Report by EHW

This report comes to us thanks to Euskal Herria Watch:

33/01 Case against Gestoras Pro-Amnistia-Askatasuna

Description of the case

Repression against the Basque People, conducted by the Spanish State and - to a lesser degree- by the French State has been constant in recent years. It is easy to trace a continuous line throughout the last decades that can show us the persistence of torture, massive and arbitrary detentions, a penitentiary policy with terrible consequences, banned associations and organizations, closure of media, outlawing of political parties and total discrimination from public life against a section of the population. To sum up, an exceptional situation that has generated a dangerous scenario of suppression of the most basic political and civil rights, a scenario that can now be seen in all its brutality.

These circumstances have forced hundreds of Basque citizens to create a retaining wall, to confront repression and participate in different civic organisations, human rights organisations, and activist organisations in what has become known as the Amnesty Movement. Without such a movement, the lack of activation of the people and, therefore, of social opposition would have resulted in a total acceptance of the impunity of the structures of the Spanish State. That is why many and varied activities have been channelled through this Movement -conferences, demonstrations, public appeals, contacts with all kinds of political and social agents…- in order to demand a scenario of respect for basic democratic conditions, of enjoyment of basic civil and political rights.

In this context, the organisation Gestoras Pro Amnistía was born three decades ago as the main platform for solidarity with the people that suffered political repression and to campaign against the situation. This association carried out a process in 2002 to converge with the association Koordinaketa, made up of the committees that worked in solidarity with political prisoners in the North of the Basque Country, under French administration. Askatasuna emerged as a result of this process, to carry out these activities in the whole of the Basque Country. In other words: an organization that focuses its activity on the promotion and protection of the human rights of the victims of repression, that fights for the eradication of torture, for the rights of arrested or imprisoned Basque citizens and the overcoming of the causes that are at the origin of State violence.

This task has always been carried out completely within the law and with a continuous public expression of its activities –press conferences, peaceful demonstrations, organisation of debates, conferences, compilation of information and figures of repression, the diffusion of these through reports, publications, public exchange with other social agencies, political parties, trade unions…-. That is why Gestoras Pro Amnistía–Askatasuna have become a reference for the grassroots movement, with a reputation and social recognition and an important capacity for activating Basque society. We could say that this organisation is present in all cities and neighbourhoods throughout the Basque Country, with the participation in its activities of thousands of people.

Police operations

This task and goals mentioned were criminalized and, in fact, suspended after the police operation carried out by the judge at Central Investigation Court nº 5, Baltasar Garzón. On October 31st, 2001, 12 organizers or spokespeople of this organisation were arrested under the accusation of belonging to a terrorist organisation. Juan Mari Olano, its national coordinator was arrested some weeks later in Bayonne –North Basque Country, under French administration- and after a long process, extradited to the Spanish state. All those people were been in pre-trial imprisonment –remand in custody- for the maximum limit allowed by Spanish law in these cases, of four years awaiting trial. The right to be presumed innocent has disappeared; convictions are now served in advance, before any hearing at a trial. They were released under astronomical amounts of money as bail in May and June 2004.

In the context of this operation, a virulent campaign by the media and politicians was implemented against the professional activity of the lawyers that work on cases that can be labelled “political”, under the argument that these lawyers belong to the “prison front” of the armed organisation. Thus, on the morning of October 31st, as the premises and offices of the Gestoras Pro Amnistía were searched, the police entered the offices of lawyers which are registered in the Bar Association of Lawyers in Gipuzkoa and Pamplona respectively. It must be remarked that the judge Baltasar Garzón, who was leading the operation in Bilbao was personally warned of this situation. Nevertheless, the judge took no notice of that information and carried on with the search, with both offices being sealed off and computers and documents belonging to the twelve lawyers that worked there being seized.

The investigation judge later ordered the lifting of the sealing of both offices and the restitution of the confiscated material, after duplicating and copying all the content of the computers and the documents seized during the searches. This is a flagrant violation of the rights of the lawyers to professional secrecy, as well as other guaranties that must be observed in these cases. Lawyer Julen Arzuaga will be subjected to these proceedings because of this illegal action.

On February 5th 2003, in a new raid, five people that worked as spokespersons in the new association Askatasuna were arrested, their homes searched as well as the premises of the association of relatives of political prisoners Etxerat in Bilbao, Hernani and Gasteiz. On February 6th Central Court of Investigation nº 5 took the decision to merge the proceedings into Case 33/01.

These operations have a continuity in the present, as on September 11th 2007 Juan Maria Olano and on October 3rd 2007 Ohiana Agirre, also spokespersons of Askatasuna were been arrested and jailed for “reiteration in their public activity as representatives of Askatasuna”. Olano will be released in early March 2008. Meanwhile, Ohiana Agirre is in prison, under new proceedings opened by judge Baltasar Garzón against Askatasuna.

Charges

With these proceedings, the investigation judge Baltasar Garzón suspended the activity of Gestoras Pro Amnistía and Askatasuna, considering its public activity illegal from the point of view of the criminal law and accused the 17 that were in prison and other 10 of a crime of “belonging to an armed organisation”.

The judge reverts the process of the investigation, contrary to law and logic, as first, a conclusion is given out –that Gestoras belongs to the structure of ETA- and later, through interpretations and speculations they look for the evidence, the factual arguments to support that theory.

The alleged criminal actions of Gestoras would be:

1.- Exercising control over the collective of ETA prisoners, connecting and communicating with the members and representatives through their lawyers.

2. - Guaranteeing internal cohesion and obedience to the discipline imposed by this organization on the collective, avoiding any individual initiative in the course of their prison sentence and cancelling any possibility of dissent or breaking from the collective.

3.-Co-operating with and financing the maintenance of ETA prisoners and refugees.

4.- Co-ordinating and driving forms of struggle that complement those of ETA and support for the demonstrations of the prisoners’ collective.

5. - Gathering important information for ETA’s internal security, taking this from the penal processes that members are involved in, and passed on by some of their lawyers, greatly exceeding the right to defence.

6. - Pointing out who they believe are responsible for the situation and condition of ETA prisoners, turning them into possible targets for that organization; or against persons or institutions that don’t back the demonstrations called in support for and solidarity with ETA prisoners.

7.- Taking advantage of the sensitivity caused by the supposed violation of the rights of ETA prisoners to induce volunteers and regenerate the operational structure of ETA.

8.- The setting up and development of the project named Alde Hemendik .

9.- Co-ordinating and directing the so-called “X and Y struggles” Kale borroka (urban struggle) and “days of struggle” that are carried out in support of ETA members or due the death of a member, or other contingent circumstances.

10. - The initiative and decision on when the ETA prisoners collective begin a hunger strike or cell lock- in and other actions.

11.- Publishing the magazine ZOHARDIA, directed by Mikel Korta Carrión, who was included in the Indictment 18/98 for his membership of ETA-Ekin.

All these activities are carried out by Gestoras, under the control and direction of ETA-KAS and ETA-Ekin, through the corresponding instruments developed by those detained and others accused”.

In the following points of the indictment he goes over each one of the detainees and assigns them greater responsibility in one or another of the activities above, in an attempt to justify their supposed “criminal” activity. Amongst the elements of accusation in the indictment is the fact of having belonged in the past to other student, youth or social organizations, to be connected emotionally with a prisoner or a political refugee, participation in acts of homage to prisoners, campaigning, calling demonstrations, attending meetings, developing projects...

These activities, in any case, were publicly carried out by this organisation and in no way could be understood to constitute a crime, as is proven by the fact that they have never been accused of other minor crimes such as “glorifying terrorism”.

In the case of other activities that have are criminal and are may lead to the charge of belonging to a terrorist organisation, they is no way to prove these charges, as no rational evidence of criminality has been presented, no reference to damage against any juridical good protected by the criminal legislation. Again, the charges are generic, brought against groups of people, collectively, in a clear breach of the individuality and precision that must be the basis of any criminal charges.

Conclusions

In the face of these charges and in these circumstances, the trial against these 27 colleagues from the Amnesty Movement will begin on April 21st, 2008, with a petition from the public prosecutor of 10 years in prison.

In view of all the above, we wwould like to make the point that the participation of these people in different areas and organizations of the broad Amnesty Movement has always been open and transparent and has always been known to the public. The connection of this social activity and the actions committed by ETA is absolutely unacceptable and is based on arguments and interpretations lacking any kind of factual or rational basis.

We are aware, nevertheless, that this extensive application of anti-terrorist definitions to public and transparent actions has a long history in the Spanish justice system, hence the Supreme Court in the case of Haika-Segi and the subsequent Audiencia Nacional verdict in reference to Case 18/98, which only makes the position of our colleagues facing this trial worse.

This process is simply a smoke curtain that attempts to discredit a social organization and tries to criminalize the work of denouncing the vulnerability of the rights of Basque prisoners, refugees and deportees and also tries to avoid the social expressions of solidarity with this collective. The r3emand in custody for four years of 13 of these colleagues, released on millionaire bails, the suspension of the activities of these organizations, have generated a total block of freedom of expression and of the right of association and peaceful petition, because the mobilizations and demonstrations organized by this movement have been consistently forbidden by court, suspended administratively and violently attacked by the State Security Forces.

This trial is a further landmark on the road to criminalize, with no legal basis, solidarity with political prisoners, opposition to repression and to state violence and mobilization in defence of human rights. The states, convinced of their strategy of maintaining the repression against increasingly broader sections of the population, require higher levels of impunity.

The way of doing things of the Audiencia Nacional as an instrument for the application of special antiterrorist laws, a vivid example of the “law for an enemy” shows us the impossibility of receiving a fair trial in front of this exceptional tribunal. Furthermore, keeping in mind the events mentioned above, we believe that the trial will be a mere masquerade designed without content to administer a previously written political verdict. We are not expecting, hence, justice from this court. Nevertheless, we are expecting an opportunity to explain to Basque and international society who we are and what we are seeking.

