Sunday, May 31, 2009

Ibilaldia 2009

This article was published at EiTB:

Ibilaldia 2009 kicks off in the Basque town of Galdakao

Nora García

Eguzkibegi ikastola in Galdakao organized the 31st edition of Ibilaldia. This year, people will be able to enjoy along seven different areas children workshops, bertsolaris, Basque dances, a hot-hair balloon and concerts.

Ibilaldia is a festival in favour of the Basque language organized each year by a different ikastola (Basque school). It is Bizkaia's version of the pro-Ikastola, pro-Basque language events that take place annually in the Basque Country, normally on a Sunday, in order to raise money for ikastolas.

Ibilaldia was celebrated in 1978 for the first time and it was organized by a Basque school in Getxo. It is similar to Gipuzkoa's "Kilometroak", Araba's "Araba Euskaraz", Nafarroa's "Nafarroa Oinez" and Iparralde's "Herri Urrats".

Ibilaldia 2009 kicks off today at 09:00 and will finish at 19:00, under the slogan "Gerizpetik Eguzkibegi". Eguzkibegi Ikastola was in charge to organize it this year. After having paid a non-compulsory admission at the entrance of any price you deem fit for the event, you walk around a carefully planned circuit of the village or town while enjoying typical Basque traditions. People will be able to enjoy along seven different areas several activities like children workshops, bertsolaritza (Basque Country's "spontaneous poetry"), Basque dances, a hot-hair balloon and concerts (Biok, Sagarroi…), among others.

Eguzkibegi Ikastola was created in 1966 by some parents. It has more than 600 pupils nowadays and they expect to raise enough money to enlarge the school and improve some of the infrastructures.

There will be bus service available from 09:00 to 19:00 from Bilbao to Galdakao round trip.


One issue that we would like to point out is that the head of the Ministry of Education in the Basque Autonomous Community, Isabel Celaá, refused to assist to the Ibilaldia celebration. This ministry is in charge of the Basque language education and her decision is part of the punitive strategy designed in Madrid against the Basque language, an strategy that is being implemented by the Spaniard that was appointed by the central government to rule the province, an individual by the name of Francisco Javier López.

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Saturday, May 30, 2009

Al Erquiaga

This note was published at EiTB:

Al Erquiaga, a Basque dreamer and doer

Igor Lansorena

Al Erquiaga, born in Boise of Basque heritage, is one of the founders of Boise's successful Basque festival Jaialdi as well as one of the first Oinkari dancers.

Boise, capital city of the state of Idaho, does not have the largest Basque population outside the Basque Country. However, this remote city is home to the most active Basque community of the Diaspora.

Downtown Boise features a vibrant section known as the "Basque block" that includes the Basque Center Euzkaldunak, the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, the Gernika bar, the Leku Ona restaurant and hotel and the fronton. We should also not forget the Oinkari Basque dancers, Boiseko Gazteak, the Basque choir, Boiseko Ikastola or the band 'Amuma Says No'.

As Boisean researcher Gloria Totorikagüena describes in her book Boise Basques, the Basque community is full of "dreamers and doers", men and women who at some point decided to build a small Basque Country in this little-known place. Al Erquiaga, born in Boise, is one of those dreamers and doers who helped to lay the foundations of today's successful Basque community.

Born in Boise, Al's father came to the United States from the Bizkaian village of Ispaster in 1920. Like many other Basques, he had a relative who had already migrated to the United States - an older brother was here - and he knew he had no future in the Basque Country as his eldest brother was going to inherit the family farmhouse.

"It was hard work, but he never complained about it. He came in 1920 the first time and married my mother in 1934. I was born in 1935. And he herded sheep until after I was born, even after they were married for a year", Al says in an exclusive interview for eitb.com in Boise. "It was hard work and he realized it was no work for a family, of course, so then he went into farming", Al adds.

Raised on a farm, Al was brought up among Basque farmers and stories of the Basque Country. "We had a lot of Basque friends, other farmers, and when they were over to visit, it would be late in the evening, I would sit and listen to them talk. I liked to hear them tell their stories, about here or back home, I really enjoyed the stories", Al remembers.

Cultural phenomenon

In 1960, Al, and another seven Boise Basques, toured Europe for three weeks and then stayed in the Basque Country for almost two months. There, they met the Oinkari dancers from Donostia-San Sebastian. "We became very good friends with them. We went to their rehearsals, they taught us dances and (we) went touring with them in France," Al says.

"The best thing you can do is to go back to America and start a dance group called Oinkaris", the Basque dancers told Al and his seven friends. "On the way home we talked on the airplane about doing it, we got back home and said, let's do it," Al says.

And that is how the Oinkari Basque dancers from Boise were born. Nearly half a century later, they are part of Basque-American heritage and more than 800 people have performed not only in Boise or Idaho but also in many places all over the United States and the Basque Country.

Holiday Basque Festival

Nobody thought that the Oinkaris would grow to become the cultural phenomenon they are now. Neither did they when they started NABO, a federation of North American Basque Organizations that sustain Basque culture.

In the early 1970s, Al was member of the board of an organization called the Basque Studies Center, which organized a Holyday Basque festival thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Al, who was among the organizers of the festival, realized he was having a hard time contacting other Basque clubs in the United States.

"The problem that we run into was that we wanted everybody in the United States to know about it but we did not know anyone's names or contacts. The hardest part is we couldn't get hold of anybody, there was no communication. We need an organization, some ways to communicate," Al recounts.

"We met in Reno. We contacted three clubs of Reno, San Francisco, Bakersfield, seven or eight clubs. We got together, and that is how NABO was started," Al adds.

Jaialdi

Jaialdi, the international Basque festival held in Boise every five years, was also born out of the dreams of Al Erquiaga. Having met Jokin Intxausti from the Basque Government at a NABO meeting in 1985, they came up with the possibility of producing an international festival to promote Basque culture. Two years later it was a reality.

More than 500 volunteers worked on the first Jaialdi. Significant numbers of members from the Basque Diaspora attended and the festival was a great success. Since then, the Jaialdi is held every five years and thousands of Basques and non-Basques meet in Boise in this celebration of Basque culture, probably a source of inspiration for many other dreamers and doers just like Al Erquiaga.

