A Whale of an Exoneration

We found this interesting article about the early presence of the Basques in America (Canada specifically) at Montreal's based The Gazette:

Basques exonerated in decimation of Canadian whale population

Randy Boswell

In an impressive case of CSI-style sleuthing, researchers examining a single, 450-year-old whale bone from Labrador's south coast have exonerated the prime suspect in a whodunit from the dawn of Canadian history.

The DNA profile of a North Atlantic right whale's humerus — collected from the remains of a shipwreck at the historic Red Bay whaling site along the Strait of Belle Isle — shows that Canada's most endangered species was already suffering from a critically small population and a lack of genetic diversity before Basque whalers began harvesting the giant mammals in the 16th century.

The Basques have long been blamed for decimating the right whale population off Canada's coast. But the new research by a team of Canadian and U.S. biologists, published in the latest issue of the journal Conservation Genetics, indicates that right whales were rarely killed by the Spanish-based whalers and that oil-rich bowhead whales were almost exclusively their targeted species.

The first key finding in the centuries-old cold case was that only one right whale bone could be found among 218 specimens collected from historic East Coast whaling sites, meaning the bowhead was clearly the Basques' prime quarry.

Then, led by Trent University researcher Brenna McLeod, the team compared key genetic markers in the ancient right whale bone with those of present-day right whales — and found no significant differences.

The samples revealed a relatively low level of genetic diversity among the whale's North Atlantic population both today and in the past — a result that makes clear the species' problems in Atlantic Canada began long before the Basques arrived in the region in the early 1500s, the team has concluded.

The findings "are not consistent with the suggestion that Basque whaling activities were responsible for what was previously thought to be the largest reduction of the right whale population," the researchers state.

The results also indicate that "the major decline in this species occurred prior to whaling and that the pre-Basque population of right whales in the western North Atlantic was much smaller than has been assumed."

Today, scientists believe there are only about 350 North Atlantic right whales migrating annually between waters south of Nova Scotia — where they spend much of the summer and fall feeding and breeding — and Florida, where calves are typically born in late winter or spring.

The right whale can grow up to 18 metres in length, weigh more than 100 tonnes and live as long as 70 years.

Right whale advocates — including the new study's Canadian co-author, Moira Brown of Boston's New England Aquarium — have successfully lobbied for various fishing and shipping regulations aimed at protecting the highly endangered species.

But the latest findings, which the authors claim have "rewritten the history of the species," appear to point the finger at a post-1400 cooling period known as the Little Ice Age for the historically restricted numbers of North Atlantic right whales along Canada's eastern shores.

"Our research suggests that some of the factors (such as low levels of genetic variation) that may be limiting right whale recovery in the western North Atlantic have been present for far longer than we had thought," McLeod told Canwest News Service on Friday.

She added that the more scientists can learn about the right whale's history "the better we can understand how those factors are playing a role in the patterns and process of recovery in the species today."

The researchers note that while bowhead whales were the key Canadian target for Basque whalers, historic harvests of right whales throughout the broader North Atlantic world have decimated some populations.

In fact, the animal was named the "right" whale to target for easy hunting because it swims slowly and near the surface, typically stays close to the coast and conveniently floats to the top when harpooned.

In the decades following the New World discoveries of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot, the expert shipbuilders, sailors, fishermen and whalers from the Basque country bordering modern-day France and Spain had begun making transatlantic voyages to exploit coastal Canada's whale populations.

Lamp oil rendered from whales killed in the Strait of Belle Isle became the key commodity for the Basque entrepreneurs, who developed shoreline "factories" that produced thousands of barrels of oil and organized regular shipping schedules between Canada and Europe to deliver the product.

Although the presence of Basque whalers in 16th-century Canada was long known to historians, it wasn't until federal archivist Selma Barkham presented fresh evidence at an Ottawa archeological conference in 1977 that plans were made to search for physical traces of Basque activities in modern Labrador.

In 1978, a Parks Canada-led team of researchers discovered the sunken remains of a 1560s-era, three-masted whaling vessel.

Other major finds followed the discovery of the 20-metre San Juan, including three other "galleon"-class transport ships and a well-preserved "chalupa" rowboat used by whale-hunting crews in their deadly chase.

Land-based excavations yielded burial sites, clothing and countless other relics, including hundreds of whale bones.

There just a couple of things we would like to point out; the Basques were fishing off the coast of what one day would be known as Canada long before Columbus and Cabot stumbled upon America. And there is no reason to call them Spaniards, in the early 1500 (the estimated date given to us by the author) the Basque kingdom of Navarre was still an independent and sovereign political entity. The Spaniards began the final assault until 1512 and the Basques were still fighting all the way to 1524. Castile and Aragon managed to get control of the Basque homeland to the south of the Pyrenees, to the north, Donibane Garazi became the kingdom's capital city for many more decades.

The interesting part is, how come the Native Americans living close to the Basque fisheries did not suffer any European disease epidemics like their neighbors to the south?

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Canada Overlooks Spain's Torture

Canadian authorities are so obsessed with Spain's demand to extradite a Basque activist that they are willing to overlook the fact that the evidence provided in the case was extracted under torture according to this article published at The Record:

Interview tactics questioned at deportation hearing

Jonathan Montpetit

Canadian immigration officials are being accused of resorting to evidence gathered under torture to try to deport a suspected Basque terrorist.

