Thousands March in Donostia

This note comes to us via Google News:

Thousands march in Spain's Basque region for independence

Aug 9, 2008

MADRID (AFP) — Thousands of people marched through the streets of the seaside city of San Sebastian in Spain's northeastern Basque Country on Saturday to demand self-determination for the wealthy region.

"Stop the state of emergency. Self-determination for Euskal Herria," read a banner carried by participants at the head of the peaceful march, using the Basque language name for the Basque Country.

Dozens of people waved the red, white and green Basque flag while others chanted slogans in favour of independence for the region as a police helicopter flew overhead, Spanish media reported.

Police offered no estimate for the number of participants but the Basque newspaper Gara said in its online edition that some 5,000 people had taken part in the demonstration which was organised by left-wing Basque nationalists.

.... ... .

Basque Victory at Stanford

Bad news to Zapatero and Aznar's undercover operator, they lost the Stanford Battle.

With the support of the big media they were able to gather 5,000 signatures from among 40 million Spaniards while the Basque camp was able to obtain 3,000 signatures from among 3 million Basques, if the percentage was not enough, the winners achieved that amount in one week only while their opponents had a full month to try to expand Spain's posture on freedom of speech.

Here you have the note from The Stanford Daily:

Basque debate continues

Second petition surfaces in support of President Ibarretxe’s arrival

February 13, 2008
By Kamil Dada

In anticipation of Thursday’s visit by the Basque Government president, a maelstrom of international controversy has surfaced. Stanford’s plans to host Juan Jose Ibarretxe has garnered coverage from both U.S. and Spanish media outlets, including the two largest Spanish national newspapers, El Pais and El Mundo.

A petition protesting Ibarretxe’s talk had garnered over 5,000 signatures as of Tuesday. However, within the last two weeks, another petition has emerged in support of the lecture. It has since received over 3,000 signatures.

The second petition calls on Stanford “to disregard the petitions of groups that pretend to obstruct freedom of speech.” It further argues that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

The democratically elected president’s visit has led to deep divisions over whether the leader should be allowed to speak on campus in the current format.

Rafael Dobado Gonzalez, a professor of history and economic institutions at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid who signed the first petition, said he wishes that the audience could be offered a contrasting perspective to Ibarretxe’s. He believes that the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), the political organization that Ibarretxe belongs to, has given long-standing political support to the terrorist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA).

“The PNV opposes to any legal and political measure adopted by the Spanish government in order to weaken ETA,” Gonzalez said. “In short, the PNV exploits the existence of ETA and its methods — killing and kidnapping included — as a way to impose its rule on Basque society and to physically exclude non-Basque nationalists.”

Gonzalez cited an example in which the PNV, including Ibarretxe’s vice president, signed a 1998 secret political agreement with ETA “in order to create a new stage in the confrontation with Spain.” According to El Mundo, the PNV agreed “to break all agreement with [other non-nationalist, political parties] whose goal is the destruction of the Basque Country and the building of Spain.” The leaders of the PNV denied this agreement until the ETA published it in the Spanish newspaper, Gara, on Apr. 30, 2000.

Gonzalez added that he believed the talk would be used as a political platform.

“[Ibarretxe] is not an academic trying to search the truth on a certain scientific issue to relevant colleagues,” he said. “He is a politician attempting [to sell] his political merchandise to a distinguished and influential audience without competitors. At the same time, he will sell [his message] in Spain, especially, in the Basque Country that Stanford is receptive to his message.”

But Jeff Wachtel, special assistant to Stanford President John Hennessy, championed free expression and the exchange of ideas.

“While we recognize that there are those who disagree with Mr. Ibarretxe, the principle of free speech and open discourse on this subject takes priority at a university,” Wachtel said. “President Hennessy’s analysis and personal opinion [on] the political issues that have been raised does not have a bearing on this invitation.”

Elisenda Paluzie, an economics scholar in Spain, was one of the people who signed the second petition, which was in support of the lecture.

“[The protesters’] proposal to either cancel the event altogether, or to invite a political challenger to Ibarretxe’s claims is not only ridiculous but it reveals a deeply inquisitorial, dictatorial and anti-democratic vein,” Paluzie said.

She, too, placed an emphasis on the need for free speech.

“This conference also fulfills one of the roles of the university,” Paluzie said. “A place where one listens to different ideas, discusses and debates political, historical, philosophical issues. It is an opportunity for students and scholars to listen to a political leader from a minority people — the Basques.”

Paluzie further explained that for the majority of Spaniards, the existence of different nations, cultures and languages is a problem.

“They would never recognize [the Basques’] right to self-determination, their right to decide, as stated by President Wilson’s Fourteen Points or the U.N. Charter,” she said. “Ibarretxe’s proposal is about giving the voice and the decision to the Basques.”

A number of the organizers and supporters of the petition are planning to protest during the lecture, which will be held at Arrillaga Alumni Center at 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon.

“I want the Americans to know that in Europe the nationalists still have some power,” said Jose Jenaro, a Silicon Valley worker who grew up in the Basque city of Vitoria and plans to protest the talk. “They market themselves as peaceful people, but in reality they control the media, the streets and they terrorize their own people.”

Laura Wilson, chief of police at the Department of Public Safety (DPS), said that the protesters should be aware of what constitutes a legal protest.

“What is not permissible is to disrupt an event to the degree that lawful business, such as the ability of a speaker to speak, cannot be continued,” she said. “If an event is closed to the public or tickets are required, it is illegal to obtain entry and a person may be subject to arrest for trespassing. It is also a violation of law to incite others to riot.”

For security reasons, Wilson was not able to discuss the specifics of the security measures for the Ibarretxe event. However, Nick Brunot, a police services officer from the DPS, pointed out that he had been advising the organizers on how to protest legally.

“We have created a demonstration area for the protest group outside the lecture,” he said, “[in order] to allow them to exercise their first amendment right.”

.... ... .

Hope

This note appeared today at Deutsche Welle:

Southern Europe | 01.02.2008

Basques Hope for Change Despite Setbacks

Statehood remains an elusive goal for Basque nationalists. Yet there's continued hope that they can follow the example of other European countries and find a peaceful resolution to their ongoing conflict with Spain.

There are plenty of reasons for Basques to be optimistic about the future. Joseba Azkarraga, the region's minister for justice, employment and social security, lists a few of them: income levels in the mountainous northern corner of Spain are among the highest in Europe, unemployment is a low 2.5 percent and the poverty rate is 3.7 percent.

And a bit farther afield, there's Kosovo, which is on the brink of declaring independence from Serbia.

Kosovo proves that new states can form in Europe, Azkarraga said. Just as they cheered on Montenegro's independence after a referendum in 2006 and were buoyed by the recent success of the Scottish Nationalist Party, Basque nationalists are watching what is happening in Kosovo "with respect and interest," Azkarraga said.

"I am an optimist," Azkarraga said of the chances his own region has for independence from Spain. "You simply can't impose identities. A lot of us consider ourselves Basques and Europeans only. We are not Spanish and we are not French."

Search for an identity

The Basque region has long been the summer destination for Spain's elite. Its crown jewel, San Sebastian, is a string of white sand beaches at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains. The city hosts a major international film festival each year. Further south, the industrial city of Bilbao has become a cultural destination in its own right since the architecturally stunning Guggenheim museum opened in 1997.

Basques are incredibly proud of their heritage and have always maintained a sense of separateness from Spain. The Basque language, whose origins continue to confound linguists, was outlawed during the four decade-long dictatorship of Francisco Franco, as were all signs of Basque nationalism. But many Basques remained unhappy with the autonomous status they were handed after Franco’s death in 1975 and the subsequent transition to democracy.