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Eusko Flickr : Kontuz!!! Ez Naizela Joan...


Kontuz!!! Ez naizela joan...
Originally uploaded by Arrano

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Lopez Starts Campaign Against Euskara

The Spanish government assigned to rule the Basque Autonomous Community is using an ill intentioned euphemism ("harmonious coexistence") to kick start its violent campaign against the Basque language.

Francisco Javier Lopez's Government looks likely to suspend measures previously taken to establish Euskera (the Basque language) as the primary language of education in the Basque Country.

The new Spanish government allegedly supports bilingual education as opposed to giving greater importance to Basque in the classroom. For this reason, Lopez's administration will look to repeal the laws adopted by previous governments that established Euskera as the primary language of learning, explained Oskar Perez at the Basque Superior Court of Justice.

The Education Department went on the stress its desire to impose Castillian (known as Spanish around the world) just like in Franco's times, with total disregard towards Basque, an official language, setting the conditions for the dominance of the language imposed to the Basques over the one they have spoken for thousands of years. Is strange that a so called "democratic state" takes measures to remove spaces for the development of a language spoken by a few in order to impose a language spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

We need to remember now that Spain conducted genocidal campaigns during its colonial period which is the reason why so many individuals have Castillian as their mother tongue today, and that is exactly what took place when Castille invaded Nabarra (Navarre), the Basque kingdom.

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About the Ban Against Internationalist Initiative

This article was published at Workers World:

Madrid court outlaws anti-capitalist party

John Catalinotto

By outlawing a new political party from an upcoming June 7 ballot, ruling circles in the Spanish regime are exposing their links to the 36-year-long fascist reign of Francisco Franco. Their latest anti-democratic step involved fraudulent charges to prevent the newly formed International Initiative—Solidarity among the Peoples (II-SP) organization from competing in elections to the European Parliament.

Spain’s Supreme Court on May 16 by an 11-5 majority supported a lower court decision to ban the II-SP. The new party is appealing to the Constitutional Court to reverse this, while waging an international petition campaign to gain support. A final May 21 decision is likely to maintain the ban, unless a massive struggle arises to reverse it.

The courts are imposing the ban in the midst of the economic crisis that exploded in 2008 and hit Spain much harder than most other developed capitalist countries. The “housing bubble” burst with a fury in Spain, stopping almost all new construction projects. Official unemployment climbed to more than 17 percent in April. Young people can’t find permanent jobs.

To underline an anti-capitalist solution to this crisis, some leftist parties, both on a federal level and in the regions that consist of oppressed nations within the Spanish state, joined together this spring to form the II-SP. They offered a relatively broad but clearly anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist alternative.

The II-SP competes not only with rightist bourgeois parties like José María Aznar’s People’s Party, but also with Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s governing Socialist Workers Party (PSOE). It considers Zapatero pro-capitalist, despite his “socialist” label. It competes even with the United Left (IU) movement—the traditional Spanish left close to the Spanish Communist Party—that revolutionaries consider to be trapped inside the capitalist parliamentary system.

Historically, the Spanish state has included at least four peoples or nationalities. The people of Galicia in the northwest, of Catalonia in the east, and of the Basque Country in the northeast have been under the heel of the Castilian ruling class. Repression was especially brutal during the Franco period against local customs and any languages other than Castilian Spanish.

Today it also includes immigrants from Africa and Latin America, who face racial discrimination.

In carrying out the struggle for Basque self-determination, Basque freedom fighters set up an organization in 1959 known as ETA, an acronym for the Basque words meaning Basque Homeland and Freedom. ETA evolved into a guerrilla group that carried out armed actions against the Spanish state, both during the fascist period and afterwards.

The Spanish ruling class took the same approach toward ETA as the British rulers did toward the Irish Republican Army and the U.S. toward Puerto Rican patriots: repression. They hunted down ETA members and also jailed thousands of Basques involved in political struggles.

This repression extended to pro-independence political organizations in the Basque Country. The “Law of the Parties” of 2002 outlawed Batasuna, the political party that shared the same political program as the guerrilla group ETA. After Batasuna was made illegal, the AVN (Basque Nationalist Action) was set up to politically represent Basque self-determination. The courts then outlawed AVN.

Thus in today’s Spanish state, Basques who are for independence or autonomy have no legal political party, while former fascist youth like Aznar can run the government.

II-SP supports self-determination

The II-SP supports self-determination for Galicia, Catalonia and the Basque Country. The leading figure on the II-SP ticket, world-famous playwright and historical anti-fascist elder Alfonso Sastre, also led the AVN ticket in a recent election before the AVN was banned. Number two on the II-SP slate, Doris Benegas from the Castilian Left, and number five, Ángeles Maestro of the Red Current, are leaders who have politically supported Basque self-determination. They participated in meetings supporting Basque political prisoners and honoring Basque martyrs.

As Maestro told the media, none of these candidates belongs to ETA, nor does the II-SP advocate armed struggle, nor are the candidates of Basque nationality. Yet the Spanish regime and courts have applied the “Law of Parties” to outlaw the II-SP from the election.

The state’s argument—if you can believe it—is that Basques who support Batasuna and who see Sastre heading the list might consider II-SP an indirect representative of Batasuna’s program. Pro-independence Basques might feel inspired by voting for II-SP and encouraged to continue the struggle and thus, the court reasoned, it must ban II-SP.

Continuing to fight for its place on the ballot, II-SP asks for support inside and outside Spain on a petition to defend “democracy and the presumption of innocence.” Already Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina has written to Zapatero urging him to “intervene” to “avoid anti-democratic actions” by the courts against II-SP.

Inside the Spanish state, other federal parties on the ballot like the Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE) and the Anti-capitalist Initiative (IA) have demanded that the ban on II-SP be lifted. The Basque Left denied it was manipulating II-SP and expressed solidarity with II-SP’s right to be on the ballot.

There are reports the IU is split on this question. So far the IU leadership has said only that it will support the decision of the courts in this matter.

Slanders from the rightist parties, the regime and the media against the militants of II-SP may prevent the election of the II-SP candidates, but even this hostile publicity has exposed many millions of people to this party’s existence and potentially its program at the beginning of an intense class struggle in the Spanish state.

