent (in clear disregard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), also the main force behind Kosovo's independence, Martti Ahtisaari, has make public statements against the Basque right to self determination.

This is why I invite you to read this article published at Balkan Insight:

Balkan Earthquake is Felt Far Away

By Darko Duridanski in Skopje, Tbilisi, Sukhumi, Vitoria, Bilbao and Pristina

08 December 2008

From the Basque country to the Caucasus, the implications of the former Serbian province’s march to independence are being followed - and debated.

As jubilant Kosovars danced in front of the Newborn statue unveiled in the capital, Pristina, to commemorate their long-awaited independence on February 17, 2008, many political leaders around the world watched the events with different emotions.

Their core concern was that granting independence to a former province could boost secessionist movements the world over, and not turn out to be a sui generis case, as Kosovo’s European backers have insisted.

The debate over the “Kosovo precedent” was revived in August 2008, when Russian forces poured into the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The conflict ended in Russia’s recognition of the enclaves’ independence, and the example of Kosovo as justification for this.

“We argued consistently that it would be impossible to tell the Abkhazians and Ossetians that what was good for the Kosovo Albanians was not good for them,” the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, wrote on August 27, 2008, in the Financial Times.

Advocates for the self-determination of various regions and provinces echo those sentiments. Some surveys estimate that there are over 200 secessionist movements worldwide.

Some of the most significant are in Europe. In Britain, there are Scottish and Welsh independence movements and the movement to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. In Spain there are Catalan and Basque independence movements while in Greenland, many seek independence from Denmark. Then, there is the push by Turkish Northern Cyprus and Transdnistria, already de facto independent states, to gain international recognition of their separation from Cyprus and Moldova.

In the Caucasus, outside the aforementioned Georgian enclaves, an unresolved conflict simmers over the ethnic Armenian province of Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan, while secessionist movements are active in the Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. In China, there are the Tibetan and Uygur (Xinjiang) independence movements and in Africa, conflicts continue over the Western Sahara in Morocco, and South Sudan. Kurdish nationalism, meanwhile, involves several states – Turkey, Iraq and Syria.

However, after travelling to two very different lands in which there are strong secessionist movements, Abkhazia and the Basque Country, it seems for the time being, at least, that international fears about the impact of Kosovo’s independence are largely misplaced. Separatists are certainly interested in events in Kosovo and draw courage from them. But there is little evidence that Kosovo’s independence or recognition has significantly boosted their prospects of statehood.

If Kosovo has it, why not Abkhazia?

At the bridge over the river Ingur, the only entry point to Abkhazia from Georgia, stands a monument of a pistol with its barrel tied in a knot. Erected as a symbol of disarmament, it is a small version of the sculpture, Knotted Gun, by the Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reutersward. It expresses the aspiration of all the residents of this unrecognised country for peace.

But real peace still eludes this troubled land. The battered streets of the capital, Sukhumi, evoke a country that emerged from war yesterday, though the fight against Georgia ended in 1993.

At both ends of the bridge, Russian soldiers - the architects and supporters of Abkhazian independence - wait in white armoured personnel carriers, watching the few people crossing the bridge. They keep the peace along the administrative border with Georgia, albeit to the dismay of the Georgians who do not regard them as honest brokers.

With a population of around 220,000, and recently recognised by Russia, Abkhazia sees Kosovo as a possible role model, despite the fact that Russia, a staunch ally of Serbia, has bitterly opposed Kosovo`s independence, warning it could have a domino effect around the world.

The Abkhazians do not compare their situation directly with Kosovo but use the “double-standards” argument to insist they are entitled to the same treatment. By this, they mean the Western claim that Kosovo’s recognition is a sui generis case, which cannot be applied elsewhere.

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union during which time they were autonomous republics inside Georgia, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia declared independence in 1992, triggering armed conflicts that ended in a Georgian withdrawal. Provisional peace agreements, brokered by Russia, resulted in the deployment of Russian forces along the administrative border with Georgia, enabling these lands to become de facto independent states, though without international recognition.