The Basque separatist group, ETA, has been fighting for an independent Basque state in northwestern Spain and southwestern France since the 1960s. ETA is considered a terrorist group by both Spain and the European Union and is blamed for 800 deaths.

ETA remains a major problem for moderate nationalists like Azkarraga. His Basque Solidarity Party (EA) condemns violence as do the EA's coalition partners the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). Yet the ongoing violence has sabotaged any possibility of meaningful dialogue between the Spanish and Basque governments, Azkarraga said.

In the end, it's Basque nationalism that suffers, Azkarraga said.

Calls for change

A recent poll showed that 60 percent of Basques are unhappy with the current state of democracy in their region, despite a high level of self-government. Yet there's no clear consensus on what they want from Spain. Some Basque nationalists want reform of the current status as an autonomous region. Others push for a federal system and still others advocate out-and-out independence.

There is, however, general agreement among Basque nationalists that the region should get a chance to decide its future for itself.

The Basque region's premier, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, has vowed to hold a "peace vote" on Oct. 25 that would condemn ETA and demand Madrid sit down with Basque political parties and talk about options for reforming the current system.

Both of Spain's main political parties, the Socialists and the People's Party, are currently gearing up for hotly contested national elections in March. Both have been unequivocal in condemning Ibarretxe's suggestion and insist that the vote has no legal basis.

Return to violence

The current political impasse is a stark contrast to the euphoria in the Basque region just over a year ago. J.P. Linstroth, a leading scholar on Basque issues with Nova Southeastern University in the US state of Florida, visited the region after ETA declared a permanent cease-fire in March 2006. He said there was a lot of optimism that the violence had ended.

A few weeks after he left, ETA then set a bomb off in the parking garage of Madrid's Barajas Airport, killing two people. The terrorist group maintained the cease-fire was still in force, but called it of in June 2006.

Since then, Basque nationalism has been in a crisis, said Linstroth. Basque political activists have faced judicial scrutiny and arrest for alleged ties to ETA.

"I think there are a lot of angry people who feel disenfranchised and caught in the middle," Linstroth said.

Gorka Espiau is a long-time peace activist and an advisor to the Basque government on current peace programs taking place in cities around the region. He agrees that there is a certain amount of pessimism because of the return of violence.

During the cease-fire, "we were very optimistic" he said. "With the killings and bombings happening again, it creates a very depressing atmosphere for everybody. We thought this was something we left in the past."

Hope for a peaceful future

In January, ETA promised "long years of conflict" in a rare interview with the Basque newspaper Gara. In the same interview, ETA cited Kosovo and Scotland as models for independence and offered them as proof that the goal of breaking away from Spain is not a utopian fantasy.

Espiau also sees Kosovo as offering hope, but for a different reason. Kosovo's situation is very different, but it does show that the future of a nation can be negotiated. He said the same goes for Belgium and Scotland.

Espiau said he hopes the EU will support the Basque region's effort to hold a "peace vote" that would open a dialogue with the Spanish government. For the most part, the EU has maintained that the Basque problems are internal and has refrained from getting involved.

Paul Rios, who coordinates Lokarri, a group which advocates dialogue instead of violence in the Basque region, said when looked at from a long-term point of view, there is reason for optimism. He's called the ETA a dinosaur. It's the last violent national conflict in Western Europe and with the vast majority of society against ETA, the group simply can't last much longer, he feels.

"It's one thing to say that the situation today is very complicated," Rios said. "But we are on an irreversible road to peace."

Trinity Hartman

Even more important, we are on an irreversible road to independence, despite setbacks and despite the violence generated by Madrid and Paris.

.... ... .

Nothing Has Changed / Ezer Ez Da Aldatu

The Basque newspaper Gara is broadcasting this video produced by TAT.

This is the text that goes with the video:

Once again, you will read the report we didn't want to write. The report which collects the testimonies of people who have known the hell. This year the report has 42 testimonies, ¿when will come the last one?

At the same time, people who have suffered torture in the last 30 years have looked us to the eyes and have composed a poem. We have recorded them in a DVD. The look in their eyes and their words. The eyes and the words that have known the darkness.

XXIst Century, 8th year. When the hushed up screams of the tortured people will wake us up?

On sale with Gara newspaper on saturday 9th of February and sunday 10th of February. 9,95€

We must demand from Madrid to stop the widespread practice of torture against the Basques and many other groups that are easy prey to the repressive forces in authoritarian Spain represented by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and led by Juan Carlos Borbon.

.... ... .

The Poisonous Issue

More about Kosovo and how the push for independence of the "ethnic" Albanians is wreaking havoc in Europe.

The note you're about to read was published at a news outlet from India with its own issues concerning breakaway nations.

Here you have it:

EU states vow not to recognise Kosovo's independence bid

2 Feb 2008, 0743 hrs IST,AFP

ATHENS: As the European Union struggles for a unified response to Kosovo's expected declaration of independence, several EU states - mainly those near the Serb province - fear the move could destabilise the historically volatile Balkan region.

"Certain countries fear that a unilateral declaration of independence threatens peace in the Balkans, while others are concerned about a negative precedent in international law," a European diplomat in Athens said.

"And then there is Spain, which faces its own separatist movement," he said.

Romania, Cyprus and Slovakia were the loudest to state their opposition this week, all vowing not to recognise Kosovo if it declares independence.

Greece and Bulgaria are also wary of potentially explosive border changes in their area while Spain and Slovakia cannot ignore the possible effects on their respective Basque and Hungarian minorities.

Spain faces an additional challenge as its northeastern region of Catalonia has long sought greater autonomy.

"What message are we sending to multi-ethnic societies or to other states that are facing ethnic issues or frozen conflicts?" Romanian President Traian Basescu said in a conference in Brussels.

"We could be casting a shadow on the United Nations charter and the Helsinki Final Act," he said, adding that these are "laws which guaranteed 60 years of peace in Europe".

Slovak Foreign Minister Jan Kubis struck a similar tone on Friday after a meeting with Serbian counterpart Vuk Jeremic, arguing that unilateral steps have "a great destabilisation potential".

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders are expected to announce in coming days that they are breaking away from Serbia, a move opposed by Belgrade and its ally Russia.

The United States stands ready to recognise an independent Kosovo, as are many European Union states, with the EU set to deploy a justice mission to the territory to help oversee the transition from UN to local rule.

Greece has not publicly said whether it will recognise Kosovo, but the Greeks are averse to a unilateral move influenced by external pressure, says Theodore Kouloumbis from the Greek Foundation for Foreign and European Politics (ELIAMEP), pointing to Washington's keen interest in the affair.

Bulgaria - which has a 350-kilometre (220-mile) border with Serbia and lies only 45 kilometres east of Kosovo - is just as guarded in its statements.

"We will not be among the states to immediately recognise an independent Kosovo," Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov said Wednesday, while his foreign minister last month said that Bulgaria's position is "closer to that of the US than that of Russia."

Cyprus - which holds elections on February 17 - has seen all this before.

The island has been divided into ethnic Greek and Turkish parts since 1974, and the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) declared independence in 1983, though it is only recognised by Turkey.

"Cyprus, for reasons of principle, cannot recognise and will not recognise a unilateral declaration of independence," Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis said on Thursday.

"This is an issue of principle, of respect of international law, but also an issue of concern that it will create a precedent in international relations," Erato added.

In Spain's case, Kosovo is already being held up as an example by separatists in the northern Basque Country.

In January, leaders of armed Basque separatist group ETA sought to justify their own push for independence from Spain by naming Kosovo and Scotland as examples in an interview in the online edition of Basque newspaper Gara.

The unnamed ETA leaders pointed to the example of Kosovo and Scotland to argue that the group "is not talking about utopias".

While Spain officially refuses to link the two cases, Spanish officials privately admit that Kosovo is a "poisonous" issue for Madrid.