E-mail: jcat@workers.org

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Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Note: The article was written before Spain's constitutional court revoked the ban by the supreme court and published one day too late, but still, it provides important information to help our readers understand that Spain is not a democratic state.

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Making Goebbels Proud

The United States is considered around the world as the top human rights violator. Aware of its military power it has unleashed a number of conflicts causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people from dozens of countries. As these paragraphs are being written, hundreds of human lives are in danger due to the wars for oil in Afghanistan and Iraq, wars that were started upon the campaign of lies designed by a genocidal maniac by the name of George W. Bush. As it happens, those wars are not enough, no, Washington has also resorted to state sponsored terrorism to violently suppress the right to self determination of several nations, especially in Latin America.

So you can imagine our surprise when we ran into this article published at The Washington Post:

Accuser With a Checkered Past

A lawyer whose complaint prompted a Spanish criminal probe into whether the Bush administration approved the torture of terrorism suspects was once convicted of terrorist activity.

Gonzalo Boye served eight years in prison for his involvement in the 1988 kidnapping of Emiliano Revilla, a Spanish industrialist, who was held for ransom for eight months by ETA, a Basque separatist group classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Spanish governments.

Boye was one of four Chilean members of a Marxist group, the Revolutionary Leftist Movement, or MIR, who were convicted of aiding ETA in the kidnapping. He received his law degree while behind bars and has since emerged as an advocate for European and Palestinian human rights causes.

Representing a group called the Association for the Rights of Prisoners, Boye and other lawyers filed a complaint with the Spanish National Court against six senior officials from the Bush administration, including former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales. The complaint alleges that the officials sanctioned the torture of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The other officials named in the complaint are Jay S. Bybee and John C. Yoo, former Justice Department officials; former Defense Department officials Douglas J. Feith and William J. Haynes II; and David S. Addington, who was legal counsel to Vice President Richard B. Cheney.

In an interview, Boye acknowledged his conviction but minimized his involvement in the crime, saying he had only lent an ID card to the kidnappers. He said he voluntarily traveled from London to Madrid in 1992 to answer investigators' questions about the case and was taken aback when he was arrested.

"I'm still convinced it was a very unfair trial," he said. "That was a very dark period in Spanish democratic history."

When asked if he thought the six Bush administration officials could expect to receive a fair trial in Spain, Boye said he had no doubts they would -- despite his experience.

The Spanish judge overseeing the investigation, Eloy Velasco, has said in court papers that he may not proceed if U.S. prosecutors decide to open their own criminal case against the "Bush Six," as Boye calls them.


Like we said, the editorial staff at The Washington Post are making Joseph Goebbels proud. Knowing that their country is guilty as charged of woeful human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay which is a Nazi style concentration camp, they resort to something called "character assassination". How dare Gonzalo Boye put the US on the spotlight when he himself was in jail accused of terrorism?

Nothing, absolutely nothing that Gonzalo Boye could have done in the past is enough to sponge Bush regime's rap sheet. What is taking place in Guantanamo Bay as gruesome as it is pales in comparison with what the USA is doing in places like Iraq, Pakistan and Palestine. The US based main stream media can set in place a "character assassination" campaign against every single activist around the world that exposes their crimes to the international community, but the fact remains, Bush and many other presidents of the USA are war criminals, as simply as that.

And by the way, Gonzalo Boye was in jail during Jose Maria Aznar's extreme right rule in Spain, shall we remind our readers who was a staunch supporter of George W. Bush's war against Iraq?

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Monday, May 25, 2009

The Bad Guys

Seems like a book written expressly to be made into a script for a Hollywood movie. Riding the wave created by "The Da Vinci Code", the victim seems to be the Catholic Pope. The bad guys, you guessed it, two Basques... and an Irish.

Hit by the aftermath of the brutal crusade against the Muslims thinly disguised as a "war on terrorism", authors are resorting to "politically correct" bad guys. In the end, who is going to defend the Basques and the Irish after the brutal propaganda campaign set against those two nationalities by the main stream media?

How well does the propaganda campaign has worked that the author uses citizens of two of the nations more widely identified as "firmly Catholic" on this thriller were the target seems to be the highest representative of the Catholic church.

Here you have preview of the book published by The Philadelphia Enquirer:

A complex thriller converging on Rome

The Death of a Pope

Piers Paul Read |Ignatius Press. 215 pp. $21.95

Reviewed by Frank Wilson

Piers Paul Read's new novel opens with three men - one Irish, two Basque - on trial in London, charged with "conspiring to cause an explosion with the intent to take human life."

Two of the defendants have connections to terrorist organizations. Fergal O'Brien was a member of the Provisional IRA and continues to associate with the Real IRA. Asier Etchevarren was a member of ETA, the Basque separatist group.

The third defendant has quite a different background. A laicized Jesuit priest, Jose Uriarte is a senior aid worker for Misericordia International, a Catholic refugee service. For the last four years, he has been working in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Uriarte is, in fact, the central figure in the trial. He does not deny approaching Etchevarren, a childhood friend, about getting some Sarin gas. He denies intending to use it "to take human life." He says he wanted to use it on the livestock of the Arab militias in Darfur. This, he says, would prevent them from continuing their brutal raids.

He proves a formidable witness. When the prosecutor tells him his story "beggars belief," Uriarte calmly explains that "the Arab militias value their horses and camels more than their women and children. They are hard men, as hard as the rock in the desert from which they come. Their horses and camels and cattle mean mobility and the means of survival."

All three are acquitted.

Kate Ramsey, one of the journalists covering the trial, is much taken with Uriarte and asks him for an interview. Uriarte, however, shifts attention from himself to his work and invites her to accompany him to Uganda and see what Misericordia International is all about.

Kate is a lapsed Catholic whose favorite uncle, Luke Scott, is a priest with a distinctly traditional bent. When Kate tells Father Luke that Uriarte is "really kind of charismatic," the priest remembers the meaning of the Greek word charisma - "a gift from the gods."

"As so often is the case with gifts from God," he reminds himself, it may be "purloined and misused by the devil."

In Africa, Kate sees poverty and suffering she had never imagined. She falls ill herself and Uriarte makes sure she is well cared for. They do not exactly become lovers. More precisely, they make love and she falls for him.