This type of political-judicial trials moves us further away from the aims we share with Basque society: ending the repression and seeking the definitive resolution of the Basque conflict.

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1936

This information comes to us via SUBO:

The Spanish Military Uprising of 1936

Under the Spanish Second Republic, the Catalans achieved home rule in 1932, but a Basque autonomy statute for Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa (Nabarra excluded) was delayed until 1936.

The military uprising of 18 July 1936 "underlined the multifarious social base and, at points, contradictory nature of the ideology upon which the (Basque Nationalist) party rested," writes Marianne Heiberg. According to Heiberg, some months previously secret meetings were allegedly held between certain Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) leaders and the right requesting arms "to form Basque militias which would function as soon as a communist revolution, which we assume approaching, explodes." A few days before the uprising two PNV deputies, Irujo and Lasarte, declared that the PNV would support the Republic in case of a military intervention. On the night before the military rebellion, the PNV executive retracted these assurances of automatic PNV loyalty.

On the day of the uprising, Heiberg writes, the first section of the PNV to react was the PNV executive in Nabarra, which declared its opposition to the government of the Republic "responsible for religious persecutions. " Volunteers, 42,000 in number and called the Requetes, financed by the Carlists, were recruited mainly from the peasantry and organized into militias in defence of "God and his Church, King and Fueros!

The worst period in the orgy of Franco's violence in Nabarra, had countless Nabarrase sentenced to exile, prison, or the grave. Nabarra was a fundamental bulwark for the insurrect Spanish army led by General Franco. The number of Nabarrase executed - more than 3,000 - by the fascists and their sympathisers in rearguard was higher than in any Spanish province with a war front. Forced recruitment, massive executions, rape, killings reported as suicides, prison, exile, and
the Catholic church as oppressive agent, are denounced by the cultural organization Altaffaylla Kultur Taldea in an important research published by the group in 1986 about Nabarra during the military uprising in 1936. The results of this research contradict the fascist propaganda which claims Nabarra was in favor of Franco.

Regional Autonomy for Baskongadak (Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa)

With the re-establisment of the Spanish Republic in 1931 and with it, the restoration of political liberties, Basque nationalists saw an opportunity to achieve autonomy. Eusko Ikaskuntza (Society of Basque Studies) drafted a project for an autonomy statute aimed at the unification of the three Basque provinces in Spain (Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa aka Baskongadak) and Nabarra into an almost independent state.

On June 15, 1931, a Baskongadak- Nabarra alliance of mayors from the four Basque territories in Spain met in the town of Lizarra in Nabarra and approved a project for autonomy, the Statute of Estella. The Basque project was rejected by the Republican government whose constitution recognised only one "integral state." For reasons still debated today, the Baskongadak- Nabarra alliance broke off. In 1932, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) accepted an autonomy statute for the Baskongadak drafted by a Madrid commission.

According to Hurst Hannum, the short period during which the autonomous region of Baskongadak actually functioned before being abolished by the victorious Franquist forces in 1938 makes it difficult to judge the viability of the Second Republic's arrangements for autonomy. Hannum observes:

"Nevertheless, the broad scope of many of the region's proposed autonomous statutes indicates that there was a fairly extensive grant of actual as well as theoretical powers of self-government to the autonomous regions. The powers of approval and amendment of autonomy statutes reserved to the Spanish parliament (Cortes) is significant, but it should be noted that a majority in the 1931 parliament represented non-Castillian Spain, thus providing a fairly effective political check on discriminatory legislation at the national level and a sympathetic majority for regional autonomy".

The autonomy statute for Araba, Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa was approved in referendum on November 5, 1933, by 84% of the Basque electorate. However, the Republican government failed to act in the plebiscite and Basque aspirations were not met until 1936. On October 1936, at the outbreak of the Spanish civil war, Madrid finally granted Baskongadak its autonomy. Jose Antonio Aguirre, a young lawyer from Bizkaia, was named president of the rump Basque government, which alongside nationalists, included Spanish republicans, socialists and communists.

Since August 1936, the north-west of Spain had been cut-off from the rest of Republican Spain. The Basque government quickly took on many functions of an independent state. It issued its own currency, passports, set up its own judiciary, established diplomatic links with several foreign countries, and organized its own army. The Basque army refused to accept central Republican authority.

Many gudaris (Basque soldiers) and milicianos (Republican soldiers) died fighting in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, but also many people from Araba and Nabarra who had escaped the terror of Camilo Alonso Vega and Emilio Mola. And many volunteer soldiers (international bridgades) from Belgium, Cuba, Germany, Italy, France, as well as young people and women died fighting against fascism.

The Fall of Bilbo

The Spanish nationalists guided by General Franco faced difficulties to penetrate the Basque province of Bizkaia. A great offensive against Bizkaia began with the bombardment of Durango on December 31, 1937 which caused 520 dead and 730 wounded. The German Condor Division supplied air support. Then on April 26, 1937, before attacking Bilbo, the town of Gernika was bombarded by the German Luftwaffe which was testing their burnt earth torches. This was the first bombardment of its kind in the world and caused 1,654 dead and 889 wounded. In June 1937, Bilbo finally fell to the hands of Franco's troops.

Basque resistence collapsed and its government went into exile abandoning the Basque resistance. Over 50,000 Basques died, 10,000 were taken prisoners (1,000 prisoners, including poet Lauaxeta and eleven priests were executed), 150,000 went into exile, and 20,000 children were sent abroad to save them from the cruelty of the civil war. At the time of the Germans invasion of France, most of the Basque nationalist leadership in exile moved to South America. During the Nazi occupation of France, 11,555 people in the Basque territories in France were sent to concentration camps in Argeles and Gurs. This is a high token if one takes into account that the entire population of the Basque territories was about 1.500,000 in 1936.

Betrayal of the Allies

During the Second World War, a group of Basque exiles placed themselves at the service of the Allies against Nazis. In London, Manuel de Irujo, a Nabarrase who was the Spanish minister of Justice under the Second Republic, became president of the Basque National Council in 1940. He signed an Anglo-Basque agreement for the creation of a Basque military unit. Other inter-state agreements were signed in London in 1941, between Charles De Gaulle (in the name of Free France) and the Basque National Council. The Gernika Battalion, led by Major Ordoki (of the left-wing Acción Nacionalista Vasca, ANV, Basque Nationalist Action), took part in the battle of the Atlantic. At the end of 1945, a year of euphoria, Basque resistance fighters regrouped along the Franco-Spanish border, awaiting orders to penetrate southwards with North American logistic support that never came.

After the Second World War ended, Franco was identified with Hitler and Mussolini and Spain was boycotted by the international community. But in November 1947 the United Nations assembly lifted sanctions on Spain, and the North American delegate declared his support to Franco. Meanwhile, the North American press pointed to the strategic importance of Spain in the Cold War. The isolation of the dictator was broken by the United States granting him a loan of 62.5 million dollars in exchange for U.S. military bases in Spain. In 1954 the Pope awarded Franco the Supreme Order of Christ.

The Spanish Civil War was followed by suppression of civil liberties and a fierce repression of the Basque language and culture.

Regrettably the PNV had refused to sabotage the heavy industry and infrastructure as demanded by the left and later ordered by the Republican government. In Bizkaia, observers commented, one received the impression that there was no war. Law and order was total. By protecting Basque heavy industry and infrastructure from left-wing sabotage, the PNV made it possible for the dictator Gen. Franco to succesfully overcome the international boycott imposed on 1946 and to embark on an ambitious policy of economic self-sufficiency. The mass destruction of industrial installations and infrastructure characteristic of the rest of Spain had not occurred in Baskongadak, a blessing for the dictator thanks to the PNV. In turn, this industrial base gave the economy of Bizkaia an overwhelming initial advantage which produced the second "boom" of Basque industrial expansion.

Bibliography: Luis Nuñez Astrain, La Razón Vasca (Txalaparta, 1995); Jose Luis Cereceda, Euskadi en guerre (Ekin, 1987); Iñaki Egaña, Las Victimas reclaman su existencia (Egin, July 18, 1996); Hurst Hannum, The Accomodation of Conflicting Rights, (Universtiy of Pennsylvania Press, 1990); Marianne Heiberg, The Making of the Basque Nation (Cambridge University Press, 1987); Francisco Letamendia, Historia del Nacionalismo Vasco y de ETA (R&B Ediciones); Joseba Zulaika, Basque Violence Metaphor and Sacrament (University of Nevada Press, 1988).

.... ... .

March in Support of 18/98 Victims

With its own pro-Madrid style, The Herald Tribune published an article about the demonstration to support the victims of Baltasar Garzon's judicial travesty known as the Macro-process 18/98.

Here you have the note:

Thousands march in Spain's Basque region to protest arrests
The Associated Press
Published: December 2, 2007

MADRID, Spain: Thousands of protesters held a rally in the northern Basque city of Bilbao Sunday to protest the arrest of people for lending support to the Basque separatist group ETA.

Several thousand protesters marched carrying placards reading "In favor of the Basque Country's democratic rights."

Spanish police on Friday began detaining 56 Basques who went on trial in November 2005, were convicted of indirectly aiding ETA, and then released on bail pending sentencing.

Those convicted were judged to have aided the armed Basque separatist group ETA through a network of outwardly legitimate social and political organizations.

Police began the roundup to avoid the possibility of those convicted fleeing Spain before they were sentenced, officials said. Up to 37 people have been arrested, lawyer Jone Goirizelaia told reporters.

The case ended in March. Judges are expected to begin meting out sentences later this month.

The trial stemmed from an eight-year inquiry by Baltasar Garzon, Spain's leading anti-terror investigator.