The funny thing is that while the "ethnic" Albanians started talking about independence barely ten years ago, the Basques have been demanding to get their sovereignty back for the last five hundred years, so, who is setting the example for whom?

And how come that the AFP never mentions the KLN when referring to Kosovo? Have they forgotten how many "ethnic" Serbian civilians have been murdered since NATO forces started shielding the "ethnic" Albanian armed group?

.... ... .

Wait a Moment

Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has lost all touch with the real world.

Check out this note by Reuters brought to us by Yahoo News:

Spanish PM rules out more talks with ETA rebels

Reuters - Monday, January 14 08:57 am

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's prime minister has ruled out any chance of attempting peace talks with Basque separatist rebels ETA if he wins a parliamentary election on March 9.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a Socialist who broke off an earlier attempt at negotiations with ETA late in 2006, told Monday's edition of newspaper El Mundo that the organisation's only option was unilateral surrender.

"I don't see any chance, in the next parliament, of a dialogue process like that which took place," Zapatero said.

"The only possibility is a unilateral end to ETA."

The government ended peace talks after less than a year when ETA, which wants independence for ancient Basque territories in Spain and France, bombed a car park at Madrid airport in December 2006 and killed two people sleeping in their cars.

ETA also shot dead two undercover policemen last year.

It was the third failed attempt at peace talks by a Spanish government with ETA. The rebel organisation, whose full name means Basque Homeland and Freedom, has killed more than 800 people since its formation four decades ago in the final days of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

The Basque question is set to be a major issue in March's elections. The conservative opposition, narrowly trailing the Socialists in opinion polls, accuses the government of putting the future of Spain at risk by contacts with the separatists.

Since the end of talks, authorities have arrested leading members of ETA's alleged political wing Batasuna and staged regular round-ups of suspected guerrillas.

Polls show most inhabitants of the Spanish Basque Country, which already has considerable autonomy over areas such as education and health, do not want to split from Madrid.

But the region's government says it wants a debate about its relationship with the rest of Spain.

(Reporting by Jason Webb; Editing by Dominic Evans)

He rules out more talks?

When did he actually talked to them in the first place?

Rodriguez Zapatero squandered a great opportunity of a peaceful resolution of the Basque conflict when he decided to woe the votes of those who fluctuate between the PSOE and the PP depending on which party stages more repressive measures against the Basque right to self determination. This is why Zapatero ordered ETA's negotiators to be arrested during the armed group's ceasefire.

How can you establish a dialogue with someone if you incarcerate that person? How can a negotiator go back to his people and present the result of a negotiation if that person ends behind bars?

The stark truth is that Rodriguez Zapatero torpedoed the Peace Process for the Basque Country because that attitude provides him with political benefits. He was busted lying when Basque newspaper Gara reported that ETA continued its efforts to talk to Zapatero even after the bombing in Madrid's airport in December of 2006, this note by Reuters is nothing else that what politicians call "damage control". They did talk, only that Zapatero was not listening.

.... ... .

Act of Revenge

Madrid has been exposed as a totalitarian and colonialist minded regime. During the past months the Basque society engaged in a peace process that Zapatero and his fellow members at the PSOE torpedoed at any chance he had. Not reported by the mean stream media, Zapatero even arrested the ETA envoys who offered to lay down the weapons, thus betraying the truce and openly telling the world that they lied when Madrid claimed that they would talk to ETA only after an unilateral disarm.

Well, incensed by the Basque compromise to a peace process that aimed at a political resolution of the Basque conflict, now Zapatero is rabidly going after everyone, just like Aznar did before him. And Zapatero is in a hurry because he knows that the backwards Spanish electorate could reinstate the Franco styled Partido Popular back in power next year, how can he forget the millions who voted for Rajoy during the past electoral process even after Aznar and the members of the PP where caught with their pants down trying to place the blame of the attacks in Madrid on the Basques knowing that all the evidence pointed at retaliation for Aznar's support of Bush's genocidal war in Iraq.

Here you have an article published by Gara that talks about how Zapatero is now striking back at all of those who demonstrated that the Basques stand for peace while the Spaniards stand for colonialist domination:

GARA > Ultima hora >

POLICE CRACKDOWN AGAINST THE PRO-INDEPENDENCE LEFT

Batasuna leader says PSOE is out for revenge against the nationalist Left

“The PSOE [Spanish Socialist Party] is looking for revenge and wants to punish the Basque nationalist Left for the position they adopted in the [recently failed] negotiations,” charged Pernando Barrena in response to Thursday night’s police operation against members of the leadership of the Basque political party Batasuna, in which 23 people have been arrested.

05/10/2007 20:50:00

DONOSTIA-. “It is perfectly clear to us that yesterday’s police operation was a political crackdown with the complicity of the Public Prosecutor’s office targeting the Basque pro-independence movement, in order to punish the movement and take revenge because the nationalist Left stuck to its guns in the negotiations and wouldn’t give in to the conditions the PSOE had tried to force on it,” explained Pernando Barrena, a prominent member of Batasuna’s collective leadership, outside Martutene prison where several of his arrested colleagues are now being held.


Mr Barrena was in the company of Bairbre de Brun and Pat Rice, politicians belonging to the Irish Sinn Féin party who had come to Martutene to visit Arnaldo Otegi, Batasuna’s chief spokesperson, who is also now in prison.


Sharing his thoughts about Thursday’s operation, Mr Barrena expressed indignation at the way in which the arrests had been carried out, violating the right of assembly, and at night-time. He pointed out that when the leaders now arrested were previously summoned by the Spanish court to declare they had presented themselves of their own free will and in an orderly fashion.


In Thursday night’s flash raid, hooded Spanish police officers positioned themselves in the street in the small Gipuzkoan town where the Batasuna leadership were holding a meeting, and forced them into police vehicles as they were leaving the premises. In Mr Barrena’s mind there can be only one explanation: “The judge himself aims to provoke and foster public alarm, which only actually exists in his own mind.”


But he added that only a few months away from upcoming elections, the ruling Spanish party, PSOE, “needs to make a show to the Spanish of its capacity to be even more ruthless than the PP [the right-wing opposition party] when it wants to, when striking against the Basque pro-independence camp.”


Pernando Barrena was insistent that the Basque nationalist Left is strongly committed to seeking “a solution and a peace deal” as a way out of the present political conflict, and had the following message for the Madrid government: “The PSOE government has no quarrel with the 23 people it has just arrested, or even with the whole movement of the nationalist Left. Their quarrel is with a people that wish to be their own masters. Their quarrel is with Euskal Herria.”


Finally, Mr Barrena called on Basques to reject these arrests and take part in protests to denounce them, and to let the PSOE know “that they have gone too far and that there is no room for such behaviour in the present political scenario; and tell them that what the Basque Country needs is a political settlement that will lead to peace and respect for all people’s rights”.

~ ~ ~

ETA Speaks Out

This note appeared at the International Herald Tribune, it talks about how Zapatero forgot all about a peace process to bring a political solution to the so called "Basque conflict" and instead applied all the resources of its government to obtain a total victory over ETA, forgetting about his promises and his alleged compromise with his own people.

Here you have the note:

Basque separatist group ETA says it will continue militancy in Spain

The Associated Press
Published: September 9, 2007

Madrid, Spain: The Basque separatist group ETA plans to continue its militant campaign against the Spanish state to promote its political aims, it said in a statement published Sunday.

"ETA will continue to hit against the structures of the Spanish state on all fronts until it can achieve democratic conditions which would allow for the defense of all political projects in the Basque Country," the statement said.

It appeared in the early edition of the Basque newspaper Gara — a publication often used as a conduit for communication by the group — and in the online version of Basque newspaper Berria.

ETA is considered a terrorist organization by Spain, the European Union and the United States.