He takes her with him to Cairo and introduces her to some Copts, one of whom is a chemist. Uriarte tells her he is going to help the Copts - much persecuted in Islamic Egypt and, he tells her, desperately in need of money - by smuggling out of the country a valuable scroll. She insists on carrying the scroll herself, since she is less likely than he to be subject to undue scrutiny. He reluctantly agrees.

The narrative threads all converge in Rome after the death of Pope John Paul II. Father Luke is there because he has been alarmed by a visit from David Kotovski, a British security agent who had come to know Kate when he posed as a fellow journalist during Uriarte's trial. Kate is in Rome because she is covering the conclave to elect a new pope. Uriarte is there and has paid a visit to a cardinal who long ago had made a pass at Father Luke when both were seminarians. That cardinal's assistant, Monsignor Perez, pays a visit to Father Luke and asks him to hear his confession.

Read's book is short but concentrated. The foregoing actually only hints at how subtly complex the plot is. But what really makes the book work is its ambiguity.

Kate is right: Uriarte is charismatic. He is both persuasive and forceful. He genuinely cares for the refugees he works with. And they love him. Just as Thomas Aquinas presents the best arguments he can think of for the positions he is disputing, so the arguments Read has Uriarte put forth on behalf of his social gospel sound eminently reasonable and are emotionally resonant - exactly what good temptations ought to be. The evil must appear to be good. And the advocates for good must appear timorous and old-fashioned.

Indeed, the day is not saved by any heroics on the part of the good people. The heroics are reserved for the likes of Uriarte. The only thing the good people have going for them is simplicity and decency.

Miraculously, that proves enough.

We still remember the one book called "Rainbow Six" by state sponsored terrorism supporter Tom Clancy in which the masterminds behind the threat were a group of "eco-terrorists" that had hired, besides a former KGB agent you guessed it... a group of idiotic and murderous Basques.

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Batasuna Backs Internationalist Initiative Party

Arnaldo Otegi came out in support of a party which Spain's constitutional court has allowed to take part in the European Parliament elections after a strong solidarity campaign against the decision by the supreme court to apply the francoist "Law of political parties" against Internationalist Inititiative (Iniciativa Internacionalista), a move that placed Spain on the spotlight as a state that supresses civil and political rights through an Apartheid mechanism. International Initiative is not a Basque party, it is a Spanish party that is attending the electoral process to compete in the European congress elections. The head of the list is Alfonso Sastre, a Spaniard.

The supreme court had initially disqualified the party, the Internationalist Initiative (II), from the June 7 polls, saying it was controlled by Batasuna, a claim that was unable to sustain with any kind of evidence, something that has not deter that court from outlawing four Basque political parties and hundred of electoral lists in the past. Let us remember that Batasuna was outlawed after Spain insisted that the political party was part of ETA, that was six years ago and to date the Spanish prosecutors have failed to show one single piece of evidence, let alone taking Batasuna to court over the accusation.

But the constitutional court lifted the ban on Thursday, ruling there was insufficient evidence of the party's links to Batasuna to "justify the sacrifice of fundamental rights of political participation". The former leader of Batasuna, Arnaldo Otegi, on Saturday issued "a general call for support" of the Internationalist Initiative in the European elections "to require Europe's involvement in a democratic and peaceful solution to the Basque conflict."

We need to point out that the so called "Basque conflict" is one of international nature for it includes one nation (Nabarra) and two states (France and Spain), it is not and it has never been an "internal Spanish problem" like many claim.

The II "is not our party but holds our opinions," he told a press conference in the Basque city of San Sebastian. Otegi was released from jail in August, 2008 after serving 14 months for strongly supporting the peace process that Zapatero's government derailed.

One more accusation against Batasuna was that it was banned for failing to condemn ETA's tactics. Strangely enough, the members of the Partido Popular have repeatedly glorified Francisco Franco's murderous regime and the members of the PSOE have provided legal immunity to its own members involved in state sponsored terrorism (like Felipe Gonzalez and his GAL scandal) and those parties have not faced a ban by the supreme court.

The 27 EU nations will elect 736 deputies for a five-year term at the parliament, which is the only directly-elected EU institution and has an important role passing pan-European legislation.

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ETA Supports Political Resolution

The Basque pro-independence group ETA declared their support of a political resolution to the demand by the Basque society to its self determination after a period of "reflection."

"As an armed organisation, being effective and having an effective strategy becomes the focus and concern of our discussion," an ETA member told the pro-independence Basque newspaper Gara. "In this regard, before the summer, we will end a process of reflection and assembly, the aim of which is to establish an effective political-armed strategy," he said.

Two ETA members, identified as 'Gaueko' and 'Argi', were interviewed by Gara, which is often used by the group to release its statements. The newspaper translated the interviews into Spanish from the Basque language. Their statements came less than three weeks after Patxi Lopez, the regional leader of the Socialist Party that holds power in Madrid who was able to take over the position of lehendakari after the central government annuled 100,000 votes in an openly Apartheid-like strategy against the civil and political rights of the Basque people, thus, Patxi Lopez was inaugurated as the first Basque-phobe to rule the Basque Autonomous Community, a political entity that groups only three out of the seven Basque provinces.

Unlike his predecessor, Juan Jose Ibarretxe of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), Lopez rejects any negotiations with ETA and vows to increase the political violence that Madrid has imposed against the Basques. Gaueko told Gara that the Basque political situation is "very worrying, not because the PNV has lost its power, but because that power is in the hand of the Spanish fascist alliance."

The two ETA members also condemned the cooperation between France and Spain, which has led to the escalation of repressive measures against Basque activists. "A game is being played between what this Euskal Herria needs and what Spain and France needs," Gaueko said.

Spain, considered a fascist state many people around the world, has murdered thousands of Basques in its 8-century campaign of ethnic cleansing operations, bombings, massacres, razzias, pogroms and shootings for a colonial hold of the Basque homeland south of the Pyrinees.

ETA officially called off a 15-month ceasefire in June 2007, due to the lack of progress in tentative peace talks with the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, an Spanish politician that derailed the peace process to prove his boss, francoist monarch Juan Calros Borbon, that him and the members of his political party loath the Basque people even more than the members of the extreme right Partido Popular.

You can read the article about this interview in Spanish here.