Garzon argued that ETA was not made up solely of armed commandos but was supported through political, financial and media organizations.

The defendants were accused of belonging to these groups, some of which had been outlawed previously.

The organizations, such as the banned youth groups Ekin and KAS, engaged in activities ranging from fundraising and helping ETA plan attacks to organizing street violence by separatist supporters, Garzon charged.

The rally went ahead despite the death Saturday of Raul Centeno, a 24-year-old member of the Civil Guard and the serious injury of his colleague, Fernando Trapero, 23, in a shooting in France blamed on ETA.

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42 Imprisoned

This information comes to us thanks to the Irish Solidarity Committees With The Basque Country:

EH NEWS: SPANISH INQUISITION

Spanish Court orders arrests of 46 defendants on 18/98

11/30/2007

The sentence on this case is not going to be announced until December, but judges have already considered their verdict and that is why they ordered the arrests of the defendants.

34 people have been arrested so far accused of being related to 18/98 case, judicial officials reported. Spanish National Court ordered on Friday the arrests of 46 defendants on this this macro-trial.

This trial was the largest ever made in terms of the number of defendants. The judges heard testimonies of more than 300 people. Those on trial included alleged members of Basque social political gropus, media and other organizations. Spanish National Court banned their activities citing they were supporters of Basque armed group ETA.

Spanish Court ordered all the arrests, investigation officials reported. According to these sources, the sentence on this case is not going to be read until December. But, the court has ordered police to put them under detention before the convictions are announced, a court official said.

List of arrested people

Txema Matanzas, Jesus Mari Zalakain, Elena Beloki, Alberto Frias, Javier Balanzategi, Javier Salustregi, Joxe Mari Olarra, Mikel Korta, Iñaki O'Shea, Juan Mari Mendizabal, Mario Zubiaga, Iker Casanova, Manuel Intxauspe, Jose Garcia Mijangos, Natale Landa and Olatz Egiguren.

The International commission "Euskal Herria Watch" on case 18/98

The "Euskal Herria Watch" international commission, made up of lawyers from various countries, had the opportunity to participate in the sessions celebrated between the 21 st of November 2005 and the 14 th of March of 2007 in the 18/98 proceeding. The parties on trial are private businesses, the newspaper Egin and the radio station Egin Irratia, the Basque political organisation Ekin, the foundation for the promotion of the social movements Joxemi Zumalabe and the European association Xaki for international activity.

This report contains a summary of our main concerns, based on the monitoring work carried out, as well as a series of conclusions regarding this particular trial.

The accusation

The public prosecution and the private prosecution carried by the Association of Victims of Terrorism charged 51 people who have participated in the mentioned businesses and associations with a crime of "belonging to a terrorist organisation". On this bases, the prosecution asked for 10 to 50 years of prison for the defendants, as well as other accessory penalties. Afterwards, the prosecutor reduced the petition for 4 to 19 years depending on the consideration of "collaboration" with or "membership" of an armed group. Among the defendants the persons prosecuted for their relationship with the Egin newspaper's board of directors faced the higher petitions. In total, where before the prosecution asked for 927 years of imprisonment, now they ask for 484.

The charges brought by the Investigating judge and taken on by the public prosecution and the private prosecution are not rooted in any concrete facts or particular evidence. The charges are based on the idea that these people participated in the aforementioned organisations to infer afterwards that these organisations belong to ETA. Even if the first part of that logic is granted because of the public and notorious activity of these social and political activists, the second part lacks any reason or evidence to be assessed, but is no more than a speculative interpretation built on suspicions. These suspicions are limited to sporadic contact among defendants and members of the ETA armed organisation, to the interest expressed by ETA about these organisations, reflected in its internal documentation, and finally, to the coincidence in the political goals: sovereignty for the Basque Country. The suspicions on which the charges are based are not criminal activity. The situation could be explained as the late German lawyer and observer, Martin Poell manifested to the media "we have known about cases without evidence, but this is the first case that does not even have crimes".

Without individualized criminal conduct, the construction of the connexion among these organisations on trial with ETA is mere speculation.

The public hearing: the right to a defence

The defence has come across an unlimited number of difficulties to exercise their professional task. A list of issues that had to be solved before the hearings began could have stopped it: the trial began in the absence of three defendants, without the orders for them to be brought before the court having been issued. A previous appeal challenging a number of expert witnesses had not been resolved; it was rejected by the tribunal on the spot. The prosecution has requested a number of companies to be declared illegal and have their assets seized, and they have not even been summoned to appear in court. They have not been notified of the charges, which amounts to civil death, because they are not party to the proceedings and cannot defend themselves, therefore, if they were convicted this would mean the proceedings will be voided. Last, but not least in terms of the guaranteeing of the right to a defence, a series of documentary tests requested by the defence before the beginning of the trial have not been carried out, despite the fact that they should have been done before the trial began and that the tribunal had agreed to their being carried out. It is due to the hurry showed by the Court to carry on with the hearing that these questions, that can bring about an effect of nullity, were simply ignored.

A decision to begin and continue the trial was made by the tribunal, over and above the fact that the case –a 207,000 page-long monster- is in a state of chaotic disorder. There is no index of pieces of evidence; the whereabouts of these pieces of evidence is often unknown, which makes access to the evidence difficult for both prosecution and defence; finding a document means an effort that often turns out to be futile, thereby causing repeated adjournments to continue the search.

On the 15th session of the trial, the 21st of December 2005, the evidence in Prior Proceedings 75/89, was brought to the Court. It is a series of police reports, transcriptions of tapped phone conversations and other documents which have been kept under official secret since 1989. The prosecution had access to that documentation but not the defence; these documents remained in secrecy for them. Due to the impossibility to have access to that evidence even being brought to the Court, t he defence lawyers requested the protection of their respective Bar Associations and the Basque Council of Lawyers. Those plus the President of the Spanish Council of Lawyers held a meeting with the President of the Audiencia Nacional to grant the fundamental right to a defence.

One of the most shocking violations of the right to a defence in the view of the observers that have participated in this first part of the hearings was the ban on the defendants to make their statement freely in front of the Court and, more specifically their right to explain why they were refusing to answer the questions by the prosecution. The defendants had decided this, as a clear political statement. Nevertheless, the president of the Court cut the intervention of the defendants forbidding any further explanation immediately after declaring their refusal to answer. Of course, if it is not appropriately explained, by attitude on the part of the defendants can be understood as a fearful or doubtful position under cross examination by the prosecutor. One of the lawyers mentioned the jurisprudence of the European Court in Strasbourg – dated 2 May 2000, in the Condron vs. the UK case-, annulling a trial because the reasons why the defendant was remaining silent were not stated in the minutes. The president of the Court answered to the lawyer that "I do not care what Strasbourg says".

For this and other reasons we can see that the attitude of the Court has been manifestly aggressive and authoritarian towards the defendants. The inquisitorial character of the hearing and the and the intense and worrying emotive implication of the president of the Court in it, instead of being impartial and "super partes" has been made clear. A Court should uphold basic rights at the time of doing justice, as the effective judicial tutelage for all the people in the exercise of their legitimate rights and interest, without legal protection and the right to a trial with full guaranties, to use all the pertinent means for the defence and the right to be presumed innocent.

It is relevant to underline that the Court never has ruled in favour of the defence in any of the many incidents that have occurred due to irregularities in the development of the proceedings. All of them must be resolved in the final decision by the Court.

Quality of evidence

Throughout the hearing not a single allegation containing concrete, individualised facts was put forward. The evidence consisted of the reading of documents allegedly seized from ETA, statements taken from some defendants under incommunicado detention, telephone tapping and statements by the agents of the Central Unit of Intelligence of the National Police and the Investigation services of the Civil Guard, brought in as court experts and the main revealing factor of the prosecution.

These agents make their anonymous testimony as court experts, understanding that they provide the court with alleged expertise and objective knowledge, in their the field of activity. However, it is clear that, even if they present themselves as expert in the fight against ETA, their statements are an interested and biased account of the facts, as they have taken part in the investigation. They gave their statements collectively, all together, behind a screen that separates them for the public, not from the defendants. They have permission from the tribunal to discuss their answers and correct each other. In practice, the opinion of these agents introduced by the Court as "experts" has the role of rectifying the gaps in the evidence.

Nevertheless, their statement were full of incongruence and contradictions, such as the one referring to the origin of some of the documents, the identities of the persons that appear in those documents under nicknames, or the alleged connection between the newspaper Egin or the Foundation Joxemi Zumalabe with ETA.

One of the matters that have had a shocking effect is the identification of one of the experts as one of the officer conducting torture at the interrogation of Nekane Txapartegi and Mikel Egibar. The latter asked the Court to uphold his right to question the experts. The reaction by the president, Angela Murillo was to shout "sit down! be quiet!" losing her nerves and asking the police that guard the Court to form a human wall between the Civil Guard agents acting as experts and the defendants, who shouted "torturers!!". Murillo, overwhelmed, decided to adjourn the session.

Matters of humanitarian nature

As mentioned, the trial lasted 16 months in a Court especially built in a neighbourhood at the outskirts of Madrid . The defendants were obliged to be present every day that court is in session. The only accommodation was to replace the Thursday and Friday sessions with night sessions on Mondays and Tuesdays. It is surprising to hear that being present in the courtroom is not a right of the defendants, in their best interest, but an obligation imposed on them. It seems evident that this is not a measure aimed at guaranteeing the defendants have full knowledge of the proceedings and a better chance to exercise their right to a defence but an extra obligation imposed on them after the accused had repeatedly stood against it. It has caused many traffic accidents in the long journeys from the Basque Country to Madrid, has generated adjournments and delays due to the difficulties to appear in the Court for all the defendants. It has also made the defendants' daily life more difficult, their family and work activities, and affected their economies, creating a high physical and psychological cost.