In the statement, the group claimed responsibility for recent explosions in the town of Belagoa and at the Tour de France cycle race in July and a police station in Durango in August, as well as for a blown-up van in a field in Castellon. It also said its efforts to broker an end to the conflict had failed.

"All of ETA's efforts at the negotiating table to drive forward a resolution process which could answer the rights of the Basque Country have failed," the statement said.

In its first statement since it called off its self-imposed cease-fire, ETA blamed the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for the breakdown in negotiations, saying the ruling Socialist party was "seeking to deactivate the Basque independence movement."

ETA declared a cease-fire in March 2006 and — despite blowing up a five-story car park at Madrid airport in December — maintained it was still in force until June when it called off the truce.

The statement said Zapatero's approach to Basque separatism had been "devoid of political content, aiming in the end just at defeat."

The Basque Nationalist Party, which rules the region, also faced ETA's anger for trying to "rupture" the nationalist movement.

ETA has often railed against the party, accusing it of not being interested in independence and of giving in to the government.

In June, when the cease-fire was formally called off, ETA blamed the party and the government, for the end of the truce.

In San Sebastian, a northern port city in the Basque Country, regional police on Sunday broke up a rally in support of ETA prisoners and detained several protesters, including Juan Maria Olano, spokesman for the Pro Amnesty movement Askatasuna. Protesters had been warned before the rally that the Interior Ministry had outlawed the demonstration, officials said. One policeman was seriously injured during the arrests, official said.

ETA, whose name stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom, has been waging a violent and explosion-marred campaign that has killed more that 800 people since the late 1960s. Its aim is to carve out an independent Basque state in parts of northern Spain and southwestern France.