Kosovo was also an autonomous province until the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic stripped it of its autonomous status and incorporated it into Serbia in the early 1990s.

The government suppressed the rights of ethnic Albanians, triggering an armed conflict with a local guerrilla force, the Kosovo Liberation Army. This ended in June 1999 after NATO forced the Serbian police and army to withdraw.

Kosovo then became a UN-administered territory. But, crucially, Western political leaders agreed that any return to Serbian sovereignty was out of the question, prompting rapid recognition of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia.

Georgians resent comparison between their struggle to regain control over their lost provinces and Serbian tactics in Kosovo. “The independence of Kosovo has worried us, although these conflicts are different and the reasons behind them are different,” says Alexander Rondeli, of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, in Tbilisi. “In Kosovo we saw the extremist measures of the Serbs towards the Albanians but in Abkhazia the Georgians have been the victims of ethnic cleansing,” he adds, referring to the several hundred thousand Georgian refugees from Abkhazia in the 1990s.

Temur Iakobashvili, Georgia’s Minister of Reintegration, makes the same point. “I don’t see similarities between Kosovo and Abkhazia, these are different conflicts,” he says. “The Kosovars were subject to ethnic cleansing, and here, this is the case with the Georgians, which is a significant factor.”

Diana Chachua, 22, a Georgian refugee from Abkhazia, remembers the day Kosovo proclaimed independence with pain. “I knew it was bound to happen but was still shocked,” she recalls. Georgians rarely travel to Abkhazia these days, she adds. “It is only Abkhazians that travel across the bridge.”

Since Kosovo’s independence, Russia has strengthened its ties with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, abolishing border controls and granting many locals Russian passports. Their currency is the rouble.

Vjacheslav Chirikba, a foreign policy adviser to the Abkhazian President, Sergey Bagapsh, says if Kosovo is entitled to statehood, so is Abkhazia. During the early years of the USSR it was a separate Soviet republic, he notes, and now it meets all the criteria for a recognised state. “Both main factors are met, political and state structure, plus economic sustainability, so where is the problem?” Chirikba asks. “Abkhazia will never be a part of Georgia,” concurs Maxim Gvindzhia, Abkhazian Deputy Foreign Minister. “Independence for us, as in the case of Kosovo, is an issue of self-preservation. Independence is the only guarantee of the preservation of our nation.”

While both Georgians and Abkhazians draw parallels between their situation and Serbia-plus-Kosovo, few outside experts believe events in Kosovo exerted any concrete effect on the Caucasus, or triggered the war in South Ossetia.

The five-day war in South Ossetia started when Georgia tried to retake control of the region on August 8, 2008. The move by Georgia`s president, Mikhail Saakashvili, triggered a fierce military response by Russia which sent troops to Georgia under the pretext of preventing genocide.

Tim Judah, an expert on both the Balkans and the Caucasus, says the conflict was inevitable, regardless of Kosovo’s declaration of independence.

“Even if Kosovo hadn’t existed, the conflict in South Ossetia would not have been avoided,” he says. “Russia is naturally very interested in using Kosovo as an argument. But Russia is not really interested in South Ossetia or Abkhazia, it is more interested in preventing Georgia from joining NATO.”

George Hewitt, Professor of Caucasian languages at the London School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS, agrees. “I don’t attribute any upsurge in activity here in the Caucasus to what happened in Kosovo,” he says. “Events in South Ossetia can be more readily explained by NATO’s folly in Bucharest,” he adds, referring to the 2008 summit at which Georgia’s appeal for membership was rejected.

A model for the Basques?

While Abkhazians – and Armenians in Nagorny Karabakh – mull the dilemma of enjoying de facto but not de jure independence, the Basques face a very different challenge: how to peacefully convert their existing regional autonomy to full statehood inside a developed Western democracy.

Despite the terrorist attacks launched by the Basque independence movement, ETA, over the past 40 years, most Basque people now see peaceful talks as the only path to independence.