A particular mention should be made to the case of Iñigo Elkoro who, due to a serious disease, had to be separated from the trial and a new trial will have to take place, so as not to interfere with the main proceedings. In the case of Jokin Gorostidi, the day before he had to make his statement in court he suffered a he suffered a heart attack with the result of his death on 25 th April 2006. The attitude of the Court towards the defendants can be considered cruel and degrading treatment.

The Issue of Torture

On 6th May 2006 defendant Xabier Alegría declared in court: He has the highest petition from the prosecutor, with 100 years in prison. He explained he had suffered torture during incommunicado detention. The lawyers submitted a copy of other procedures including this fact, the prosecution did not deny the submission and the Court admitted it.

The 18th of April, was the turn of Mikel Egibar who provided the Court with an account of torture during his detention by the Civil Guard on 10th March 1999, including beatings, suffocation with a plastic bag, threats against him and his family… during five days, before was brought to the National Court. The next day Nekane Txapartegi gave her statement, explaining that her incommunicado detention lasted 10 days and included death threats, the plastic bag and sexual harassment, even being raped by four Civil Guards.

The statements taken under torture are used by the court to base the accusations in this trial 18/98 and to introduce incriminatory evidence against the people that suffered it and the rest of the defendants.

Conclusions: ideological accusation and expansive interpretation of the penal definitions

The accusation carried by the public Prosecutor and the Association of Victims of Terrorism asked, in their separated reports, for a conviction while the defence asked for acquittal of all defendants.

The reports of conclusions of the accusations are not based on the reasons and evidence that have appeared during the hearing. On the contrary, they come from the first interpretation developed during the stage of investigation by the head of Court of Investigation nº 5 of the National Court, Baltasar Garzón. The public prosecutor, as he lacks evidence to support his theory, recited a brief and specific review of the history of ETA, to wind up his statement on the organisations and businesses that are on trial, and to recount the charges brought against them: KAS would be an "instrument" used by ETA for "direction of the movement", which, at the same time, would control a business scheme dedicated to maintaining ETA members abroad" and members of KAS itself. Ekin, according to this theory, would have been created to "replace" KAS; Xaki would be the latest version of "ETA's external relations"; and the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation would have taken the baton from ASK to continue to "invigorate the popular movement". Finally, Egin and its publishing company Orain S.A. would make up ETA's "intermediary front" or "fourth front".

At this point, the representative of the Attorney General had no other choice than to admit that the written charges contained serious errors, and that several of the charges against the defendants had no legal foundation. Nevertheless, he concluded that participating in any of these organisations is at the same time to be an active member of ETA due to the "divisional theory". "All of the structures participating in that global structure" which for him the nationalist left is, "are contaminated with the goals and objectives" of ETA. So, lacking rational evidence, the accusations will use an ideological interpretation, a philosophical deduction to ask the Court to deliver a conviction.

But moreover, the designation of the facts as crimes of "collaboration" or "belonging to an armed group" are based on a new definition of terrorism tailor-made to include the activities in this trial. In fact, the prosecutor asked the Court, contrarily to the classic jurisprudence that advocates for a restricted interpretation of the concept of terrorism, to make it wider to include these social and political activities. To do so, he counts with the precedent of the decision of the Supreme Court in the 18/01 case referred to the youth organisations Haika-Segi.

On 19/02/2005 the Audiencia Nacional issued a decision whereby it stated the youth organisations Jarrai, Haika and Segi are not terrorist organisations because they do not use weapons or explosives, although the Court did declare them illegal and sentenced 24 young Basques to between two and half years and three and a half years in prison, more or less the time they had served in pre trial detention. This decision was appealed by the defence and the Prosecution, for different reasons, before the Supreme Court. The defence asking for the acquittal and the prosecution, specifically, defended its aim was to obtain new jurisprudence on the definition of "belonging to an armed group" which could be applied in other proceedings.

On January 19, 2007, the Supreme Court published its decision. Indeed, three of the judges believe these organisations are "illegal associations which amount to a terrorist gang, organisation or group" and gave 23 young Basques 6 years in prison whilst they acquitted one. The decision introduces a new expansive interpretation of what is an "armed organisation", as was asked in the appeal by the Association of Victims of Terrorism "according to the new times". A further two members of the Tribunal voted against this decision, giving a dissident vote considering that it "creates a new configuration of armed group" taking into account two elements: one the entity of the facts related to the practice of the "urban guerrilla", that can not be compared to the "terrorist acts that are committed by terrorist groups that have deserved the application of the crime of armed organisation" and as stated by the magistrate Martínez Arrieta and for the lack of real integration in the armed structure, opinion of magistrate Giménez García: «if there is a invitation to become a member of ETA it means that you do not belong to it, so the candidate comes from a different collective to ETA ». Thus, both magistrates of the Supreme Court supported the initial interpretation of the National Court.

The chain of armed activity established, in penal terms, from the urban guerrilla to finish with the public and peaceful political action that now is under judgement must be taken into account. This interpretation will be the determinant element in the deliberations of the Third section of the Penal Room of the National Court to reach a decision.

Conclusions

On the aforementioned findings, the International Commission "Euskal Herria Watch" wish to make public the next conclusions.

1. The investigation of the 18/98 case has been carried out in a chaotic manner and in flagrant violation of the right to a defence, using the secrecy of actions in an absolutely unacceptable way.

2. The violations of equality of opportunities between the prosecution and the defence are quite alarming. The tribunal did not accept a single one of the challenges brought by the defence.

3. The lack of precision as to the allegedly criminal activities and the lack of individual charges contravenes, in an essential way, the bases of the rule of law whereby a defendant must face charges -involving certain criminal conduct- from which he or she can defend himself or herself.

4. The treatment dispensed to the defendants during the hearing, including the obligation to travel and be present in all the sessions has generated a physical and psychological cost that could be considered a form of cruel and inhuman treatment. The effect of this on the health of the defendants is ascertained.

5. The use of statements which were allegedly made under torture is an intrinsic violation of human rights, because of the use of torture itself, and even the allegation should void the evidence.

6. The quality of the evidence was completely inappropriate, with many irregularities, rational doubt as to the origin of documentary evidence and blatant inefficiency of the witnesses called by the prosecution. The expert evidence given by members of the State Security Forces deserves special comment, as the tribunal has elevated police suspicion, prejudice and speculation to the level of scientific, objective and infallible evidence.

7. The use of ambiguous legal definitions and their broad and inclusive application contradict the principle of legality.

8. The state is attempting to criminalise legal, public and transparent activities through a political trial. This is, in itself, a serious attack on the right to freedom of speech, opinion and association. The mention in documents and statements of other associations during the hearing is an attack on their rights and their legal security.

9. We also believe that the Tribunal, the Audiencia Nacional is a special Tribunal for crimes of terrorism and given its high level of politicisation , and the nervous and authoritarian attitude of the chair of the Court, it would seem that the verdict, instead of being an act to find criminal facts and seek justice has been an attempt to provide a appearance of justice to a political decision.

10. Still waiting for the decision, the development of the hearings, the position taken by the prosecutions, the tension generated due to the attitude of the president of the Court and the precedent that was given by the Supreme Court in reference to the 18/01 Haika-Segi case bring us to deduct that the final decision will have an extremely poor juridical quality.

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18/98 : Call For Support

This was published today at EITb, it is an urgent call to the Basque society to show their support and solidarity.

Here you have the note:

Politics

Sunday 12:00

18/98 defendants call rally in Bilbao

12/01/2007

The defendants in the 18/98 case that have not been arrested yet urged the Basque citizens to attend a rally at Sunday's 12:00 in the Basque city of Bilbao.

More than a hundred people, including some of the defendants in the 18/98 case that have not been arrested yet, called a rally for Sunday in the Basque city of Bilbao and a 1-hour-strike next December 13th.

In a press conference in Donostia-San Sebastian, the organizers denounced PSOE and PNV's "strategy of war" to "destroy the Basque Country" and added they thought the PSOE was using the arrests with electoral purposes.

The 18/98 defendants urged the Basques to attend Sunday's rally at 12:00 and to stage a 1-hour-strike next December 13rth from 12:00 to 13:00.

18/98 case

Spain's High Court issued 46 arrest warrants for members of the Basque groups Ekin, Orain, Xaki and Fundación Joxemi Zumalabe suspected by the authorities of having political links with the armed Basque group ETA, judicial sources said on Friday.

The National Court has decided to convict 46 of the defendants, although it will not formally read out the verdicts until some time after Dec. 10. Due to the risk of them trying to flee Spain, the court has ordered police to put them under detention before the convictions are announced, a court official said on ground rules barring publication of her name.

The case stemmed from an eight-year inquiry by Baltasar Garzon, Spain's leading anti-terror investigator. Garzon alleged that ETA was not just made up of armed commandos but also had support through political, financial and media organizations. The defendants were accused of belonging to these groups, some of which have been outlawed.

The organizations, such as banned youth groups called Ekin, Orain, Xaki and Fundación Joxemi Zumalabe engaged in activities ranging from fund-raising and helping ETA plan attacks to organizing street violence by ETA supporters, Garzon has charged.

An eight year inquiry and I bet you Garzon will produce no solid evidence to back up his judicial charade.

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Insult and Injury

Knowing very well that they will stand up for their beliefs to the very end, the Franco era Audiencia Nacional has decided to add insult to injury by ordering the arrests of those indicted in the 18/98 process.

Here you have the note by AP, a media outlet on Madrid's payroll, hence their disregard for democratic tenets like the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Here you have it:

Spain Arrests 40 From 2005 Basque Trial

By DANIEL WOOLLS – Nov 30, 2007

MADRID, Spain (AP) — Police on Friday rounded up at least 40 people convicted of aiding the armed Basque separatist group ETA through a network of ostensibly legitimate social and political organizations, a court official said.