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Edurne Pasaban's Rise to the Top

This article about Nabarra's most famous mountain climber, Edurne Pasaban, was published at The Independent:

Edurne Pasaban: Queen of the top of the world

A woman from the Basque country has conquered nearly all of the world's highest peaks – and now she's racing for a record title

Elizabeth Nash

When Edurne Pasaban was 16 and still at school, she set off from her home town of Tolosa in the Spanish Basque country for an Alpine holiday with her family, and climbed nearly 5,000m to scale Mont Blanc. A year later, in 1990, she headed for the Andes and conquered seven new peaks, reaching a height of 6,310m at Ecuador's mighty Mount Chimborazo.

She was passionate about climbing, but it took her several years to turn professional. By then, Pasaban had taken an engineering degree, set up her own business and suffered, by her own admission, a disastrous love life. Today, she is well on the way to beating her female mountaineering rivals to a remarkable new record.

In 2001, she began her Himalayan challenge: to conquer 14 of the world's highest mountains, those more than 8,000m high. First she scaled Everest, the world's highest, then Makalu, Cho Oytu, Lhotse, and Gasherbrum II and I. And in 2004 she vanquished K2, considered the world's most dangerous mountain, where she brushed with death and lost two toes to frostbite.

Last week, Pasaban, now 35, conquered the mighty Himalayan peak of Kangchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain, at her first try; it is her 12th "eight-thousander". Her achievement puts her within reach of her ambition to be the first woman in the world to climb 14 mountains higher than 8,000m.

But Pasaban faces fierce opposition, with two other women competing in the race for the honour: the Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, 38, conquered Lhotse, her 12th peak, last Wednesday, two days after Pasaban's record-breaking achievement, running her a close second. The Italian Nives Meroi, 47, remains one down: she had to call off her attempt on Kangchenjunga last week because her climbing partner and husband Romano Benet, was exhausted.

Only 13 men have mastered this feat since the Italian Reinhold Messner blazed the trail in 1986. They include fellow Basques Juanito Oiarzabal, the first Spaniard to conquer "the 14" in 1999, and Alberto Iñurrategi, who did it in 2002. Oiarzabal is among Pasaban's climbing companions and he partnered her to the summit last week, in a gruelling 16-hour ascent from their fourth camp at 7,700m. Other teammates, Asier Izaguirre and Álex Chicón, sometimes kill time on the mountain – and wear themselves out – by engaging in the traditional Basque competition of chopping tree-trunks, she writes in her blog. "They are good, true friends. They have to be, otherwise I couldn't do it."

Pasaban descended safely to base camp in Nepal on Wednesday with the help of oxygen brought up by a couple of Sherpas, at the limit of her endurance and suffering frostbitten toes. "I just want to rest," she said. "Thanks to my team, because if it weren't for them I wouldn't be here. I thought I might die on that mountain. Now I just want to rest."

"You don't really enjoy being at the summit," Pasaban confessed on television before tackling Kangchenjunga. "You get there, you're exhausted, you take photos and you know you've got a long, difficult descent. You just want to go home. The best bit is when you're approaching the top, the last four or five metres before you reach it. It's really hard and takes ages."

Kangchenjunga is considered one of the most difficult mountains in the Himalayas. Pasaban's climb was slow and hazardous, in the face of strong winds and corridors of ice, the route made treacherous by rocks that obliterated any clear trail. After reaching the peak on Monday, the team stayed overnight in camp to rest, before making their descent. "We are very tired, but very happy to have reached the summit in good health," Pasaban told her parents by telephone.

She is from a prosperous family who had hoped their eldest daughter would take on the family engineering business. "It took them a while to adjust to my choice of career but now they're thrilled," she insists. After a stint in Barcelona ("for love, but it didn't work out"), Pasaban returned to her homeland and opened a restaurant and rural guesthouse in the Basque village of Zizurkil, near Tolosa. She still collaborates with the Barcelona business school where she took her MBA, drawing on her experience of extreme situations to give lectures on teamwork.

Her next mountain is Shishapangma, which she plans to climb this autumn; then Annapurna, in 2010, to complete the historic 14 before, she hopes, either of her rivals. She seems cool about the challenge. "I have to do it now, and if I don't, that's that."

Her apparently zen-like approach contrasts with the steely conviction of many who undertake such challenges. Pasaban says she lacks that inner strength. "I'm very weak inside. Just because I climb mountains it seems I must be very strong, but I'm not," she told the daily newspaper El Pais last month in Bilbao, while preparing her latest expedition.

"I was in my thirties when I started questioning being a professional mountaineer. I wondered if it was worth so much sacrifice. I wavered between the mountain and my work as an engineer. My life is unstable, and that instability sent me into a depression I escaped only by believing in what I do."

After scaling "the 14", she wants to climb Everest again, she says, this time without oxygen. Then her ambition is to quit the mountain for motherhood. "Now is the time of the eight-thousanders," she said four weeks ago. "When I've done that, I want to be a mother; that was the dilemma that made me depressed."

Spending so much time alone with men on the mountain is not as glamorous as it sounds. "You can imagine the conversations they have amongst themselves ..." And living in such intense comradeship makes it harder, not easier, to find love, she finds. "A partner, when you're surrounded by all these men? It's impossible. My love life is terrible."

But, she was asked, suppose you had a daughter who set off for the Himalayas? "I'd back her, of course."


Seems like the Spanish government prevented her from taking an ikurriña with her this time and that's why in the picture available at The Independent she is holding a TVE (Spain's state television network) banner.

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Friday, May 22, 2009

General Workers' Strike in Hegoalde

The government imposed by Madrid to the Basque Autonomous Community is facing its first test, barely two weeks after taking office against the will of the majoriy of the community's electorate.

Pro independence unions called a strike which, widely supported in the four Basque provinces occupied by Spain, was denounced as politically-inspired by the fascist government lead by Franco's heir Juan Carlos Borbon.

The new administration is the first non-Basque government in the community's history. Critics say it merely echoes the views of Madrid. Strike leaders said they were protesting at local job losses caused by Spain’s economic slump, but Prime Minister Francisco Javier Lopez insisted they had a deeper agenda.

“This is not a strike motivated by social or economic reasons, because the workers have not had any of their rights attacked or overturned,” said Lopez. “Therefore it is a political strike.”