They welcome Kosovo’s independence. Iratze Urizar, who works in Bilbao for an organisation that helps Basques in Spanish jails, says Basque nationalists viewed the events in Kosovo as affirmation of the principle of self-determination. “People here were happy for Kosovo,” she says. “What connects us is the right to self-determination.”

Historically, the Basque Country comprises seven provinces, four in Spain and three in France. Although the nationalist movement is spread over all seven, it is stronger in the three provinces in Spain, Alava, Biscay and Guipuscoa, which form the Basque Autonomous Country.

The autonomous Basque government proposed a referendum that would have paved the way for a referendum on independence, planned for 2010. However, the central government in Madrid strongly opposed the plan and Spain’s highest court in mid-September ruled the referendum unconstitutional. The conflict between Madrid and the Basques over the referendum coincides with a similar conflict over Kosovo: the Basque government supports Kosovo’s independence, while Madrid does not.

According to the Basque President, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, events in Kosovo show the right of nations’ to self-determination cannot now be denied. “The 21st century is the century of identity and nations; it is the century of respect for the will of the people,” he said in February, following Kosovo’s declaration of independence.

A survey by the Basque government claims that 78 per cent of Basques want the referendum to go ahead. They believe the process of self-determination has started, and that there is no turning back.

“In an age of globalisation, small nations must become independent in order to defend their sovereignty,” says Urko Aiartza Azurtza, a lawyer for Batasuna, a hardline Basque nationalist party that the Spanish government has banned. “It’s a process that has started and cannot be stopped.”

The Spanish government, on the other hand, steadfastly refuses to recognise Kosovo’s independence, one of five remaining EU refuseniks – alongside Romania, Slovakia, Greece and Cyprus. The government also denies most Basques support independence, saying only 30 per cent want it.

Aitor Esteban, deputy of the Basque Nationalist Party in the Spanish parliament, is not surprised by Madrid’s position. “It is a contradiction because if Kosovo is indeed an exception or ‘a unique case’, it should not represent a problem,” he says. “But, actually, they [the Spanish government] think this will not be the last such case, and that many other ‘hot’ issues over nationalities will now open up in Western Europe.”

The criteria for statehood is unclear

Back in Kosovo, whose independence had been recognised by 52 states at the time of writing, ordinary people are aware their struggle has stirred hopes among other small nations that feel occupied, repressed or enslaved. “I fully support those initiatives for independence that look to Kosovo, those nations striving for independence that are truly repressed and seek liberation,” says Agon Hamza, a law graduate in Pristina.

But while ordinary people sympathise with liberation movements, Kosovo leaders refuse to let their country become a standard-bearer for other liberation movements. “We have always stressed that Kosovo has special characteristics,” Kosovo’s President, Fatmir Sejdiu, has said. “It is a case sui generis and cannot be used as a precedent for other conflict zones, areas or regions.”

Experts in Kosovo are more nuanced, saying it is hard to define the standards by which a nation has a right to break away and start an independent existence.

One local NGO, the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development, KIPRED, in a study released late last year, lists several criteria. These include borders established in the previous system before the dissolution of the state, the presence of an ethnic minority subjected to ethnic cleansing or serious violation of minority rights, and the existence of democratic structures recognised by the international community.

By applying these tests, Albanians in neighbouring Macedonia, for example, seem unlikely to win their own state. This is despite the existence of a strong secessionist movement dating from the early 1990s, and an armed conflict that erupted in 2001, pitting the security forces against Albanian guerrillas claiming to represent the 25 per cent minority.

Since then, however, Macedonia has moved back from the brink and been praised for its management of minority issues. Following an internationally-brokered peace deal signed in Ohrid in 2001, fighting has ended, minority rights have improved, and the wind’s been taken out of the sails of the separatist campaign.

But while Macedonia no longer sees independence for Kosovo as a direct threat - Skopje recently recognised the Pristina government - there are still fears in Macedonia that an ethnic division of Kosovo (if the Serb-dominated north secedes) could inspire Macedonian Albanians in the west of the country to follow suit.