The 40 were among 56 people who went on trial in November 2005 and were out on bail after it ended in March. Sentencing is expected next month.

The National Court has decided to convict 46 of the defendants, although it will not formally read out the verdicts until sometime after Dec. 10. Due to the risk of them trying to flee Spain, the court has ordered police to put them in detention before the convictions are announced, a court official said on ground rules barring publication of her name.

So far, 40 of the 46 have been picked up in the Basque region and neighboring Navarra, the official said.

The case stemmed from an eight-year inquiry by Baltasar Garzon, Spain's leading anti-terror investigator. Garzon alleged that ETA was not just made up of armed commandos but also had support through political, financial and media organizations. The defendants were accused of belonging to these groups, some of which have been outlawed.

The organizations, such as banned youth groups called Ekin and KAS, engaged in activities ranging from fundraising and helping ETA plan attacks to organizing street violence by ETA supporters, Garzon has charged.

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Navarre's History, Struggle Against Assimilation

This comes to us thanks to our friend Txabi:

The Basque Struggle against French, Spanish Assimilation

France's absolutist monarchy found strong opposition in the northern Basque territories in France. The mercenaries of Louis XIV killed all the farmers in Zuberoa who rebelled against the policies of centralisation imposed by the monarchy. Bernard Goyhenetxe who led the rebellion in Zuberoa was guillotined.

Many of the Basque revolts against French centralisation were led by women: Mugerre and Iturbe in 1696; Ainhoa in 1724; Baiona and Donibane Garazi in 1728. In 1784, hundreds of women in Hasparren challenged 150 'grenadiers' and 5 brigades of the marechaussee. The intervention of the village priest prevented a confrontation between the women and the French forces.

The French National Assembly decreed the abolition of the feudal regime and the tithe on the night of August 4, 1789 - happily for everyone including the Basques. However, it also abolished the constitutions of the Basque territories of Navarre, Lapurdi and Zuberoa. On August 26 it introduced the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen." The Constituent Assembly furthered these reforms, proclaiming the revolutionary idea that people had the right of self-determination.

In 1790, the Basque territories were incorporated, together with Bearn, into the Departement de Basses Pyrenees.

A new assembly (the Convention) met in September 1792. It proclaimed an end to the monarchy and established the republic. The convention introduced governmental limitations on prices, declared that education should be free and compulsory, imposed taxes on the rich and made other economic and social "reforms."

The Convention took terrible measures in the Basque territories whose constitutions had been abolished by the National Assembly. Citizens of Sara, Ainhoa, Azkain, Itsaso, and Ezpeleta, without distinction of age or sex, were deported to Landes and Gers. Suspects in Kambo, Biriato, Macaio, Larresore, Medionde and Lohosa were held prisoners in churches. More than half of the deportees died of starvation, and illnesses from lack of hygiene. Survivors returned to their homes only to find these had been plundered.

The Revolution ended in 1799 when Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris and was crowned First Consul. Napoleon established a powerful central administration and a strong code of law. He introduced the `department prefets' and obligatory military service outside the provinces. French became the only official language of France.

Among its positive aspects, the French Revolution abolished the feudal regime and monarchy. It achieved the victory of liberalism and of an individual conception of society. In the Basque territories, however, "revolution" centralism suppressed the collective rights of a community: its language, laws, and institutions.

The society that emerged in the Basque territories after the French Revolution was in the hands of a small group of nobles, landowners, and merchants who were unable to guarantee the development of an industrial or commercial capitalism. Poverty and underdevelopment during the last centuries generated massive migration of their citizens to Bordeaux, Paris, and especially, to the United States.

In Spain, the main agency for the diffusion of the ideas of the Englightenment and liberalism into Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa was the Real Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del Pais (Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country), founded by the Basque aristocracy in Azcoitia in 1764. This society provided Carlos III (1759-88) - the same monarch who made Bolivian indian females wear dresses copied from the regional costumes of Basque and Andalusian peasant women - with the model for the subsequent establishment of similar societies throughout Spain. The main attentions of the society were oriented toward the modernization of agriculture and the Basque metallurgical industry, the two main pillars of Spanish Basque aristocratic income.

This Spanish Basque elite - both urban and rural - regarded itself as the direct descendants of those, "uncontaminated by either Jewish or Moorish blood", who had reconquered Spain from infidels and restored civilization and Christianity to the country. Although many were familiar with Euskera, Spanish was their preferred language both domestically and publically. The nouveau riche had the most costly foods brought from France; Europe's top couturiers cut their dresses and outfits; and they sent their children to study at British and French schools. They imagined themselves at the pinnacle of European culture.

In 1767 the Society, promoters and sponsors of the Hirurak Bat (Baskongadak as the Basque Country), founded the Academy of Vergara, the first secular school established in Spain. This illustrious sector also gave the "entrepreneurial inspiration" to the Royal Guipuzcoan Company, a Basque controlled trading company in Venezuela. The Royal Guipuzcoan Company's publicity brochures pointed with pride to the company's Venezuelan philanthropies much as, two centuries later, the American Standard Oil proclaimed its own virtues. The profits extracted from one of the world's reachest countries by these pundits, in proportion to the capital invested, are only comparable with those obtained by old-time slave merchants and pirates.

Navarre's hour of revenge seemed to have stricken in 1833 when peasants, artisans and small traders arouse in arms for equality and social justice and in defense of their fueros or laws.

With the ascendance of the Bourbon dynasty to the Spanish throne in the eighteenth century, state centralism became an overriding goal. The Spanish Liberal Constitution drafted by Joseph Bonaparte and ratified by the Cortes in 1812 aroused fierce opposition among Basques.

Known as the Carlists Wars (1833-1872), these guerrilla wars took the form of a popular uprising in the defence of Basque liberties and laws as opposed to Spanish centralism. Liberalism which sought the disentailment of common lands together with political and economic uniformity was an obvious political creed for the Basque urban bourgeoisie. The Basque urbanites and their liberal cronies in Madrid united to attack frontally the Basque political system based on fueros. Peasants, artisans, and small traders were fiercely opposed to integration into a Spanish national market. Integration meant the free import of Castilian cereals and livestock which would increase competition and further decrease prices. Imposition of Spanish customs duties would also result in a dramatic increase in taxation on rural consumption. In addition, the sale of common lands, which had intensified throughout the early 19th century due to liberal disentailment legislation, had already undercut a crucial buttress of
the Basque peasant economy.

The liberal Basque urbanites saw in the rural Carlists only a symbol of barbarism, the backwardeness and ignorance, the anachronism of the countryside confronting urban civilization, the beret and the abarketa against the frock coat, the stone and the knife against the troops of the line, Euskera against Spanish, illiteracy against the school. Such scorn and hatred were an expression of antipatriotism clearly tinged with political economy.

The first Carlist war broke out in 1833 and ended in 1839 with the Treaty of Bergara. The Carlists wars developed in the Spanish State but fundamentally in the three Basque provinces of Araba, Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa and in Navarre, the conquered Basque state.

The Carlist leadership was based in Navarre. Fearing the end of their regional autonomy, Basques aligned with the Catholic church and the followers of Don Carlos, a contender to the Spanish throne, in a war against the Liberal central government. For seven years, Carlists organized their own state which spanned the Basque speaking areas of the southern territories and had the massive support of the peasants. The Carlist army comprised of volunteer Basque peasants. Historians think that the military potency of Carlism resided in the guerrilla tactics employed by its army. The first Carlist war ended four years after the death of the Carlist General Zumalakarregi.

The Treaty of Bergara offered to guarantee the Basque fueros or laws. However, the Law of 1839 which confirmed the treaty stated that "[t]he Fueros of the Basque provinces and Navarre are reaffirmed unless they are prejudicial to the constitutional unity of the monarchy." Navarre never accepted the treaty but Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa went along. There was a split between the Basque traditionalists of the interior and the liberals of the cities of Bilbo and Donostia.

Spain was paving the road to the annexation of Navarre. In 1841 the Spanish government passed the law of Modification of the Fueros (aka Pacted Law) and Navarre was transformed from a viceroyalty into a province. All legislative and executive powers were transferred from the Assembly to the Spanish parliament and government. A Provincial Assembly, an administrative body with no control over public funds, was set up as the main institution of Navarre. The establishment of compulsory military service caused uprisings during the following eight years. In 1833, a royal charter restructured the Spanish state into forty nine administratively equivalent provinces. The "Hispanic" character of Navarre, the dream of the Spanish conquerors, had come true.

The Land Reform of Madoz of 1855, despite its liberal and progressive ambitions, prepared the way for the nascent mercantilist oligarchy. Basque peasants and artisans, whose communal lands passed into the hands of the commercial and landed elites, would be turned into teeming proletariat of the Spanish economy which was to devastate the Basque countryside.

The popular insurrection, however, was used by the Carlist leadership to advanced the political ambitions of Don Carlos, brother of the deceased Spanish king, Fernando VII, allied against the defenders of Isabel II, the unanticipated daughter of the late king and the wife of his old age, Maria Cristina of Naples.

Regrettably the protection of the "Basque laws" was not the main goal of the Carlist leadership, but the religious unification of Spain. A second Carlist War broke out in 1872 and ended in 1879 with the defeat of the Carlists. As a consequence of the Carlist defeats, the fueros of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa were abolished. Basques lost their leadership and their culture and language became under attack in their own homeland. In 1893, a massive rally called the 'Gamazada' took place in Pamplone (Iruña in Basque language), the capital of Navarre. The rally gathered 80,000 people protesting against the attempts of Spain's minister Gamazo to abolish Navarre's fiscal system. This was the first popular mobilization uniting the Navarrese
people in the defense of their laws.