Well, I can see that the "800 paragraph" has been reworked to look even more ominous.

~~~

Spanish Government Foiled Peace Accord

Like I said, the Spanish political class is full of spineless cowards. First they torpedoed the peace negotiations, now they deny how close they were to clinching a commitment to disarm by ETA. People need to know this so they can finally learn which side prefers violence over peaceful coexistence.

This article was published at EITb:

Government denies contacts, Gara daily offers more details

According to the Basque daily the socialitst party PSOE "rejected a political agreement after the armed group committed to dismantle its military structures as consequence of the process."

Spokesman of socialist group in Spain's Chamber of Deputies, Diego Lopez Garrido, maintained Sunday "it is obvious Spanish government have had no kind of political agreement with the armed group."

During a press conference, Garrido denied what Gara newspaper has been publishing during the last days about meetings, contacts and agreements between Spanish Government, the armed group ETA, socialist party PSOE and outlawed Basque party Batasuna.

According to Gara's Sunday edition, last May 21 took place "the definitive meeting" for a resolution process, a meeting in which "only participated delegations of PSOE and Batasuna. The first rejected the proposal of a political agreement."

The Basque newspaper unveiled ETA would have stopped its armed struggle and dismantle its military structures, if they reached a global commitment and brought the process to its end.

Garrido insisted that "a political agreement would never be accepted with a group of criminals and terrorists." This kind of information comes from "the terrorist milieu, who lack all credibility." Spanish Government’s position was clear, he added.

How about that last sentence, sounds to me like he is talking about the government that he represents.

.... ... .

Allowed to Participate

Seems like clown judge Baltasar Garzón has discovered the sliced bread. He says that there is no links between ANV to ETA nor to Batasuna. All of this charade framed within the Franco style Spanish Law of Political Parties, a painful reminder that in Spain the political class is all too kin on slipping back to the authoritarian style regimes of their recent past.

Here you have the article that appeared at Yahoo News:

Spain allows Basque party to operate, says no links to ETA

Sat Apr 28, 4:45 PM ET

A recently revived Basque political party will be allowed to operate after Spanish authorities could find no links to the armed group ETA or its outlawed political wing, a top judge said Saturday.

The Eusko Abertzale Akintza-Action Nationalist Basque party (EAE-ANV) can legally operate and will not be subject to the ban applying to the Batasuna party, judge Baltasar Garzon ruled.

He based his judgment on a police report that said, "We cannot determine that ANV is an instrument of ETA-Batasuna, even though it has some affinities in terms of its goals."

Garzon said in a written decision that certain elements of the party seem to show "the proximity, the influence and the possible participation of Batasuna ... in the preparation of electoral lists." But he said the party's leaders did not have links with ETA.

The EAE-ANV was one of the founding elements of Batasuna in 1978, but had been inoperative until recently. Its sudden revival to put up candidates for May 27 municipal and regional elections aroused suspicions that ETA's political wing was trying to sneak into the polls.

Batasuna has been prohibited as a party since 2003 because of its ties to ETA, which has been blamed for over 800 deaths in its four-decade campaign to achieve independence for the Basque region in northern Spain and southern France.

ETA's political arm won 10 percent of the vote in regional elections in 2001 and 20 percent in 1999 municipal elections.

In March, Batasuna presented a new party, Abertzale Sozialisten Batasuna, to contest the May elections, but it too is expected to be banned, as are supposedly apolitical "citizen lists" inspired by Batasuna.

A candidate on one of the lists, Gorka Murillo, was ordered detained by Garzon Saturday for suspected membership of ETA, following his arrest in the northern province of Navarra.

Documents allegedly found at his home included photographs of Spanish military vehicles, suggesting possible targets for a new armed ETA unit said to have been smashed by police at the end of last March.

Batasuna leader Joseba Permach said Saturday the pro-independence movement's absence from elections would mean "an enormous failure" for the peace process, according to Basque newspaper Gara.

ETA declared a permanent ceasefire in March last year that was shattered by a December 30 bombing at Madrid airport. The bombing wrecked tentative attempts by Spain's socialist government to engage in a dialogue with ETA on reaching a political settlement for the region's future.

Amazing, check out this paragraph by renown torturer Garzón:"even though it has some affinities in terms of its goals."

Those goals being the goals of a large portion of the Basque people, the self determination of their nation. So, by that reasoining, every single Basque that wishes for his or her country to be free from the occupation of Spain and France has affinities with ETA, what a twisted logic I would say, but that is infamous judge Garzón for you.

And how about the last paragrpah, it is useless to try to get these so called journalists to stop repeating the propaganda that Madrid feeds them.

~ ~ ~

The Trecherous Spanish Government

Rodríguez Zapatero wanted a firestorm?

How about the recently undisclosed information that his government (as usual) did not fullfill their promises and compromises?

Even after ETA had given up its own part in the Peace Process in behalf of the Basque political parties and the Spanish government, Rodríguez refused to live up to the word given.

Here is the note by EITb that puts the spot light on Madrid's treachery:

ETA- Government meeting

Government admitted the importance of a Basque political agreement

01/18/2007

The Basque armed group ETA and the Spanish Government talked during their last meeting in December about "a political agreement between the Basque parties" as a "key-solution" to unfreeze the peace talks, the Basque newspaper Gara assured today. The Spanish Government "promised not to block the negotiations between Basque political parties so that they could reach an agreement", informed the newspaper.

The newspaper assures that both manifested their desire to continue peace talks, but made clear that a political agreement between the Basque political parties would be fundamental.

According to Gara, both parts confirmed during the December meeting that the peace talks were freezing.

ETA's proposal

The Basque newspaper also assured that ETA presented to the Spanish Government a global proposal to develop the peace process when a political agreement would be reached to resolve the Basque conflict.

This proposal and the Spanish Government’s one should be analyzed by both, at least if the Spanish President didn’t put an end to the dialogue.

The meeting also treated the Basque-prisoners-issue. The Basque armed group asked, according to the newspaper, to respect the Basque prisoners' rights and to stop the use of exceptional measures. The group also asked the Government "to respect all the guarantees linked to the agreements that gave place to the cease-fire". They warned that "policial and judicial attacks" and the situation of Basque prisoner Iñaki de Juana Chaos (nowadays in hunger strike) could "blow up the process".

~ ~ ~

ETA's Renewed Compromise

ETA expressed its commitment to the Peace Process in the Basque Country.

Here is the note by EITb:

Statement

Basque armed band ETA affirms March 24 cease-fire still holds

01/09/2007

Basque armed group ETA insisted Tuesday that a cease-fire it declared in March still stands, even as it claimed responsibility for a Dec. 30 car bombing that killed two people in Madrid. ETA made its assertion in a statement sent to the pro-independence newspaper Gara.

ETA said it did not mean to cause casualties in the attack, accusing the government of failing to evacuate the parking garage targeted at Madrid's airport despite three warning calls pointing out exactly where the car bomb was parked. The airport was largely evacuated, but both victims were sleeping in parked cars.

ETA blamed the Spanish Government and the governing Socialist Party for "placing obstacles endlessly in the democratic process," Gara said in a summary of what it called a long Basque-language statement.

Hours before ETA's statement, the government announced the arrest of two suspected ETA members in southern France linked to arms caches found in late December and last week in the Basque region. They were the first arrests since the Madrid car bombing.

Peace process, in danger

ETA and its political supporters had been warning in recent months that continued arrests and trials of suspected ETA members were endangering the peace process, which was launched with its announcement March 22 of a "permanent" cease-fire. It had been demanding, and the government refusing, the transfer of ETA prisoners from jails around Spain to prisons in the Basque region.

Spain's Government has responded to the bombing by scrapping plans for negotiations with ETA and declaring the once-promising peace process terminated.

Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said he had not immediately read ETA's statement, but his initial impression was that "ETA has only one path left to take, which is to end the violence."

Right to "respond"

In its statement, ETA reiterated a claim that the government had made, and was not keeping, unspecified promises as part of the process that began with the truce.

The group wants to promote the peace process, but reserves the right to "respond" if what it calls government aggression against the pro-independence movement continues, Gara reported.

ETA insisted progress in the peace process must come from a "political agreement" that includes "the minimum democratic rights owed to the Basque Country,'' an apparent allusion to Basques long-standing demands to be able to decide between independence and remaining part of Spain.

Demand to halt fruitless "police formulas and policies"

It called on the government to halt "police formulas and failed policies that lead nowhere," said Gara, which did not publish a full text of the ETA statement.

The explosion destroyed a five-story parking garage at Madrid airport, which in addition to killing the two Ecuadorean immigrants, injured 26 people.

Until now, ETA had not claimed responsibility for the bombing but a caller warning of the blast said he represented the group.

It was time for Rodriguez to be exposed in all his mendacity. He is no different from Aznar or Felipe Gonzalez (the creator of the state sponsored terrorist group known as GAL, that on top of the regular terrorist organization known as Guardia Civil). He thought he could bring ETA to the negotiating table while steping up the Spanish repression in Euskal Herria. And while Rodriguez was using the international forums to claim he was engaged in a peace process, all the while he was hammering down on one of the columns of peace, justice.

Now, if only Rodríguez and his PSOE and Rajoy and his PP can get it through their thick heads that they need to stop their genocidal violence against the Basque people, maybe in the near future we can finally see justice served, which in turn will usher a new age of peace.