“In the short term, there is no danger of instability spilling over from Kosovo into Macedonia,” Biljana Vankovska, pofessor of political science and defence at the Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, says. “But any continued regional fragmentation, such as the division of Kosovo, or the separation of the Republika Srpska from Bosnia, may shift the tectonic plates. Many things will depend on the interests of the US and Russia in the region.”

As a result, Macedonian officials counsel against the redrawing of borders in Kosovo or Bosnia, fearing an impact down the line in Macedonia. After all, Kosovo may once again serve as an alibi.

“The West has demonstrated its ethical foreign policy in Kosovo and today, Russia is doing the same in the Caucasus,” Vankovska notes. “This is leading us into an insecure world in which all issues may be settled on the principle that ‘If this can be done here, why not there as well? Why should we be a minority in your state when you can be minority in ours?’”

Professor Hewitt says in the final analysis such cases cannot be judged solely from the point of view of international law: the moral aspect of the case for independence must be included.

“If a country by its actions loses the moral right to control this or that region, which may or may not be populated by an ethnic minority, then that region or ethnic minority has the right to press its case for self-determination,” he says. “Some laws are there to be broken.”


And then again you have spineless cowards like Fatmir Sejdiu who knowing very well that Kosovo does not meet the criteria to be an independent state and that it got there thanks to the USA involvement in the area goes on to declare that other nations do not deserve their statehood because Kosovo is a sui generis case (does he sound like Basque-phobe Martti Ahtisaari or what?). So, instead of having new nations showing solidarity and sympathy towards those who have been experiencing similiar libertation struggles we get even more people disregarding the right of entire nations to their self determination.

This is the biased world in which we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Human Rights declaration.

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Visiting Zapatista Chiapas

This article was published in the section Frugal Traveler at The New York Times:

In the Village of the Zapatistas

The entrance to Oventic, a village in the Chiapas highlands about an hour north of San Cristóbal de las Casas, is easy to miss. It’s a simple metal gate with nothing in particular to distinguish it. Cargo trucks and Nissan taxis roll by as they do anywhere else in the state, and in the cold fine mist of an October morning, Oventic seemed to vanish behind the gate into thick fog.

That was oddly appropriate, given that Oventic is an autonomous enclave run by the Zapatista National Liberation Army, the armed, largely indigenous rebel group that for many in the United States is synonymous with Chiapas. It was the Zapatista uprising on Jan. 1, 1994, that put Chiapas on the political map and drew attention to the group’s war against Mexico’s government over the poverty of peasants in Chiapas.

With the suave, pipe-smoking, balaclava-clad Subcomandante Marcos as their mysterious frontman, the Zapatistas captured towns (including San Cristóbal), issued communiqués and declarations from the Lacandón jungle (whose outer edge I visited last week) and managed to negotiate agreements with the government on land reform and autonomy for the region’s native people. Those agreements, however, were never fully enacted, the Mexican military occupied swaths of Chiapas, and paramilitary groups killed Zapatistas sympathizers (the most notorious being the 1997 massacre of 45 Tzotzil Indians in the village of Acteal). Rarely, if ever, were tourists affected by the conflict.

In the last several years, however, the conflict has calmed significantly (although not necessarily to the Zapatistas’ benefit) and receded from international view, leaving the movement of today a bit of a mystery. After reading “The Zapatista Reader,” an anthology of essays, magazine articles and documents, I wanted a firsthand view of life in a modern Zapatista community. As it happened, Oventic, which is apparently open to visitors, was just a 30-peso colectivo ride away from San Cristóbal.

First, however, I had to get through the gate.

“Your passport,” said the man standing guard, his voice muffled by a ski mask.

I handed over my passport, and he walked into a nearby shack, emerging a few minutes later to escort me in. Inside the shack, two men sat at a table, ledgers open, while three others stood around them. All wore ski masks as well, not — as I’d first thought — to ward off the chill but to hide their identities.