From 1876 onwards, the integration of Spain's Basque territories into a national market made possible the emergence of the first monopolies of the Basque industrial and financial oligarchy in Bizkaia, centered on five families linked by marriage. With the abolition of the Basques fueros there was no obstacle to free trade and the intensive extraction of Bizkaian iron ore. Under the foral regime the mines were municipal property and rights of usufruct were available to all municipal residents.

The Spanish Basque oligarchy was rewarded with an instrument for increasing its profits and economic power: a special fiscal and administrative regime - the economic concerts - for Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. This regime allowed the Spanish Basque oligarchy to control the Provincial Councils (Diputaciones) and reduce fiscal pressure on industrial production which was to have repercussion on the working class and the popular strata.

"Very importantly, however," writes Marianne Heiberg, "the Basque urban liberals were dedicated to preserving within the new system of Spanish constitutional unity the one aspect of the foral regime which had been of considerable importance to their interests: fiscal autonomy." The Spanish parliament approved a special fiscal and administrative regime - the conciertos economicos - for Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. This regime enabled these three Basque provinces to negotiate their own taxes with Madrid and pay a fixed sum into the Madrid treasury. The quotas agreed upon, which were significantly inferior to the taxes paid out by other Spanish provinces, were to be raised in whatever manner the Basque provincial governments deemed suitable.

The Basque oligarchy became a Spanish national bourgeoisie and opted for the construction of a Spanish capitalist state. Industrialization was largerly confined to the areas surrounding the city and port of Bilbo and, to a lesser extent, specific urban centers in Gipuzkoa. Navarre and Araba remained mainly rural until the 1950s. The heart of Basque industrial potential lay in the rich deposits of high quality iron ore located in the mines near Bilbo. This way, from the Adour river to the Ebro, from Baiona to Bilbo, liberalism and the process of consolidating the capitalist mode of production brought with it the domination of the markets, cities and ports by the bourgeoisies of the Basque territories.

Bibliography: Mikel Sorauren, Historia de Navarra, el Estado vasco, 1999; Tomas Urzainki, La Navarra maritima, Pamiela, 1998; Roger Collins, The Basques, Basil Blackwell, 1986; Jean-Louis Davant, Ebauche d'une histoire du peuple Basque, in Euskadi en guerre, Ekin, 1982; Marianne Heiberg, The Making of the Basque Nation, Cambridge University Press, 1989; Luis Nuñez Astrain, La Razón Vasca, Txalaparta, 1995.

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Nafarroa : "Frontier of Catholicism"

Thanks to Txabi we received this essay about the dire consequences that the marriage Vatican-Spanish Crown brought to the people of Nafarroa (Navarre).

Here you have it:

The Inquisition and the University: Guarantors of Assimilation

Carlos V, heir to the Holy Roman emperors by purchased election, occupied the Spanish throne and governed with a retinue of rapacious Flemings whom he showered with bishoprics, bureaucratric titles, and even the first license to ship slaves to the Latin American colonies. He drained Latin America of its treasure to hound Satan all across Europe and to spread the true faith. When the former inquisitor general Cardinal Cisneros who led the military invasion of Navarre was appointed Pope Adrian VI, Carlos granted him the right to purge the Navarrese church. The Pope appointed only clergymen sympathetic to the empire to ecclesiastical posts in Navarre. The Basque state's redemption seemed impossible or doubtful, but the fanatical mission against the Navarrese people's "heresy" was mixed with the fever that a new treasure stirred in the conquering hosts.

The leader of the Counter-Reformation was Carlos' son, Ferdinand II. From his huge palace-monastery, Escorial, near Madrid, Philip spread his armies against the centers of heresy. Calvinism had taken hold in Holland, England, France, and northern Navarre.

Navarrese "heretics", or those suspected of "heresy," were roasted in the Inquisition' s purifying flames. For Spain, the Tribunal of the Inquisition in Logroño provided a means to eliminate the Navarrese intellectuals, thinkers, theologians, and clergymen suspected of opposing the foreign master.

The defense of the Catholic faith in Navarre was twofold: on the one hand, it turned out to be a mask for the submission of Navarre; on the other, the war against Protestantism was also the war against ascendant capitalism in Europe.

The metals of Latin America provided a means for Spain to fight against the nascent forces of the modern economy. Carlos V had already defeated the Castilian bourgeoisie in the uprisings of the Comuneros, which had become a social revolution against the nobility, its property and privileges. The uprisings were crushed following the betrayal of Burgos. In 1521, taking advantage of the revolt of the Comuneros, Henri d'Albret King of Navarre tried to recover Navarre from Spain. Northern Navarre and the Roncal valley united their armies led by Andre de Foix, seigneur d'Asparroz. Pamplone went up in revolt against the Castilians who quickly surrended. Most of the Navarrese territory was recovered, but having defeated the Comuneros, the Castilian troops returned to Navarre. Many Navarrese died in the battle of Noain in the Iruña valley where the troops of Andre de Foix were defeated by the army of Carlos V.

The betrayal of Navarre extended across the Pyrenees. There, a Basque parasitic nobility complete with its cortege of intellectuals who made their living from service to the king of France, decided that Lapurdi, Zuberoa, and northern Navarre should be annexed to France. During the spread of the Counter-Reformation in France, the bishop of Baiona, Bertrand de Echauz, plotted with Cardinal Richelieu's plea to the king of France requesting that Navarre be annexed to France, which was carried out in 1620 with the Edict of Union. The annexation notwithstanding, northern Navarre kept its own institutions and laws which were the same national institutions of the entire Navarrese kingdom.

Basque identity was still present in 1789 when the parliament of (northern) Navarre declined an invitation to submit the Cahiers des Doleances to the French National Assembly which they considered a foreign institution. Unlike the western Basque lands of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, the Basque territories north of the Pyrenees maintained close relations with (southern) Navarre for many centuries.

For its foreign masters and its chief associate, the Church, and for the Basque nobility who sold its soul to the devil at a price that would have shamed Faust, the conquest of Navarre was perfectly rational.

Ideological justifications were never in short supply. The bleeding of Navarre became an act of charity, an argument for the faith. With the guilt, a whole system of rationalizations for guilty
consciences was devised.

Purged, humiliated, and with its Basque character undermined, Navarre was transformed under the double seal of Spanish unity and Roman Catholic Orthodoxy into a "frontier of Catholicism, " the religious version of Spanish monarchic unity in the elaboration of which ascetic, mystic, jurist, moralist, philosophical and theological writers all worked together to come up with ideas within which to frame the "Hispanic" character of Navarre in order to secure its annexation. In the geopolitical concept of imperialism, Navarre is no more than a natural appendage of Spain.

In the dioceses, universities, and ecclesiastical tribunals of 16th and 17th century Spain, the number of theologians from the Basque territories increased as Hispanic assimilation was guaranteed both by the Inquisition and the university. These theologians who worked at the service of Spain spreaded the imperial ideology throughout the Basque territories. The most important centers for the dissemination of "Hispanic" ideology were the University of Salamanca, sponsored by Queen Isabel, and the University of Alcala, founded by Cardinal
Cisneros, the fierce conqueror of Navarre.

Bibliography: Mikel Sorauren, Historia de Navarra, el Estado vasco, Pamiela, 1999; Tomas Urzainki, La Navarra maritima, Pamiela, 1998; Roger Collins, The Basques, Basil Blackwell, 1986; Jean-Louis Davant, Ebauche d'une histoire du peuple Basque, in Euskadi en guerre, Ekin, 1982; Marianne Heiberg, The Making of the Basque Nation, Cambridge University Press, 1989; Luis Nuñez Astrain, La Razón Vasca, Txalaparta, 1995

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When Unity Crumbles

This information comes to us via SUBO:

Basque Political Unity Crumbles

Basque political unity did not survive the death of Santxo III the Great, king of Navarre. Bizkaia was the first Basque territory to leave Navarre for Castile in 1076. Attracted by the rising power of Castile, the seignor of Bizkaia's son, Lope, gave his allegiance to the Castilian king in return for which he was rewarded the Castilian feud of Haro. Lope adopted the family name Lopez de Haro, whose house became one of the most powerful of the Castilian noble families.

A century later, in 1200, Gipuzkoa joined Castile. At least in two attempts to recover Navarre from Castile in 1522 (the battle of St Marcial in Irun) and in 1524 (the siege of Hondarribia) , the Navarrese were defeated by the Basques of Gipuzkoa who fought side by side with the Spanish troops.

Araba, on the other hand, had numerous villas founded by Navarre principally for military reasons. The most important of these was Gasteiz (Vitoria), which was to become the capital of Araba. In fact, it was the Senior of Bizkaia in the service of the Castilian king who invaded Araba in 1181. Gasteiz, established by the king of Navarre
Santxo VI in 1181, was invaded and conquered by Alfonso VIII of Castile in 1200. Araba was annexed to Castile in 1331. A key force behind this decision taken by the Cofradia - representatives from the the clergy, nobility, and small landholding peasantry - was the Araba nobility who gained the same economic and political privileges as their Castilian aristocratic counterparts.

In summary, the western Basque territories of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa participated actively in the Spanish economy, royal administration and conquests - even against Navarre. In the 16th century, Spain extended the status of nobility, hidalguia, to all native residents of Bizkaia in 1526 and Gipuzkoa in 1610. The so-called "Basque universal nobility" was an essential first step for achieving military or administrative position in the context of the opportunities offered by the Reconquest and the conquest, exploration and exploitation of the Americas.

The Basques of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, all of whom were equipped with noble status, staffed the Spanish state administration, not only in the Spanish capital, but in the Americas, Flanders and the Austrian Empire. "Their incomes were dependent on maintaining royal favor and the position and influence of Basques at court had important political and economic repercussions inside Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa," writes economic anthropologist Marianne Heiberg. These state officials exerted a powerful influence over their counterparts, to whom they were frequently related by kinship, inside the Basque foral regime - a collection of local laws and customs together with especial economic and political immunities.