Ivan Apaolaza Sancho claims that Ottawa's case against him relies partly on information gleaned from an interrogation where Spanish police were accused of roughing up a suspect.

"She made some declarations to the police and after this woman said she was tortured,'' Sancho said in an interview from a Montreal detention centre. "But the Canadian government didn't show it like that.''

Sancho was arrested by the RCMP last summer on an immigration warrant. Ottawa is seeking to deport him to Spain, where he is thought to be linked to the violent Basque separatist group ETA.

Government immigration lawyers are basing their case on a Spanish arrest warrant that ties Sancho to a series of car bombings in Spain between 1999 and 2000.

According to Sancho's legal team, that warrant contains statements made by Ana Belen Egues Gurruchaga, who was arrested by Spanish police in November 2001 following a Madrid car bombing. She was detained under Spanish anti-terror laws that allow suspects to be held incommunicado for up to five days.

Sancho's lawyer, William Sloan, said Gurruchaga filed a criminal complaint with a Spanish court not long after she was released alleging she was tortured.

"The facts point to these declarations having been obtained by torture,'' he said. "They match word for word the warrants that Canada is using as evidence.''

Calls to Canadian immigration officials were not returned.

Sloan plans to call a French jurist to testify during Sancho's deportation hearing that Spanish justice officials often resort to aggressive interview tactics.

He charged there is scant evidence to support Ottawa's deportation order.

The government's case rests largely on a fingerprint of Sancho's that was allegedly found alongside explosives in a Spanish apartment.

The government has also produced intelligence reports that link Sancho to ETA from as early as 1991.

Sancho has acknowledged using at least two different names since he arrived in Canada. He also told an earlier deportation hearing that he initially roomed with Victor Tejedor Bilbao, who is also accused of ties with ETA.

"I was scared they were going to send me back to Spain and arrest me there and torture me,'' he said, explaining the use of an alias.

After several years of relative calm, ETA declared a formal end to its cease-fire in June 2007, around the time Sancho was arrested. Since then, ETA has carried out more than a dozen bombings and assassinated two police officers.

The hearing resumes tomorrow.

Canada is showing an unusual disrespect towards human rights. Everything and anything counts against the Basques.

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Playing the Diabolic Box

This article about Basque music was published at Straight:

Basque rhythms infuse Tapia eta Leturia tunes

Tony Montague

The type of accordion you play may affect your chances of getting into heaven. When Basque musician Joseba Tapia was six years old and showed interest in playing traditional dance tunes on the squeezebox, his family and the local priest became nervous about his choice of instrument.

"An uncle made me a present of a plastic accordion, and I was able to play a fandango with it," recalls Tapia, on the line from his home near San Sebastián, in northern Spain's autonomous Basque region. "Everybody thought, 'This little guy has something in his blood.' But they didn't want me to take up the diatonic accordion, as the instrument was considered bad in that society. The Catholic Church had strong objections because it led to dancing, which of course led to other things. It was given the name el fuelle del infierno [the bellows of hell]."

Tapia–who leads the quartet Tapia eta Leturia–was persuaded to take up the spiritually safer chromatic, or piano, accordion instead, and for many years he dutifully played mainly classical music. But he longed to get his hands on the diabolic box, which he heard at fiestas in small towns and villages in his mountainous homeland. When Tapia was in his mid-teens his father relented, and an uncle taught him trikitixa. The Basque word refers not only to the diatonic accordion itself (which is also used in Cajun music), but to a particular type of folk dance and the tunes created for it.

"Trikitixa is just one kind of traditional music in our culture," explains Tapia, speaking in Spanish. "We play two rhythms, basically–the fandango in 3/4 time, and the arin-arin in 2/4 time."

In the late '70s, Tapia gained local fame as a young trikitixa player whose fingers flew over the keys with blistering speed and accuracy. He teamed up with virtuosic pandeiro (tambourine) player Xavier Leturia in 1984, and together they drove dancers into Dionysian frenzies while somehow avoiding excommunication. "At first we were playing only in Guipúzcoa, the province I come from, and rural towns in the highlands. But soon we were doing concerts, weddings, and parties all over the Basque country."

The pair didn't limit themselves to traditional folk. Their 1995 self-titled disc draws on reggae, rap, punk, and the radical rock scene in their homeland. Tapia has launched a solo career that includes performing modern Québécois songs translated into Basque, and an album that features Basque songs, many of them unpublished, from the Spanish Civil War era.

When Tapia eta Leturia come to the Vancouver Folk Music Festival this weekend, however, they'll be playing the old-style trikitixa–with a fresh twist. Despite the name the duo is now a quartet, with the addition of Arkaitz Miner on fiddle and mandolin and Jexux Aranburu on keyboards.

"We were the first group to expand the traditional trikitixa duo of accordion and tambourine, and it gives our sound much more depth and variety of textures and harmonies. We play the dance music I grew up with, though also some new compositions. In such ways we keep pushing forward the music we love."

Tapia eta Leturia plays the Vancouver Folk Music Festival on Saturday (July 14).

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