They, too, asked for my passport and began to fill out a form. Where did I come from? Why was I here? How long did I hope to stay? All were easy to answer — until they asked my profession.

The problem: As a New York Times travel writer, I’m not supposed to reveal my identity to the people I’m writing about. This is primarily to prevent hotels, restaurants and other businesses from giving me special treatment, but it’s also so that I experience places as an everyday tourist would. To tell the Zapatistas I’m a writer would alter their attitude toward me, and worse, I wouldn’t be able to find out if a regular tourist could visit.

Still, I hated lying — I couldn’t simply invent a profession. Fortunately, as a freelancer, I technically don’t have a job. Plus, my wife was about to have a baby, and we’d decided that I would stay home to take care of our child. Conveying this arrangement, however, was a challenge. A jobless American on vacation without his wife, but planning to watch the baby? Leaving the form blank was an impossibility — they may have been rebels, but they were also bureaucrats.

Finally, after several minutes of questioning, we settled on a profession: amo de casa, the male version of ama de casa, or housewife.

A guide brought me out of the shack, and I began to get a sense of Oventic. Structurally, the village was simple. A wide, straight concrete road led steeply down the hillside, with buildings on either side. Some had obvious functions — a hospital, a school — while others did not. Many were low, wooden buildings with corrugated tin roofs and brilliant murals mythologizing the struggle. Emiliano Zapata — a hero of the 1910 Mexican Revolution — stared out from the Snail Mu’ktal Tzob’onbail (in Tzotzil, the House of Grand Meetings), machete in one hand, an army behind him. A purple-faced woman, the red handkerchief around her face stamped EZLN (the movement’s Spanish abbreviation), looked out from another wall under the slogan “There is no weapon more effective than truth in thought.”

The guard led me to another shack, on whose door was a painting of an ear of corn, each kernel representing a masked Zapatista. The room was decorated with leftist paraphernalia from around the world: posters of Che Guevara and Hugo Chávez, the flag of Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, a banner calling for Basque prisoners to be returned to Basque country, and even a big Mexican flag. The Zapatistas may be rebels, but they’re also patriots.

From behind a wide table, two middle-aged men in balaclavas — one portly and sleepy, the other thin and earnest — invited me to sit down on a bench and asked me for the same information (my passport, name, origin and profession) causing the same confusion along the way.

Formalities out of the way, the thin one — who identified himself as the Explanation Committee — began to tell me the Zapatistas’ story. Before 1994, he said, poor people in Chiapas couldn’t get clinics or schools built in their communities, or have electricity installed, or benefit from the gold, oil and other valuable commodities on the land.

Now, he said with some pride, they had their own towns that existed entirely apart from those governed by Mexico, with their own clinics and schools. Oventic — named for a local tree — was just one of the many Zapatista ejidos, or communes, throughout the state, with new inhabitants joining all the time. How many? “Muchos,” he said.

The Zapatistas’ separatism was not, however, without its drawbacks. The government may tolerate ejidos such as Oventic, but it still restrains the movement. When I asked about the military checkpoints along the Chiapas highways, the Explanation Committee got emotional. The military, he said, often denied his people passage, justifying the blockade by saying, “These roads and bridges are only for Mexicans, and since you’re in opposition to the government, you’re not Mexican.”

I then asked about Subcomandante Marcos, the charismatic and still-unidentified Zapatista frontman, who has written everything from elliptical political tracts to children’s books. The Mexican government has been saying for years that he was in fact Rafael Guillén, an economics professor from Mexico City. Who, I asked, was he?

“Es muchos,” said the Committee, seeming to smile under his ski mask. He is many.

Outside, the mist felt colder and thicker than before. I wandered — alone, unescorted — down to the bottom of Oventic’s main road, where it dissolved into a muddy field. It looked like the edge of the world.