Bibliography: Mikel Sorauren, Historia de Navarra, el Estado vasco, Pamiela, 1999; Tomas Urzainki, La Navarra maritima, Pamiela, 1998; Roger Collins, The Basques, Basil Blackwell, 1986; Jean-Louis Davant, Ebauche d'une histoire du peuple Basque, in Euskadi en guerre, Ekin, 1982; Marianne Heiberg, The Making of the Basque Nation, Cambridge University Press, 1989; Luis Nuñez Astrain, La Razón Vasca, Txalaparta, 1995

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Broad Campaign Against Basque Society

The closure of Egunkaria by the repressive Spanish state has been getting a lot of attention around the world, but there is one thing the international community needs to understand, the attack against Egunkaria and the torture suffered by 10 of its employees is far from being an isolated case. What took place a few days ago in Euskal Herria is part of a broad campaign set in place by Madrid to suffocate the Basque identity.

The text you are about to read talks about this Apartheid-like campaign:

Many Basque organizations, businesses and media had been closed or prosecutedbefore

This is not the first time that a Basque newspaper has been closed by a Spanish judge. Since Aznar´s Popular Party came to power in 1996, many Basque political or cultural organizations, businesses and media have been closed, declared illegal or prosecuted due to alleged ties with terrorism. The vast majority of these cases lead nowhere, are never even brought to court, and serve only to publicly discredit pro-Basque organizations.

This is not by no means exhaustive of those actions:

a.. AEK (Organization that works in the field of Basque language teaching and adult literacy. They have taught the ancient Basque language to thousands of citizens.) AEK was accused in 1998 of being part of the ETA's alleged "business network". A report by the judge-appointed administrator concluded there were no irregularities in AEK's management, and that the accusations made by the judge Baltasar Garzón were unfounded. At the end of 2001, the judge was forced to desist in his attempts to prove a link between ETA and the organization AEK.

b.. Egin and Egin Irratia (newspaper and radio station of the independence movement) were accused by judge Baltasar Garzón in 1998 of being part of ETA and were closed without trial. In 2001, the Fourth Section of the Penal Court decided to drop the main charges of "membership in an armed organization"; without this accusation, the preventive closing of a media organization is not possible. Five years later, however, both media outlets are still closed pending trial.

c.. The EKIN case (movement for the independence of the Basque Country): in 2000 the judge Baltasar Garzón accused this movement and four other groups to be part of ETA and declared them illegal, arresting 20 people. However, by December 20001 all of the people that were arrested in this case had been released on bail. Moreover, the Fourth Circuit of the National Court issued a decree ruling that these people had been held in prison for a year without sufficient evidence, once again discrediting Garzón's investigative work.

d.. Ardi Beltza (A magazine specializing in investigative journalism). The judge Garzón decreed in 2001 the closure of the magazine and imprisonment of its editor Pepe Rei. But Garzón received another setback when the Spanish National Court decided to release the editor Pepe Rei. In spite of all, the magazine is still closed.

e.. Zabaltzen (Basque book and music distribution business): In 2001, Garzón issued warrants to search the main offices of the company. Some months later the judge had to abandon this investigation.

f.. Haika (Basque youth movement for independence): In 2001 it was declared illegal by judge Garzón.

g.. Askatasuna (Movement in support of the rights of Basque prisoners): In 2001 Garzón declared illegal this movement too, and arrested 13 people.

h.. Batasuna (Political Party supporting the independence of the Basque Country; they get about 15% of the votes in Basque polls and many mayors belong to this party): In 2002 the judge Garzón decreed the suspension of all their activities under the accusation of being part of ETA.

What we find behind all these actions is that the Spanish Government is trying to take advantage of the Spanish people's rejection of the so called terrorism of ETA. By linking the Basque political and cultural movement with violence, Mr. Aznar's Government usually obtains electoral benefits in Spain, since it projects an image of firmness against terrorism. Most of these cases are eventually abandoned due to a lack of legal foundations, but often the damage caused to the people and organizations involved is irreversible. Arrests and searches are usually accompanied by extensive media coverage, but when the detainees are subsequently released and the charges are dropped, there is usually no mention of this in the media.

Besides, these political/police/judicial operations do not usually happen by chance. They always take place just before an election, or when the Government intends to adopt an unpopular measure, such as the "medicamentazo" (a decree that eliminates government health-care coverage for a large number of prescription-drugs), the "decretazo" (a decree that eliminates some of the fundamental rights of workers, and makes dismissal easier and cheaper for employers). It is not just by chance, then, that the actions taken against Egunkaria have occurred just when the Government of the PP (Popular Party) is going through its most delicate moment since coming to power, with everyone's eyes set on the ecological disaster caused by the Prestige oil spill and on the Spain's support for the upcoming war on Iraq.

Regarding the former, most of the Spanish people think that the disaster of the Prestige could have been much smaller and that in fact it was aggravated by the Popular Party's negligence, as was shown by the massive demonstration organized by the Galician platform "Nunca Máis" that took the streets of Madrid on February 23rd. As to the war, an overwhelming majority of the Spanish people is against an attack on Iraq: organizations, political parties and media are pressing the Spanish Government relentlessly on this issue, and they have it on the defensive. On February 15th, the marches against the war organized in Madrid and Barcelona gathered one million people each.

International experts agree that the actions of the Spanish Government and the Spanish judges can hardly be tolerated in a democratic state. Former Italian president Francesco Cossiga, for example, has declared several times that "since Franco's dictatorship and the nazi regime, this is the first time that the Spanish authorities have created a situation like this" or that the "PP's actions are antidemocratic and violate people's rights".

We cannot forget that although Mr. Aznar's Popular Party tries to situate itself in the center, it is the political heir to the Franco regime. The party's president and founder, Mr. Manuel Fraga, was the Minister for Information and Tourism as well as Home Minister during the Franco dictatorship. In the PP's web page (web del PP ) you can read that a "group of people met with Mr. Manuel Fraga Iribarne, in the need to create and articulate a reformist and centrist organization, in order to offer an alternative after Franco's death". Even Mr. Aznar himself and many of his ministers and party leaders are members of well-known francoist families. To read more about this, please visit here.

With respect to the Egunkaria case, apart from the difficult moment the PP is going through right now, we should highlight the fact that the Home Ministry and the National Court published a joint press release to explain the operation taken against Egunkaria. This action is a clear violation of the principle of separation of powers, as has been denounced in several quarters. There are two other remarkable facts about the case against Egunkaria. On one hand, the decade-old documents upon which the accusation is based are the very same that were used to shut down the Egin daily, only now the judge interprets them to refer to Egunkaria and not to Egin. On the other hand, the judge Garzon previously abandoned the idea of taking judicial actions against Egunkaria, having considering groundless the same police report that judge Del Olmo now uses as the foundation of his case.

Something tells me that Egunkaria will not be the last victim of Spain's all out (and often murderous) attack against Basque society.

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Gernika Then and Now

Here you have one more article about Euskal Herria from South Africa's Daily Dispatch:

War on terror comes to haunt Basque rights

Picasso's Guernica protested at Franco's bombing of innocents. Now the war on terror risks crushing civil rights in the Basque country.

Dispatch Editor Gavin Stewart reports -- part 2 of 3.

MARTXELO Otamandi, 45, says he was deprived of sleep and made to crouch naked. A plastic bag was pulled over his head for minutes at a time, in sessions lasting two or three hours.

He became so desperate he told police: "Go ahead, take my life once and for all." He reported the assaults to a doctor, he told Associated Press, but the torture continued.

We hear the echoes of South Africa's security police offices years ago. But this is Spain's Guardia Civil headquaters in Madrid. Last week.

Otamnandi was one of 10 editors and managers arrested after Judge Juan del Olmo shut down the Basque newspaper Egunkaria. The paper was accused of being a tool used by ETA's "terrorist" commandos to communicate.

Otamnandi says editor Peio Zubiria was so severely tortured he tried to commit suicide. Respected Basque linguist Juan Maria Torrealdi, in his 60s, was also tortured.

AP reports that the claims were rejected by Spanish justice minister Joseba Azkarraga as "pure invention".

Three years ago the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) noted the persistent reports of torture in a report published in April 2000. It urged Spanish authorities to be vigilant in their treatment of prisoners, and urged that prisoners held incommunicado be guaranteed the right to see a doctor of their choice.

Basques say little has changed. Spain's government continues to suppress Basque institutions and publications. The European Union, its Human Rights Commission and its Court file reports.

But the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC have not helped.

Amnesty International's last annual report noted: "The war on terrorism launched by the United States is being used by different governments to repress dissidence and cut back liberties".

Basque hopes of deciding their own future and taking their place in the new Europe next year are among the victims.

Batasuna, perhaps the major Basque nationalist party, was suspended in September for three to five years, on the grounds that it was associated with "terrorist" groups. When that order expires, the party can be suspended again for three to five years, pending legal action.

The bishops of three of the seven Basque provinces rejected the order and warned of "dark consequences".

But the Spanish parliament has amended the electoral law to allow the government to ban political parties, groups associated with banned parties, any new party resembling a banned party, people previously associated with any banned party...

To hear Fernando Berrana tell the story is to drop back 50 years to South Africa's Suppression of Communism Act of 1950, later renamed the Internal Security Act.

The Communist Party was banned immediately, the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress in 1960, after the shootings at Sharpeville. Their leaders were issued with banning orders, or listed as communists, which meant they could not be quoted anywhere. Leaders of all the congress movements, the Liberal Party and even Defence and Aid, a legal fund, were similarly silenced. Dispatch editor Donald Woods was banned; World editor Percy Qoboza was imprisoned.