Unlike his predecessor, Lopez supports the current level of autonomy the Basque Autonomous Community enjoys, and has ruled out any negotiations with the pro independence group ETA, and vowed to maintain the violent campaign by Spain against the Basques' civil, political and human rights.

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Friday, May 15, 2009

Spain's Clumsy Censorship

As you may know by now, the Basque and Catalonian fans that were present at the Mestalla stadium in Valencia to witness the final of the Copa del Rey tournament between Basque team Athletic de Bilbao and Catalonian team Barcelona decided to express what Basques and Catalans feel regarding the anthem and king of an expansionist state that has impossed those foreign symbols on them.

Knowing that something like this could happen, the government lead by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero decided to skip the opening ceremony and in doing so try to ensure that the entire world would learn that Basques and Catalonians do not feel Spaniards, they did it in such a clumsy way that now the Spanish government is the laughing stock around the world. Of course, when something like this happens in a totalitarian state with a king that was selected to the charge by the worst fascist dictator in Europe then someone has to take the blame and in this case, the scape goat is the Sports Director at the state television according to this article published at Soccer365:

Spanish TV station in hot water

While showing the game between Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona, Television Espanola (TVE) cut to reporters in Bilbao - the largest city in the Basque country - and Catalonian capital Barcelona instead of showing live footage of the Spanish national anthem being drowned out by whistles and boos from the two sets of fans at the Mestalla stadium in Valencia.

The station then aired the playing of the national anthem during half-time in the game, but with the jeers of the supporters edited out while also showing images of some of the supporters, who hail from two of Spain's most separatist regions, holding their hands to their hearts.

Antonio Gutierrez, PP representative for the Spanish autonomous region of Melilla, accused Luis Fernandez, president of the company which owns the channel, of "deciding which images or sounds may or may not be harmful for audiences".

TVE 1 presenter Juan Carlos Rivero apologised to viewers at half-time, explaining the decision to cut away from the stadium while the anthem was being played had been due to "human error".

The company which owns the channel, RTVE, then issued a statement at the end of the broadcast which again put the incident down to human error.

This morning TVE director Javier Pons held a press conference at which he announced that the station's director for sport, Julian Reyes, had left the broadcaster as a result of the incident, and that "an investigation had been begun to seek out others who may have been responsible".

On the pitch Barcelona overcame the surprise of conceding an early goal to Gaizka Toquero by romping to a comfortable 4-1 win thanks to strikes from Yaya Toure, Lionel Messi, Bojan Krkic and Xavi.

Barca are one point away from clinching the Primera Division title while Manchester United lie await in the Champions League final in Rome on May 27.


There you have it, more evidence that Spain has not yet evolved since the time when Francisco Franco ruled with iron fist.

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

From Gernika to Farah

This article was published at Workers World:

Afghanistan & Guernica

THE FACTS: The U.S. Air Force bombed and strafed villages with heavy machine guns in the Farah province of Afghanistan on the evening and night of May 4. Col. Greg Julian, a spokesperson for the U.S. military in Kabul, admitted it.

The governor of the province, Rohul Amin, told the Afghan parliament that as many as 130 civilians had been killed, according to Mohammad Naim Farahi, a member of parliament. He reported that survivors buried 113 bodies, including many women and children. Later, more bodies were pulled from the rubble and some victims who had been taken to the hospital died.

“The governor said that the villagers have brought two tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies to his office to prove the casualties that had occurred,” Farahi said. “Everyone at the governor’s office was crying, watching that shocking scene.”

Ghusuldin Agha, who lives in Granai village in the Bala Baluk district, said the bombing started at 5 p.m. and lasted until late into the night. “People were rushing to go to their relatives’ houses, where they believed they would be safe, but they were hit on the way.” Body parts were strewn over the ground.

Local farmer Muhammad Jan said: “Women and children had sought shelter in orchards and houses.” The bombardment completely destroyed houses and people “still remain under the rubble. Now I am working with other villagers trying to excavate the dead bodies.” According to a report on this atrocity in the May 6 New York Times, “Villagers, crazed with grief, were collecting mangled bodies in blankets and shawls and piling them on three tractors. People were still missing.”

Jessica Barry, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, reported the dead included a volunteer for the Afghan Red Crescent and 13 of his relatives.

THE LIE: “We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties,” said the senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, who was just fired by President Obama.

U.S. Defense Department officials who wouldn’t allow their names to be reported said investigators were looking into reports that the Afghan civilians were killed by grenades hurled by Taliban militants, and that the militants then drove the bodies around the village claiming the dead were victims of an American airstrike.

“We cannot confirm the report that the Taliban executed these people. ... We don’t know if it’s true, and we also don’t know how many civilians were killed as a result of this operation,” said Capt. John Kirby, spokesperson for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

THE BIG LIE: The town of Guernica, a historic symbol of the Basque nation, was attacked by Nazi German and fascist Italian bombers on April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, killing up to 1,600 civilians. The German Nazis supported the Spanish fascists, led by Gen. Francisco Franco. World-famous artist Pablo Picasso depicted the massacre in his painting “Guernica,” which has kept the fascist atrocity in people’s memory.

Germany’s Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was well known for using the “Big Lie,” a brutal fascist repression of the truth. Franco, borrowing from this tactic, blamed the deaths in Guernica on Basque anti-fascists, and repressed the truth about German responsibility until his death in 1975.

Hitler and fascism arose in a time of capitalist crisis and decaying economic relations. Then and now the reality is a decaying capitalist system accompanied by burgeoning militarism. This time people are more interconnected worldwide and it’s difficult to cover up the monstrous crimes and the Pentagon’s big lies.

The problem is how to stop them. It can be done, and the struggle of the world’s people to overturn the U.S. military complex needs to be here in the belly of the beast.

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Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Ireland : Stop Extraditions

Thanks to our friends at the Irish Basque Committees for sending us this information:

Two Belfast-based Basque citizens, Iñaki de Juana and Arturo “Beñat” Villanueva, are facing extradition to Spain because of their political pro-independence ideas.

Please come and support them on Wednesday 13th of May at 9.45am at Laganside Court buildings, Belfast.

On Thursday 14th of May at 6pm a public meeting will be held in An Chultúrlann to set a campaign against the extraditions.