Read that again, justice first, and then peace will take place as part of a natural process.

~ ~ ~

Save Iñaki de Juana

This comes to us thanks to Euskal Diaspora:

The Basque political prisoner Iñaki de Juana Chaos began on August 7th a hunger strike to demand the respect to his constitutional right to be released from prison.

Iñaki of Juana should have left jail on October 25th 2004, after having completed his 18 years jail sentence. But the judge of the first penal instance of Spain's Audiencia Nacional, Gómez Bermúdez initiated on October 22nd, a process aimed at disallowing the reduction sentence claiming that the Basque political prisoner had worked, which resulted on a judiciary decision to extend de Juana's incarceration. Facing the impossibility to justify this decision, the judge asked then for the preventive detention against him for a presumed offense of adherence to armed organization and terrorist threats. In order to initiate this new procedure, the judge used as evidence two articles of opinion that Iñaki de Juana penned, same that were published by the newspaper Gara. It would be quite impossible to find in these articles sufficient legal weight to substantiate these accusations.

On June 14th 2006, a judicial ruling by judge Santiago Pedraz of Spain's Audiencia Nacional was published. According to this judge, within those afore mentioned articles, Iñaki de Juana expressed his support to the Movement of Basque National Liberation (MLNV), and that this movement "cannot be compared to ETA ". He added "that this movement had not been qualified as a terrorist organization" and therefore he considered that the accusation of issued threats was not proven. This unleashed a national media campaign against the judge's decision. The head of the Ministry of Justice, Juan Fernando López Aguilar declared: "We will fabricate new accusations to stop his release from jail". The head of the Fiscal Ministry, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, stated: "We will continue to oppose his release from jail within the frame of what is legally possible" after openly decrying judge Pedraz's decision. This situation pushed the section three of the penal instance of Spain's Audiencia Nacional to declare an annulment of the decision by judge Pedraz while considering that de Juana made "an open display" of his adherence to ETA in the published articles, citing that the content, according to the indictment "clearly reveals a possible terrorist threat ", requesting a new sentence of 96 years of jail.

One more time we witness a brutal initiative on behalf of the head of the Spanish government and the court known as the Audiencia Nacional, an institution that does not respect the most fundamental principles in Spain's body of laws, an institution with a declared goal, to ensure that not a single Basque political prisoner is released from jail even after having fulfilled the entirety of their jail sentences. The Spanish reasoning, based in pure political vengeance, is that Iñaki de Juana and other Basque political prisoners, didn't not serve their jail sentences in the time terms to which the courts had sentenced them. Thus, the government of Zapatero pretends to promote a situation of "life terms" against the collective of Basque political prisoners while violating the universal right to the release of those prisoners who have completed their jail terms. Even more, this situation takes place at a very politically sensitive moment, just when some possibilities of resolution of the conflict that has confronted the Basque people and the Spanish state for several decades opened up, a time in which the Spanish government attacks the most basic rights of the Basque political prisoners in order to make even more difficult the democratic resolution of the political conflict. In these circumstances, Iñaki decided that he didn't have any other way out than to begin an hunger strike, even though it could imply his death. We ask for your active solidarity with Iñaki and we issue a call to the international community to denounce the inconsistency of the facts on which this new accusation is based and to ask for his right to be liberated.

Let's save Iñaki´s life!!!

~ ~ ~

Crisis

Is quite obvious that the Spanish government does not desire a peaceful resolution for the political conflict with Euskal Herria, they've been holding on to the "glory" of their colonialist past at every step of their relationship with the Basque people.

This article published by EITb tells us just how bad the situation is with the present peace process:

Statement

ETA says peace process is now "in a clear situation of crisis''

08/18/2006

The band explicitly referred to the governing party in the Basque Autonomous Region and that in the Spanish State, and warned that "if the attacks continue against Euskal Herria, ETA will respond."

The armed Basque group ETA said Friday that the peace process launched in Spain with its cease-fire declaration five months ago is now in crisis, accusing politicians of delaying steps toward a settlement of the conflict.

The band explicitly referred to Basque Nationalist Party PNV, governing party in the Basque Autonomous Region, and Socialist Party PSOE, governing party in the Spanish State.

In a communiqué issued to Basque Country newspapers Gara and Berria, ETA said the peace process was at an "impasse". It accused the government of hounding Basque nationalist politicians and threatened an unspecified "response" if this continued. "If the attacks continue against Euskal Herria (Basque country in Basque language), ETA will respond," the group said.

Thus, it made a vague warning to "respond" if the Spanish government continues what ETA called repression of Basque pro-independence militants.

In Friday's statement ETA accused the ruling Socialist party and the Basque Nationalist Party, which governs the troubled northern region, of "showing a clear will to delay the steps to be taken.'' Neither party is interested in negotiating any real changes to the Basque country's status within Spain, ETA said. And Zapatero's party just wants to make history by ending the decades-old conflict and is trying to "convert the peace process into a mere tool for staying in power.'' The peace process, it added, "is in a clear situation of crisis,'' the statement said.

ETA also repeated a charge that the Spanish government had agreed to a "cease-fire" of its own in talks leading up to the ETA truce, apparently agreeing to stop arresting ETA members. But the government is not living up to this commitment, ETA charged.

The government has repeatedly denied it made any promises with ETA to elicit the militants' cease-fire, which began in late March.

President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced formally in Parliament in late June that his government would hold talks with ETA on getting it to dissolve. The government is to brief the legislature in September on how the peace process is going. Zapatero has said the process could take years.

ETA has been fighting since the late 1960s in its campaign for a Basque homeland straddling northern Spain and southwest France. Prior to the cease-fire announcement it had not staged a fatal attack since May 2003.

.... ... .

A Simple Request: Peace

Hopefully Madrid will finally act as a democratic state.

It depends in just how capable Rodríguez Zapatero is when it comes to fending off the efforts by the Partido Popular to derail any peace process.

Here you have the article that Reuters published in Asia about ETA's interview with the Basque newspaper Gara:

Sunday May 14, 10:49 PM

ETA wants Spain to make peace

MADRID (Reuters) - The Basque guerrilla group ETA said on Sunday it was time the Spanish government made and kept commitments to lead to a negotiated end to violent conflict.

ETA, which has sought an independent Basque country through a four-decade campaign of bombings and shootings, has observed a permanent cease-fire declared in March.

But in an interview with anonymous ETA members published in Basque language daily Gara on Sunday, the group said the government must now take the next step.

ETA members told the paper, which frequently carries its statements, an amnesty for imprisoned ETA members is a necessary part of the process.

"(We) have made our fundamental contribution to the process ... now it's up to (the government) to make and keep its commitments to provide a negotiated solution to the conflict," an ETA member was quoted as saying.

"The process needs some basic democratic conditions so it can develop. For these conditions to be guaranteed it's indispensable to stop the offensive of the (French and Spanish) states and finish with repressive attitudes," he added.

Since the cease-fire, police have continued to arrest suspected ETA members and Arnaldo Otegi, the head of banned radical party Batasuna, has appeared in court several times to answer charges of links to the violent separatists.

An amnesty for prisoners was "democratically indispensable" the ETA representative said.

The interview in Spanish and in Basque was accompanied by photographs of the editor of the newspaper sitting at a table with two hooded and masked men, similar to those who appeared in a video announcing a cease-fire.

The government said last week the group was keeping to the cease-fire after 38 years in which it has killed about 850 people.

However, the group has broken at least four such truces in the past and the government has vowed to keep a close eye on the situation to make sure the peace lasts.

.... ... .

Self-Determination

With an interview, ETA reaffirmed its commitment to peace.

It should not come as a surprise that they also remain commited to the right of the Basque people to their self determination as a nation, a right that the UN has given to all the nations in the world.

The right to self-rule (as the article calls it) belongs to the Basque, wether ETA demands it or not, wether ETA exists or not, wether France and Spain like it or not.

Here you have the note that appeared at Yahoo News:

ETA reaffirms demand for Basque self-rule

Sun May 14, 12:29 PM ET

The armed Basque group ETA has stated publicly for the first time since a ceasefire declaration in March that it still demands self-determination for the Basque Country.

"The final agreement ... must be negotiated in terms of self-determination and territoriality, for these are the keys to overcoming the conflict," two leading ETA members told the Basque daily newspaper Gara in a rare interview, published Sunday.

"Without solving these problems, it is impossible to overcome the conflict and reach a democratic solution," the newspaper quoted them as saying, without naming the pair.

With the ceasefire, "ETA has already made its principle contribution to provising an impulse for the (peace) process," the two ETA members said, adding it was now for the politicians to "fulfil their commitments."

Gara showed pictures of two ETA members wearing hoods topped off by Basque-style berets, the same garb as worn by fellow activists who announced the ceasefire on March 22.

Spanish First Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega reacted by saying that the government "does not comment on ETA statements."

Ruling Socialist Party spokesman Jose Blanco said that "what interests us is what ETA does, not what it says," and insisted Madrid would pay no political price for peace.