Replace "communism" with "terrorism", add 50 years, and the old South Africa resonates through the new Spanish law.

The Law of Political Parties allows any party to be declared illegal -- if it attacks constitutional principles. The principles include Spanish as the only language and the present borders of Spain.

Many Basques want their language and territory -- which straddles the border of Spain and France -- recognised.

"Nearly 800 councillors, 70 mayors, 25 MPs and provincial MPs are members of Batasuna," says Barrana. If the suspension is not lifted, none of them will be able to contest Spain's local government elections on May 25.

"Sixty percent of the popular vote in the Basque regions is nationalist."

In darker moments, even the leading members of Udalbiltza admit that the banning and the new law could be devastating. Udalbiltza is the first assembly of Basque elected public representatives and almost half of them are from Batasuna.

The Batasuna party survives in France, but its offices in all the Spanish Basque cities have been sealed.

Hopes of finding a space for a Basque national identity in the new Europe next year are uncertain.

The heads of government of the European Union could not agree on a definition of terrorism when they met in Laeken, so they adopted a definition which takes into account the causes and intention of actions.

The effect, argues the Basque Observatory on Human Rights, is that any dissidence can be considered terrorist in Europe.

That makes it easy to group all Basque opposition to the Spanish government as terrorist -- the objectives of all Basque nationalists groups are indeed very similar.

The United Nations special representative on human rights, Ms Hina Jilani, noted last year that "while spuriously equating legitimate and peaceful advocacy of the right to self-determination with terrorism -- however defined -- is not a new phenomenon it is certainly assuming greater resonance, and human rights defenders working for the realisation of peoples' quests for self-determination are experiencing some of their darkest hours" because they are "under new and sustained attack world-wide".

Appeals to the Spanish courts and even to the European Court of Human Rights appear to offer some hope.

"Not really," says Barrana. "The new act does not comply with the Spanish constitution's declaration on human rights. But it could take five to six years to get a hearing in a Spanish court." The European court offers an equally distant glimmer.

"Seven years ago the Turks banned a Kurdish party and the European court has just decided. It could take five to six years for them do decide our case. The elections are in a few months."

Batasuna is appealing anyway.

Barrana shrugs.

Banning judge

JUDGE Baltasar Garzón argues that virtually all Basque nationalist groupings "act at the service of the terrorist organistation" ETA.

ETA, he says, is "a sum of structures that give cohesion, sense and objectives to a whole wide range of multi-formed criminal activities". Their objective is to "subvert the constitutionsal order, seeking the dismembering or 'self-determination' of a part of Spanish territory and the serious agitation of the public peace".

Garzón names in the network of organisations: "txonas", mobile street bars which appear at fiestas, the sale of subscriptions, lotteries, business, an advertising agency, ventures selling Latin American products.

Garzón is one of six investigating judges in the Spanish National Court, a similar position to director of public prosecutions here. He investigates cases, gathers evidence and decides whether to prosecute.

Now 48, Garzón led the indictment of Augusto Pinochet and other leaders of the Chilean junta, on charges of genocide, terrorism and torture.

He banned KAS, an association of Basque independence groups; the newspaper Egin and Egin radio and ordered the arrest of members of Ekin, an organisation accused of being the successor to KAS. In September he suspended the Batasuna party.

According to one biography he ran for a seat in the Spanish parliament in 1993 on the socialist ticket, but soon resigned. One version is that the party failed to implement the reforms it had promised, the other is that he was not made minister of justice.

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Sabino Arana

By now you have seen his name mentioned a couple of times at this blog.

Well, it is time you learn a bit more about this renown Basque nationalist.

For that, we are back at Reference.com:

Sabino Arana y Goiri

Sabino Arana Goiri, self-styled as Arana ta Goiri'taŕ Sabin (January 26, 1865 – November 25, 1903), founder of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and a creator of Basque nationalism. Author of several books and numerous articles arguing in favour of Basque nationalism based on the idea of the Basques as a special race with a land of their own, the "purity" of which must be preserved.

He died in Sukarrieta at the age of 38 after falling ill with Addison's disease during time spent in prison. He had been charged with treason for attempting to send a telegram to President Theodore Roosevelt, in which he praised America for helping Cuba gain independence from Spain.

Background

The Third Carlist War had substituted the Ancient Regime system of Basque Fueros by a limited autonomy. The Basque Country and Navarre were integrated into the Spanish customs system. Basque industrialists profitted from the Spanish captive market with the iron ore and the Bessemer converter and Biscay became "the iron California". Workers from all of Spain were attracted to the area as labourers for the burgeoning industry.

Arana was born in Abando, a neighbourhood that had been recently incorporated into the city of Bilbao as the new extension for the growth of the industrial era.

He claimed that he had a quasi-religious revelation on Whitsunday, that he communicated to his brother Luis Arana. From then on he devoted himself to the nationalist cause of Biscay, later extended to the Basque Country.
Ideology

He was an early defender of the use of the Basque language in all areas of society, to avoid its increasing marginalization in the face of the dominant Spanish. He learnt the language as a young man, but was ready to contest for a professor position at the Instituto de Bilbao, competing against Miguel de Unamuno and the winner, Resurrección María de Azkue, who became an erudite scholar of the language. He made a strong effort to establish an agreed orthography for the Basque language, and proposed several neologisms to replace words of Spanish origin. Some of this innovations like the characters ĺ and ŕ were not accepted for the standardization efforts for the Basque language of the 1970s.

His first published work was Bizkaya por su independencia ("Independence for Biscay"), composed of a mix of historical and pseudo mythical stories and fabrications of earlier battles of the ancient people of Biscay.

In 1894 he founded the first center for the new nationalist party (Partido Nacionalista Vasco) to provide a place for gathering and proselitizing.

Sabino Arana, like many Europeans of his time, believed that the essence of a country was defined by its blood, and was disturbed that the immigration into Biscay of many workers from central Spain during the industrial revolution, into a small territory with little political power, would result in the disappearance of the pure Basque race.

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Another essential part of his ideology was devout Catholicism; he considered this to be an essential part of the Basque identity. However his Basque nationalism kept him away from Carlism that was the dominant ultra-Catholic and conservative movement in the area and the ideology of his father.

Despite his religious integrism and his extreme xenophobic and racist views, he is considered by many Basques to be the gadfly that sparked the movement for the cultural revival of the Basques, and for the freedom of his people. The party he created has moved on from his most controversial ideas to an inclusive concept of the Basque essence, based not on bloodline but rather on culture and convivence.

He was a prolific writer, with over 600 journalism articles, most of them with a propaganda purpose. He liked to shock and provoke, in order to get attention from a society that he deemed unaware of its fate. Overall he was in favour of an ethnic cleansing that would eliminate any trace of Spanish blood in order to restore the imaginary pureness of the Basque race.

There are three key aspects of Sabino Arana's political figure:

~He was an innovator, being the first to proclaim that the Basques are a separate race.

~He was not a conventional conservative; he strongly opposed slavery (legal in Spanish-held Cuba until ten years before its independence) and defended the right of South African Zulus to their land.

~He was an infatigable worker, taking action in many areas; he learned the Basque language as an adult, undertook a number of activities to promote the Basque language and culture, created a political movement, and designed the symbols (flag, anthem, country name) used to this day by Basque nationalists.

During his time in prison he proposed the foundation of a "League of pro-Spain Basques", which would have been in favor of Basque autonomy within Spain. It is still unclear whether he had sincerely changed his views or he was trying to improve the conditions of his imprisonment. His death left the question unanswered and neither his brother Luis nor the party followed through with his proposal.

The mixed influence of Sabino Arana in the Basque society

Sabino Arana's ideas are considered to have spawned the democratic nationalist movement that currently is supported by about 60% of Basques.

Today, he is viewed as a controversial figure by many people in Europe, who call him racist for his xenophobia and ethnocentrism and his ideas of a pure race.

During the Spanish Civil War, the Basque society was profoundly polarized between the Carlist (the Carlists fought on Franco's side) and the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (heirs of Arana) who chose in the last minute to fight alongside the Republican government. In the 1950s, there was a schism between the traditional PNV (most of them into exile, including the lehendakari) and a new group called EKIN (which later on, became ETA). Even though both parties refer to Sabino Arana as the ideologist and pater patriae of the Basque Country (Euskal Herria), the PNV dissociates itself from violence. ETA still thinks of itself as the "National Liberation Front", and even refers to itself as izquierda abertzale (or leftist nationalists), a clear reference to the revolutionary movements of the 1960s.

The Partido Nacionalista Vasco, holders of the intellectual property of his works, has chosen not to reprint them since 1976, keeping only the more "moderate" part of his message in their charter. On the other hand, some Basques still revere him as the father of the nationalist movement, who managed to start the turnaround of the decay of the Basque language and culture. Many Basque cities name streets after him.

The estate of his Abando home is now Sabin-Etxea ("Sabino-House"), the EAJ-PNV headquarters.

Jon Juaristi has remarked that perhaps the most influential part of his heritage is the neologistic list of Basque versions of names in his Deun-Ixendegi Euzkotarra ("Basque saint-name collection", published in 1910). Instead of the traditional adaptations of Romance names, he proposed others that in his opinion were truer to the originals and adapted to the Basque phonology. For example, his brother Luis became Koldobika, from Frankish Hlodwig. The traditional Peru, Pello or Piarres ("Peter") became Kepa from Aramaic כיפא (Kepha). He believed that the suffix -[n]e was inherently feminine, and new names like Nekane ("pain"+ne,"Dolores") or Garbine ("clean"+ne, "Immaculate [Conception]") are frequent among Basque females. Even the name of the son-in-law of the king of Spain is Iñaki Urdangarin, Iñaki being an Arana alternative for Ignatius instead of the traditional Inazio.

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