Maybe it was the dreary, cold weather that day, but Oventic hardly felt like a place where “muchos” lived. The only people in the street were 16 unmasked men hoisting a new electrical transformer atop a pole, and I watched them work from the veranda of the only open business in Oventic, a general store, where I bought a cup of coffee (10 pesos) and a folk music CD, “Canta David del EZLN y su Guitarra Volume 2” (20 pesos). Perhaps the most surprising thing about Oventic was its normalcy. Apart from the masks and the murals, this could have been any sleepy ejido in Mexico.

At the same time, I knew there were things as an outsider I could never see, like the weapons the Explanation Committee said they still possessed. While the officials and citizens of Oventic calmly answered my questions, they were not exactly outgoing. (Perfectly understandable, given the history.) And while I was allowed to take pictures, I was twice told not to include people in any of them.

Then, with nothing more to do in Oventic, I left through a smaller side gate, hailed a pickup-truck colectivo and climbed into the back, where two boys were hanging onto the railings and enjoying the rollercoaster ride. We stopped once on the way down, to pick up an older couple and their plastic crate full of hot corn on the cob. The smell was wonderful, and as I inhaled deeply, the old man offered me one. I pulled off the husk, removed a small worm that had been steamed along with the kernels and, in the honest chill of the highlands, ate my last lunch in Chiapas.

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Eusko Flickr : Bilbao


Bilbao
Originally uploaded by Mirenchu A Beristain

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Mikel Laboa

As you may know by now, Basque songwriter Mike Laboa passed away last week. This is The Guardian's obituary dedicated to his memory:

Mikel Laboa

Basque singer central to his culture's revival

* Michael Eaude
* The Guardian, Tuesday 9 December 2008

The Basque singer Mikel Laboa, who has died aged 74, was a legend in the Basque country, the region spanning part of northern Spain and south-west France. Always singing in Euskara, the Basque language, he was central to the region's cultural revival.

His father was a Basque Nationalist party councillor on the San Sebastián (Donostia) city council, who left for exile on the arrival of General Franco's troops in 1937. His mother and her seven children took refuge in the fishing village of Lekeitio, but the family was reunited in San Sebastián in 1939. The old quarter of that beautiful seaside city remained Laboa's haunt until the end of his life.

The post civil war years were tough: not only did hunger and fear rule, but speaking Euskara was forbidden. His family were musical and Laboa learned the guitar. In 1955 a friend gave him a record by the Argentinean Atahualpa Yupanqui that suggested a way of singing about suffering and politics.

At the same time, Laboa was studying medicine in Pamplona. He took his finals in Zaragoza, where, in 1962, at a student concert, he first sang in public in Euskara. In 1964 he married Marisol Bastida and went on to study child psychiatry for three years in Barcelona, where he made contact with the Catalan protest song movement.

From 1967 till its closure 18 years later, Laboa worked at the San Miguel hospital in San Sebastián as a psychiatrist, caring for children with Down's syndrome and autism. With his well-worn clothes and beret, he looked more like a farm labourer than a consultant physician, but combined the two careers with great success.

Laboa had found a Basque popular songbook in the early 1960s and his particular contribution was beginning to fall into place: Basque traditional songs, 1960s protest music, but always with a personal interpretation, including an album of translations from Bertolt Brecht (1969), and Lekeitioak (1988), an album of experimental pieces involving screams and onomatopoeic sounds that were closer to John Cage than Joan Baez. His curiously pitched, clear, nasal voice, the minimalism of his poem-songs and his commitment to Basque culture struck chords with his audience.

His first records were EPs only published in the French Basque country, but, in 1974, a double album was issued in Spain, Bat-Hiru (One-Three), his best-known record. It includes his hymn to freedom Txoria Txori (The Bird Which Is a Bird), inspired by his work with autistic children: in all, he made 16 records.

In later years Laboa experimented with other styles such as jazz and rock. A younger generation, mainly Basque post-punk rockers, paid him homage in the album Txerokee (1990). In 2003, he wrote the music for Julio Medem's documentary La Pelota Vasca (The Basque Ball). Medem wanted to interview him for the film, but Laboa refused: "I have nothing to say apart from my songs."