The ceasefire followed a 38-year struggle for an independent Basque homeland in northeastern Spain and southwestern France during which more than 800 people died.

The ceasefire statement, which did not directly address the self-determination issue, prompted a cautious response among Spaniards, given that earlier ceasefires broke down in 1989 and 1998-99.

"The time has come to honor commitments in the democratic process," the ETA members told Gara.

They also demanded amnesty for some 680 ETA members whom they consider political prisoners being held in jails in Spain and France.

Most observers say the prisoners' fate is essential to the peace process, but polls show that most Spaniards reject a prisoner amnesty.

The two ETA members also called on France to stop viewing the Basque conflict as an internal issue for Spain and to get involved in the peace process.

"What the Spanish and French governments must do is show a clear attitude to providing an exit from the conflict by means of negotiation," the pair said.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose-Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has held talks in recent weeks with other Spanish political leaders in a bid to gain support for possible peace talks with ETA in the summer.

The main conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) has criticised the government's willingness to hold out the prospect of sitting down with ETA and sees Zapatero as too ready to offer concessions in return for an end to violence.

On Sunday, Jaime Mayor Oreja, a European parliament lawmaker and chairman of the main conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) in the Basque region, dubbed the ceasefire merely a form of "political negotiation with which ETA expects to achieve self-determination."

Oreja told Catholic broadcaster Cope radio he had no faith in defence ministry reports describing the ceasefire as fully applied, a description which Zapatero last month said he subscribed to on the basis of intelligence passed to him.

Oreja warned against "false euphoria" and said ETA had not changed.

"ETA has changed nothing -- totalitarian and nationalistic organisations cannot change."

In contrast, Socialist Party parliamentary spokesman Diego Lopez Garrido urged the PP to back government moves to foster peace.

"The definitive end of the terrorist group requires a joint position and real cooperation between all political groups," he insisted.

.... ... .

Democratic Dialogue

Seems like the commitment to peace by ETA is taking a lot of naysayers by surprise.

Here you have the article about the interview by Basque newspaper Gara with two ETA members:

Basque separatists ETA, in rare interview, appeal for dialogue

Sat May 13, 5:51 AM ET

The Basque separatist group ETA, in a rare interview, declared that democratic debate was the key to peace for the long-restive Spanish region.

Basque daily newspaper Gara, which has traditionally been used by ETA to publicise its demands, said its exclusive interview with the organisation had been translated into Castillian Spanish from the original Basque because of its "journalistic importance" given the current political situation.

It said ETA, which in the past has shunned media interviews, had "answered all the questions that arise from the current political situation".

"(For ETA) the key to the process lies in democratic debate in Euskal Herria (the Basque country)," the paper reported on its website Saturday.

ETA declared a unilateral ceasefire in late March, following a nearly four-decade struggle for an independent Basque homeland in northwestern Spain and southwestern France during which more than 800 people died.

Regarding that last paragraph about the 800, remember that in tree hours fascist Spaniards had Nazi German pilots murdering almost 2000 Basque women and children, and not one of those who took part on or ordered that genocidal attack on Gernika ever saw the inside of a prison cell.

.... ... .

Basque Victims of Torture in Spain

For some reason I forgot to mention the report by the Clearing House from Australia concerning their investigation on torture carried out in Spain against Basque political prisoners.

Then this morning, Mizgin, author of the blog Rasti about Kurdish issues, sent me an email about the coverage by Istanbul Indymedia (Turkey) about this note.

Well, here you have it:

The Spanish Inquisition

(By the way, it takes too long for the video to show, so, if you want to see it, you can go to the web edition of Basque newspaper Gara)

For years now, the Basque people of Spain have alleged that Spanish police have regularly tortured suspects, arrested for having connections with the Basque separatist group ETA. Recently, those allegations have been backed up by the UN Human Rights Commission.

Broadcast Dateline 06/05/06 - SBS Australia

REPORTER: David O’Shea

Four years ago, Susana Alesanco and Juan Cortes were like any other couple getting on with their lives.

SUSANA ALESANCO, (Translation): I was 31 years old, I was at university, on a research project, I was… things were fine with me. I had my partner, my life was fine.

But on January 17, 2002, their world fell apart. Heavily armed police raided Susana’s family home. This is actual footage of the arrest.

SUSANA ALESANCO, (Translation): Lots of cops entered my home carrying torches and machine guns. It was like a scene from a movie.

The police suspected that Susana and Juan belonged to the violent Basque separatist group ETA. They were taken to a secret location in Madrid for interrogation. Under Spain’s tough anti-terror laws, they could be held incommunicado for up to five days, isolated from their families and lawyers.

SUSANA ALESANCO, (Translation): I had no idea why I was there, they asked me so many questions, about my friends, about who I went out with, about my brothers. Thousands of questions about where I had worked, about the trips I had taken. I got the feeling that everything I’d done in my life had been a crime.

Like thousands of Basques before her, Susana alleges she was tortured during the five days she was held incommunicado. Basque human rights activists produced these images which recreate some of the torture commonly described by former prisoners.

SUSANA ALESANCO, (Translation): Without a doubt the worst moment of all, the worst experience was in the last interrogation when, when they simulated a rape. They positioned me, ready to rape me. For three days they had been threatening to rape me. By that stage I , by then I was convinced they’d do it.

Susana says that she was deprived of sleep, sexually assaulted, asphyxiated, threatened with execution, and electrocuted - all methods of torture which inflicted pain without leaving marks.

SUSANA ALESANCO, (Translation): They kept me naked, threw water on me, they applied electricity to me….it’s hard to believe these things can happen in a democracy and very hard to prove. But that is what happened to me, I went through that and by the fourth day I couldn’t stand it any longer.

REPORTER (Translation): So there was a point where they broke you?

SUSANA ALESANCO, (Translation): Yes, that is right, completely.

At that point Susana signed a statement saying that Juan was a member of ETA and that she was a collaborator. This admission was later retracted. Since that time Susana and Juan have been out on conditional release, awaiting trial. They face a 7-year sentence.

Susana’s story is not unique. Theo Van Boven, the former United Nations special rapporteur on torture, has looked at scores of similar cases and concludes the Spanish police torture to extract confessions.

THEO VAN BOVEN, FORMER UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON TORTURE: The suspects will be softened up after torture and they will sign statements, the type of statements the government wishes them to make. That's one thing. And I think also that torture has quite a long tradition in this country. We had the Franco dictatorship up till - what is it? - 1975. And so it has been rooted, I think, in a long history and you don’t wipe that out from one day to another.

The government in Madrid dismisses torture allegations, saying they are part of ETA strategy to discredit the Spanish state. Antonio Camacho is the powerful Secretary of State for Security.

REPORTER (Translation): In 2006 there’s still torture in Spain, How can this be?

ANTONIO CAMACHO, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SECURITY, (Translation): Look, this government is very clear abot this, and our daily polices demonstrate it, that we will not accept any kind of torture.

While the Spanish Government says it will not accept torture, the well-known case of Unai Romano is difficult to explain. This is his photo before and after his time in police custody in September 2001. He accused the police of beating him. The government said the injuries were self-inflicted and is suing him for defamation.

The former United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Theo Van Boven, was so concerned at reports from Basque human rights groups that prisoners were being tortured, he listed Spain alongside countries like Indonesia and Uzbekistan in his 2002 report. The then Spanish government was not happy.

THEO VAN BOVEN: They thought that my report and the recommendations should be put in the wastepaper basket - that was the only suitable place where my report should stay.

So outraged was Madrid, Van Boven was invited to Spain to investigate the facts on the ground. But as he tells this Barcelona conference on torture, the government's attempts to convince him his sources were wrong backfired.

THEO VAN BOVEN: The visit in Madrid was tense and tough. The authorities - some of them - and members of parliament went far beyond a technical discussion. They wanted to give me a lecture, particularly on the Basque problem, and I could not... I just felt this was an obsession.

It’s impossible to understand the Spanish Government’s obsession with the Basques without understanding the Basque obsession with independence from Spain.

Until the 1970s Basques were not permitted to use their language, but they never lost their strong sense of national identity. In Hernani, near the French border, these people meet to sing Basque folk songs every Sunday morning. From windows around the square, people hang photos of Basques held in Spanish jails and banners demanding they be brought back to Basque prisons.

ETA has waged a horrific campaign on the Spanish state for decades. It has killed over 800 people in terrorist acts over the past 20 years. The government responds by sentencing the killers to thousands of years in prison. The current socialist government has continued the hardline response instigated by the previous conservative administration.

ANTONIO CAMACHO, (Translation): I think the struggle against terrorism has been maintained by all democratic governments throughout the history of this country. This government has been particularly careful to maintain pressure in the police struggle against ETA. And consequently, there have been more than 200 arrests in the two years or so that this government has been in power.

ETA’s bombs and the government’s draconian response have polarised opinion in Spain about the Basques.

ROSA URIZAR DE PAZ, (Translation): They think we walk around t he streets shooting people, blowing things up. They think we go around collecting revolutionary taxes and so on.

Rosa Urizar de Paz knows a lot about the struggle for independence. Her son joined ETA when he was 22 and has spent the last 15 years in prison. Rosa makes no apology for her family’s nationalism.