PLEASE PASS ON.


Stop Spanish political persecution against the Basque Country


And don't forget to visit this page:



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Saturday, May 02, 2009

Another Extradition Case in Ireland

Spain is increasing its persecution campaign against Basque activists in Ireland. With the extradition trial against Iñaki de Juana still going on now we learn about another detention thanks to this article published at An Phoblacht:

Basque youth activist to fight extradition from Belfast

Emma Clancy

Basque activist Arturo Villanueva Arteaga (32), who has lived in west Belfast for four years, was arrested in a raid on 21 April under a European warrant issued by the Spanish authorities who are seeking his extradition to Spain on “terrorism” charges.

Villanueva, who is well-known in the west Belfast community and has been running a tourism business providing tours to European tourists, has said he will fight the extradition attempt. He was released on bail under conditions of reporting to police daily and living under a 9pm curfew, with the extradition hearing to begin on May 13.

The Belfast Basque Committee protested against the extradition attempt outside the court, calling for the case to be dropped. A spokesperson said: “Arturo has been living openly in Belfast for four years and has a life here.

“We are calling for the immediate dropping of this case and an end to the repression of Basque civil society.”

The charges relate to the pro-independence Basque youth organisation Segi, which was made illegal in 2001 and declared a “terrorist” organisation by the Spanish Supreme Court in 2007. If the extradition is successful Villanueva faces up to 14 years in prison.

In 2001, following the banning of Segi, Villanueva was among 17 young people charged with being a member of the group. Segi, an independent socialist youth organisation with thousands of members, organised political campaigns around the right to Basque self-determination as well as social and economic issues that affect youth.

Released on bail, he did not attend the political show trial. In 2005 Spanish prosecutors called for Villanueva to be sentenced to 14 years in prison in his absence.
Segi’s proscription by the Spanish government was part of the state’s long-standing policy of criminalising virtually all political parties, media sources and civil society groups that are in favour of Basque self-determination – and jailing the leaders and members of those organisations.

In December UN human rights special rapporteur Martin Scheinin said Spain’s Law of Political Parties defined “terrorism” so vaguely that it “might be interpreted to include any political party which through peaceful political means seeks similar political objectives” as those pursued by armed organisations.

Villanueva’s arrest comes after the Belfast Recorder’s Court in March ruled in favour of a Spanish extradition request for former Basque prisoner Iñaki de Juana Chaos to face charges of “glorifying terrorism”. De Juana is appealing the ruling on May 15.

The Basque Committee is urging the local community to oppose the targeting of Belfast’s Basque community by the Spanish authorities and to support Villanueva and de Juana in their fight against extradition.


Once again we thank our Irish brothers and sisters who support our quest for self determination.

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Eusko Flickr : Puente la Reina


Puente la Reina - 01
Originally uploaded by Pilar Azaña

Friday, May 01, 2009

No Manifesto Against English Requirement?

In this blog we have been reporting about the all out campaign in the Spanish state against the so called "minority languages": Euskara (Basque), Catalan (Catalonian) and Galego (Galizan). Strangely enough, we do not see that extreme right philosopher Fernado Savater leading a campaign against the English language that according to this note published at Finanzas should be the main source of concern for the ultra-nationalists in Spain and therefore the primary target:
27% of jobs require languages

English is required in 75% of job vacancies that require languages, followed by French, with 6.84%, and German, with 6.55%, according to Infoempleo.

Language skills are a requirement in 26.64% of skilled employment vacancies, with English being the most demanded language by companies in our country, according to Infoempleo.

Increased worker mobility, globalization of companies and high migration are the factors that have contributed to the gradual increase in demand for language in job vacancies, according to the Infoempleo report.

In relation to this trend, the president of Infoempleo.com, María Benjumea, appreciates that language skill is "an essential part of any professional profile, it is a key differentiator, adds value to the worker and can be key when a company decides to choose between one candidate or another. "

The study also points out that English is present in a total of 74.57% of job vacancies that require their candidates to have language skills, well ahead of French, with 6.84%, and German with 6.55%. For their part, Italian and Portuguese continue being less valued than the previous languages. They show a decline that leaves them each with a stronghold of less than 0.5% in job vacancies that require languages.

Regional languages

In relation to the requirement for regional languages in job vacancies, the Infoempleo report points out the Basque Country and Catalonia as the regions that value local languages skills the most, with 28.8% and 13.2% respectively.

Furthermore, the report shows that Galicia and Valencia have very similar requirements for their regional languages. Galician and Valencian language requirements are present in approximately 10% of job vacancies for each language.

But for cowards like Savater is way easier to go against anything that may affect the Basque Country.

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A Pseudo-Democracy Against Freedom

This interview was published at World War 4 Report:

COUNTER-TERRORISM THREATENS SPANISH DEMOCRACY

An Interview with Martin Scheinin, UN Human Rights Rapporteur

by Xan Harriague, Berria, Bilbao

Last spring, Martin Scheinin, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights while countering terrorism, spent a whole week in Spain and the Basque Country. He analysed Spain's legislation, its justice system and its tribunals. On March 9, 2009 the results of his analysis were made public before the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. He showed concern about several issues, including Spain's definition of "terrorism," freedom of speech, the practice of holding detainees incommunicado and the methods of the country's highest court, the Audiencia Nacional. He recommended to the Spanish government changes and specifications to improve laws.

Scheinin, born 1954 in Helsinki, was named Special Rapporteur in 2005. He is also a professor of international law at the European University in Italy, and vice-president of the International Association of Constitutional Treaties. He was also a member of the UN Human Rights Committee during the years of 1997 and 2004 and President of Finland's Abo Akademi Human Rights Institute from 1998 to 2008.

The Spanish government has nevertheless attempted to discredit the conclusions presented by Scheinin. Javier Garrigues, the Spanish government delegate, spoke in these terms about Scheinin and his report when it was his turn to enter the opposition: "He does not know the reality of the fight against terrorism, or the opinion of the majority of the Spanish population or the basis of the Spanish Constitution... He has made his critiques and complaints that are baseless and that are not tested. He has doubted the impartiality of the judges and the division of powers."

The Bilbao Basque-language newspaper Berria spoke with Scheinin on March 18. This English translation was provided to World War 4 Report.