The writer Bernardo Atxaga described Laboa as a tall Viking warrior with piercing blue eyes, trapped inside the nervous nature of the singer. For his last performance, on July 11 2006, Laboa overcame his stage fright to perform in front of tens of thousands of people on San Sebastián beach, when he opened for Bob Dylan in a concert for peace.

He is survived by Marisol and their two children.

• Mikel Laboa Mancisidor, singer-songwriter, born June 15 1934; died December 1 2008

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Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Eusko Flickr : Ondarroa


Ondarroa
Originally uploaded by Jordi's

Gateau Basque

This recipe comes to us courtesy of the Mercury News:

Recipe: Gateau Basque

Gerald Hirigoyen, 'The Basque Kitchen'

Posted: 12/02/2008 05:01:00 PM PST

Gateau Basque

Makes one 9-inch cake

For the dough:

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon rum

2 teaspoons almond extract

1 teaspoon pastis, such as Ricard or Pernod, or an anise-flavored liqueur

Pinch of kosher salt

Seeds of 1 vanilla bean

11/2 cups flour

1/3 cup ground almond powder (see note at end of recipe)

1 teaspoon baking powder

For the pastry cream:

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons flour

11/4 cups milk

1/2 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise

1 cup (about 8 ounces) pitted whole cherries (optional)

Butter for the pan

Flour for the pan

1 egg, beaten lightly with a fork, for glaze

To make the dough, in the work bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until well blended. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the rum, almond extract, pastis and salt.

Add the vanilla bean seeds, flour, almond powder and baking powder. Using the paddle attachment, combine the ingredients on low speed until they come together to form a firm dough. Form the dough into 2 even balls, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or more.

To make the pastry cream, in the work bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the balloon attachment, beat the egg yolks and sugar until frothy. Add the flour and mix these ingredients on medium speed until well combined; set aside.

Bring the milk and vanilla bean to a boil in a large saucepan. As soon as the milk begins to boil, take the pan off the heat, remove the vanilla bean, scrape the seeds out of the pod, and stir them into the milk. Discard the pod.

Pour half the boiling milk into the bowl with the egg and flour mixture while stirring ingredients together briskly with a strong wire whisk. Bring the remaining half of the milk back to a boil. As soon as it boils, pour all of the ingredients from the mixing bowl into the pan of boiling milk while whisking vigorously until smooth. Bring to a boil and stir for 1 minute longer. Remove the pastry cream from the heat and spread it on a sheet pan or in a shallow baking dish to cool. Lay a large sheet of plastic wrap directly on top of the pastry cream and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.

Lightly flour a work surface and roll out one of the balls of dough into an 11-inch circle, approximately 1/3-inch thick. Carefully drape the dough over the rolling pin and transfer it to the prepared cake pan; gently press the dough down into the sides of the pan.

Spread the pastry cream in an even layer on top of the pastry dough. If desired, add a layer of cherries.

Roll out the remaining ball of dough into a 9-inch circle, 1/3-inch thick. Carefully drape it over the cake pan, on top of the pastry cream, to form the top layer of the cake. Pinch the edges of the dough together to firmly seal in the filling. Trim off any uneven edges.

For a festive look, dough scraps can be rolled and cut into decorative shapes for the top of the cake before brushing the top with beaten egg. Traditionally, a fork is pulled gently across the egg-washed top to make a freeform design.

Bake until golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes before inverting onto a cooling rack. Turn the cake right side up and let it cool completely. Transfer to a serving plate, and serve at room temperature.

For ground almond powder: This powder can sometimes be found in specialty groceries, but it is easy to make at home. Place 2 cups blanched almonds (sliced, slivered or whole) and 2 tablespoons of sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Grind or process until the nuts turn into a fine granular powder, about 30 to 45 seconds. Do not overprocess, or they might turn into paste. Makes about 2 cups.

Gerald Hirigoyen, "The Basque Kitchen"


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Monday, December 01, 2008

Txoria Txori (Mikel Laboa)

In loving memory of Basque singer and song-writer Mikel Laboa.

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