ROSA URIZAR DE PAZ, (Translation): This sign here means that everybody in life must sacrifice something sothat a few don’t have to sacrifice everything. That is what it means. This one was killed at the hands of the police.

Rosa’s favourite bar is clearly pro-independence. It is a virtual shrine to the many Basque prisoners.

ROSA URIZAR DE PAZ, (Translation): Look how beautiful our girls are.

Among them is a photo of her 22-year-old daughter Amaia. She was arrested in October 2004 and is still in prison. She, too, has accused the police of torture. Her case provoked outrage in the Basque country after she wrote a graphic statement describing the torture.

AMAIA, STATEMENT: They were all laughing, one of them held me by my neck while the other put the barrel of the gun in and out of my vagina and grabbed my breasts very violently. I could feel the cold metal inside me and they kept saying it was loaded and would be my fault if it went off.

ROSA URIZAR DE PAZ, (Translation): you know what hurt me the most? Have you read what she wrote about the torture? Of all those things, the thing I found most upsetting was the terrible loneliness…those poor kids suffer when incommunicado, while they’re being held by the civil guard or the police.

When Rosa visits her other daughter at work, she finds her on the phone to Amaia. Each week she is allowed a 5-minute call from her prison in Madrid.

ROSA URIZAR DE PAZ, (Translation): How are you darling? Yes Okay. How I wish I could hug you, very well my love, do you need anything? What about the dentist?

Amaia has now been in custody for 1.5 years and can be held for up to four years without trial.

ROSA URIZAR DE PAZ, (Translation): Okay my darling, I love you too darling. Bye.

On her way home Rosa bumps into a friend whose daughter is also in jail and has also complained that she was tortured.

FRIEND, (Translation): Some are eventually freed, having committed no crime at all, they have been tortured, put in jail, and they have had their lives ruined. Most of them are just kids. Just kids. Maybe because we’re talking like this we’ll get ten years and join our girls.

Outside the Basque country the allegations of torture haven’t gained much traction. Anyone with a connection to Basque nationalism tends to be dismissed as a terrorist sympathiser by the national government and media.

MARTXELO OTAMENDI, (Translation): There are many here who turn a blind eye to torture here but show concern about torture in Ireland, torture in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Palestine or Iraq

Martxelo Otamendi was arrested in 2003. He was one of nine directors of a Basque language newspaper called 'Egunkaria'. Five of them say they were tortured and they became known as 'the VIP torture victims'.

MARTXELO OTAMENDI, (Translation): At the time of all the outrage about the American torturers in that Iraqi prison, I said those images were of Egunkaria detainees. We just need to change the hood colour and swap the uniform of the marines.for the uniform of the civil guard.

Otamendi was arrested and his newspaper was shut down on the grounds that it was controlled and financed by ETA - an allegation that is yet to be proven.

In San Sebastian, thousands of people turned out for the city’s largest-ever demonstration. Meanwhile, Otamendi was being interrogated in Madrid about interviews he had conducted with the ETA high command. During the five days of incommunicado detention, he says he suffered stress positions, a mock execution, sexual harassment and asphyxiation.

MARTXELO OTAMENDI, FORMER TV PRESENTER (Translation): And then twice I was subjected to bag torture, which consists of putting a plastic bag you’re your head. And with a plastic bag over your head you feel like you are going to choke. It’s not a big plastic bag from a market with enough oxygen to last two hours, no it becomes a mask that moulds to your face, and the feeling of suffocation is immediate.

When the former TV presenter Martxelo Otamendi spoke out about his experience, it convinced many doubters that torture was indeed taking place.

MARTXELO OTAMENDI, (Translation): People wonder if they are capable of torturing the newspaper’s directors, what would they do to a 20-year-old, who’s unknown, not famous, somebody nobody knows? And someone the media won’t pay much attention to.

Otamendi believes the last conservative government ordered the closure of the paper and tortured him and the four others as a warning to other Basque nationalists.

MARTXELO OTAMENDI, (Translation): I think that with torture as I’ve said before, in the black period of the Popular Party They wanted to give Basques a shock, to frighten them, so they would give up their cause. The politicians’ plan was to close the newspaper, detain the staff and torture them. So that people would get the message that they were serious.

REPORTER, (Translation): But you don’t have any proof that it’s government policy, that’s just speculation.

MARTXELO OTAMENDI, (Translation): Yes, of course, it’s an opinion.

When the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Theo Van Boven, finished his state-sponsored tour his report to the UN Human Rights Ccommission was damning.

THEO VAN BOVEN: It is my considered view in the light of the internal consistency of the information received and the precision of factual details, that these allegations of torture and ill-treatment are certainly not all invented and practices of this kind, though not systematic, were more than sporadic and incidental.

The Spanish delegation in Geneva was furious.

SPANISH AMBASSADOR TO UN, (Translation): someone’s made a big mistake, and those who know the country and it’s problems, know who it is. On reading the report, no one with any knowledge of our country would recognise Spain in it.

When the Spanish Ambassador to the UN couldn’t believe that the proudly democratic Spain was being tainted with torture.

SPANISH AMBASSADOR TO UN, (Translation): All that’s left for me to do in the name of a truly democratic state that leads in the defence and promotion of human rights is to express disappointment and bitterness at the lost opportunity and the outrageous injustice that the rapporteur’s report represents.

It was all the worse for the ambassador because he was the one who had advised his government to invite the special rapporteur to Spain to prove that torture did not exist. Once he had read his statement, the entire delegation got up and walked out.

THEO VAN BOVEN: They were extremely - what should I say? - disappointed. "We invited him, we had a certain scenario in mind and he did not fulfil our expectations." So I think that added to the fact they reacted so strongly.

It was a difficult time for Spain. Just two weeks earlier, terrorist attacks had rocked Madrid and prime minister Aznar was voted out of office for trying to blame the attack on ETA. The new socialist government claims that torture allegations are being properly investigated.

REPORTER< (Translation): But when Basques have been detained under the regime of incommunicado detention, do you agree that there have been incidents of torture?

ANTONIO CAMACHO, (Translation): You can not generalise, each claim of torture must be investigated.

REPORTER, (Translation): Let’s look at some examples of people reported having been tortured.

ANTONIO CAMACHO, (Translation): You can tell me the allegations, but it doesn’t mean there’s a serious investigation. European countries conduct serious judicial investigations in the most appropriate manner and with the required guarantees for all parties, in order to investigate these matters. A journalistic investigation is not acceptable for a state which follows the rule of law.

In the Basque country the issue of torture still strikes a raw political nerve. Thousands of people turned up for this anti-torture rally in San Sebastian in February.

MARTXELO OTAMENDI, (Translation): The big turnout was expected, because people are pissed off with the practice of torture. Because people want it to end once and for all.

THEO VAN BOVEN: For long in Spain it was a sort of taboo subject in Spain. Officially torture did not exist, or hardly existed in this country. Now this is raised at this meeting and I think this is a beginning of a movement against torture in Spain which is important.

But despite the change of government, allegations of torture during incommunicado detention continue.

REPORTER: There is no denying the reality that last year, during the Zapatero Government, there were over 50 cases documented in the Basque country of torture again. So, I mean, 50 too many, no?

THEO VAN BOVEN: It is apparently a practice that is very persistent so therefore I think in addition to accommodating and changing the political climate there must be a firmer position taken on the issues of torture also by the present government.

REPORTER: Do you see that ever happening?

THEO VAN BOVEN: Well, I'm hopeful.

The present government is clearly sensitive about the persistent allegations of torture.

REPORTER, (Translation): There are many people and many organisations, including Human Rights Watch, the Council of Europe, Amnesty International and 37 groups that met in Barcelona that have agreed that there is torture here in incommunicado detention…

ANTONIO CAMACHO, (Translation): Which country in the European Union, hasn’t had cases of torture reported?

REPORTER, (Translation): In the European Union as far as I know, Mr Theo van Bovan, the former rapporteur, said that there used to be in Northern Ireland, but now most of the allegations concern Spain.

ANTONIO CAMACHO, (Translation): Turn that off for a moment…

REPORTER, (Translation): No…

ANTONIO CAMACHO, (Translation): Turn it off for a moment! Let’s talk about the terms of this interview, turn it off. Turn it off for a moment.

MARTXELO OTAMENDI, (Translation): The Spanish government won’t own up to torture until a solution to the Basque conflict is found.

REPORTER, (Translation): Why can’t they admit it before then?

MARTXELO OTAMENDI, (Translation): Because if they do they will go to jail. The Minister would go to jail, it would be like in Argentina and Chile, where senior police and military officers are being prosecuted. In 20 years time some judges will start doing that here too. But I want this done now.

The prospects for a political solution to the Basque problem took a dramatic turn for the better last month. For the first time in its history ETA declared a permanent cease-fire as a prelude to negotiations.

ETA, (Translation): At the end of this process Basque citizens must have the final word and decide on their future.

Any decision on the future for the Basque country is going to have to deal with the issue of torture which has poisoned trust in the Spanish Government.

PEOPLE, (Translation): We are the Basque warriors to set the Basque country free. We are prepared to give our blood for freedom. Let us warriors all go and get our flags.

After decades of violent struggle, it will not be easy to bridge the gulf of trust between the Basques and the Spanish Government.

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Thanks for the heads up Mizgin.

Update: Mizgin provides with an excellent analysis of the video about torture against Basques in Spain in his post "Similarity and its discontents". It is a must read post, mainly because of the parallels he draws between the Basque and the Kurdish situation.

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