The Spanish government says that your definition of terrorism is too limited. What do you think about that?

I believe that the definition of terrorism is well defined in Spanish legislation, but then there are many other derivative crimes. The definition extends itself more and more, and in the end engulfs crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism. I believe that the use of the anti-terrorist legislation is too broad in Spain. Some of the issues treated in the Audiencia Nacional should not be there, such as for example, the kale borroka [violent street protests].

Then, should the government better define the legislation?

Yes, I propose the use of anti-terrorist legislation against the real terrorism. The criminal court is enough to take care of the other crimes, without having to mention terrorism. Kale borroka is a violent act, but not terrorism. They are not the same.

What is your opinion of the politicians imprisoned for being members or collaborators in a "terrorist group"?

It is very difficult for me to know if there is [sufficient] evidence. It is very difficult to know if someone receives orders from ETA, or, as the government says, is part of ETA. I have received more information in the case of political parties and electoral platforms. I believe that the point of view of the government is too broad. It acts against groups that have nothing to do with violence. To have the same political objectives as ETA should not be considered a crime, not a reason to have a political party made illegal, as long as there is no relation with violence.

The Spanish government has answered your report by stating that the terrorism is in the objective, not in the behavior. What is your opinion of this logic?

I am in complete disagreement with that definition... In my opinion the definition of terrorism is always in the behavior. It is a strategy defined by the use of violence against innocent people... If we start defining violence by its political objectives, then any organization opposing the government could be defined as terrorist.

Do you believe that there is freedom of speech in Spain and in the Basque Country?

It is a confusing picture. Spain is an insecure democracy, that does accept many criticisms and points of view. At the same time it is true that the banning of political parties and the closing of newspapers limit freedom of speech. Then it is the judges who decide if these limitations are acceptable or constitute a violation. As far as I'm concerned, the Spanish government has gone too far in some cases.

In your opinion, is the Law of Parties [electoral law] a guarantee of freedom of speech?

It is too broad. It is too open to interpretation and in the end, it is confusing. The Law of Parties can be used against freedom of speech, but I would not say that this is specifically its objective. That would be going too far. Although in my opinion as it is too broad, it causes problems.

What would the Spanish government need to change to guarantee freedom of speech?

I proposed an examination by an expert on Penal Code, in order to improve and clarify the Law of Parties. This expert would analyze how to make it not so weak and to leave less open to interpretation.

The Spanish government has made it clear that they will continue to hold detainees incommunicado, ignoring your recommendations. What do you think of this?

I am not the first one who asks for such a measure. Many experts on human rights have said similar things before me. Most countries don't have similar measures. Spain is hanging itself with this practice. As long as it is being used, it is debilitating itself in order to defend against complaints and false accusations of torture. I asked for it to be discontinued and, as long as it is being maintained, to improve measures to guarantee the rights of the detainees.

In its defense, Spain has mentioned the legislatures of England and France...

There is a huge difference. Other countries limit the choice of a lawyer, but they can still choose one of confidence... They have some special measures for the first days of detention, but not a system of incommunicado detention. Here lies the biggest difference in respect to Spain. The majority of countries allow for the choosing of a trusted lawyer from the very beginning of the detention, which is one of the most useful measures to avoid police mishandling. That is why Spain's attitude is much more dangerous than the majority of European countries.

What is your opinion on the return to incommunicado detention by the Ertzaintza [Basque police]?

As I have said before I am against the practice, which should be replaced with other measures. Therefore the news is not good in my opinion.

What do you think about the many torture complaints that are not investigated?

I believe that when there is a torture complaint, the criminal case should be postponed until the complaint gets clarified. I don't think it is good, the way Spain deals with this issue, investigating the crime in one court and the torture complaint in another. Besides, there are very few cases of torture complaints that are actually investigated.

Is that why you say the Audiencia Nacional can be a problem?

Yes, among other reasons, but there are many more reasons. First of all, only one tribunal deals with too many offenses. They should be better distributed. Second, it has too much power from the very beginning of the investigation, and finally, too much control... The appeal process is limited, as the higher court is the one in charge from the beginning of the investigation... Therefore, the Spanish government should think again about dealing with terrorist crimes through the ordinary judicial means.

How do you reply to the Spanish government's statement that when you mention the Audiencia Nacional you are entering territory that does not concern you?

What can I say...? The Spanish Government says it is its concern to establish its institutions and legislations, that this is part of its sovereignty. In my opinion, it is mistaken. Speaking as a UN Special Rapporteur, I can give recommendations to any country to modify any law or to install a new institution or to depose another one. I am an expert in international legislation, above all concerning those human rights, and therefore I am in full capacity to do so. I do it in many countries, and Spain is not the exception. In any case, yes, it is clear that Spain is sovereign and I am not reforming the law. I am simply giving some recommendations.

Do you think the Spanish government's position goes far enough in the improvement of human rights?

It is a position with a double facet: Spain is a reference on many levels, above all, on an international level, in the promoting of dialogue among civilizations. In this field it is doing a good job. But I find problems in regard to the anti-terrorist legislation; it utilizes too many restrictive measures and besides, Spain has institutions that have no place in a democracy.

What is your response to the Spanish government claim that your report is a personal opinion and that it is based on unproved facts?

It is not true. I am an independent expert dedicated to analyze the bases of human rights international legislations. I analyze the current law. In regards to method, I am completely free to obtain information from any source. I should point out that in my report there is nothing that the Spanish government has not previously seen. I have presented my report to them and they have had months to comment on it. Consequently, I am the one who decides what to include or not in the final report.

Is it common that the governments act this way?

Yes, I always receive criticism. From there, it is a question of intensity and style...

In the future, do you believe that Spain will move towards an improvement of human rights?

In general, I perceive a good attitude. Especially since the change in the Government of the USA, many countries have admitted to making mistakes. I hope Spain will move in that direction, too.

What will the UN do after the answer that Spain has given to your report?

I don't think that the Human Rights Commission will take special measures. In regards to me personally, I will keep a vigilant eye on the case.

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This story first appeared March 18 in Berria. It is archived in Spanish translation at www.escuela.net.

RESOURCES

UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism


You can also read this interview in Spanish at Eusko Blog : Gazteleraz.

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