Basque Spontaneous Poetry

This note appeared today at EITb:

Fiestas & traditions

Rooted in tradition

Bertsolaritza: Basque Country's "spontaneous poetry"

10/14/2007

Someone gives the bertsolari a topic and tells him/her which kind of verse to use. The bertsolari then creates some verses at that very moment.

Bertsolaritza (the art of the bertsolari) is a form of "poetry" that is spontaneously created from a given topic. These topics can be on anything from social problems to love.

There are many different forms of verse that are used by the Bertsolari with the most common ones being Zortziko nagusia and Zortziko txikia. Zortziko nagusia consists of alternating lines of 10 and 8 sylables. The rhyme is carried on the lines which contain 8 sylables. Zortziko txikia consists of alternating lines of 7 and 6 sylables. The rhyme for this form is carried on the 6 sylable lines.

Someone called a theme presenter gives the Bertsolari a topic such as "you have been out all night with your friends at the bar and driving home a policeman pulls you over. You must convince the policeman that although you've been drinking, you are in perfect shape to drive". The bertsolari is then told that he or she must use zotziko txikia as the meter and which tune he or she should sing his or her verse in.

Many Basque traditional songs are actually old verses made up by bertsolaris and then written down or passed orally from generation to generation. One such song is a very popular children's song in Zortziko txikia:

Maritxu Nora Zoaz Maritxu nora zoaz 7
eder galant hori 6
iturrira Bartolo 7
nahi badezu etorri 6
iturrian zer dago 7
ardotxo txuria 6
biok edango degu 7
nahi dezun guztia 6

Rap

There is quite a similarity between this art form and rap especially if you look at the rap music that is spontaneously created between individuals and not the prewritten-recorded variety that is being exported. In this rap form there is also a great variety of topics ranging from friendship to love to funny experiences.

Article published by Blas Uberaga

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Endangered Guernica

File this one under the "strangely paranoid yet somehow appealing article" tab.

In his essay titled "A Symbol of Freedom and a Target for Terrorists" that appeared at the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman speaks about the dangers that our most beloved pieces of art face every day at the different museums where they are being exhibited.

Well, he uses The Guernica as a prime example of a masterpiece that does not count with enough protection in case someone wants to damage it.

Here you have the parts of the article that refer to The Guernica:

So the other day I stopped into the Reina Sofía here to check on Picasso’s “Guernica.” The threat of violence is nothing new in Spain, where Muslim terrorists blew up commuter trains a few years ago, killing many, and where the threat of killings by Basque extremists (there was a bomb attack in Bilbao on Tuesday, a truce with the government having broken down in June) has again become part of the daily background noise of life.

Only a simple stanchion, and a discreet alarm, as I discovered when leaning too close, separates the public from Picasso’s famous mural about a midcentury act of terror: the German bombing of the ancient Basque town of Guernica in 1936. The picture presides over a big gallery of related Picassos, each a target, I suppose, if you adopt the mindset that terrorists, and those who would exploit terrorism, like to foster.

Twenty-six years ago, when the painting arrived in Madrid from New York, it was installed in a huge bulletproof glass cage at an annex of the Prado, flanked by soldiers guarding what had become an international symbol of antifascism. Picasso had wanted it to go to Spain only when Generalissimo Francisco Franco was gone. To anyone who remembered it at the Museum of Modern Art, the sight at the Prado was sad and shocking. The picture looked forlorn, suffocated. It was almost impossible to see.

It had already been vandalized at the Museum of Modern Art when a small-time artist named Tony Shafrazi sprayed the words “Kill Lies All” on it in 1974. In the creepy, amnesiac way that celebrity and money operate in America and in the art world, Mr. Shafrazi went on to become a rich and powerful art dealer.

The painting moved some years ago from the Prado to the Reina Sofía and was finally let out of its glass prison. I’ve never loved “Guernica,” to tell the truth. Its lofty ambition obscures the detriments of its telegraphed emotions and inflated billboard-size Cubism, but time only adds to its patina of glory for the crowds that come to commune with it and who can now get almost, but not quite, close enough to touch the picture.

Proximity is the cost, and virtue, of a civil and democratic society. We run the risk that some lunatic or self-promoter will violate the public trust of an open space because we value that space as a democratic ideal. Part of what’s beautiful about an art museum, aside from what’s on view, is that it implies trust — it lets us stand next to objects that supposedly represent civilization at its best and, in so doing, flatters us for respecting our common welfare.

What I want to say to Mr. Kimmelman is that I am profoundly grateful to him for the high concept (not exactly from the artistic value point of view though) he has of The Guernica and his concern that something may happen to the iconic painting.

But I also would like to remind him that while it stays in Madrid it will be surrounded by its greatest enemies. For starters, it is on display at the Queen Sofia museum and I would like to remind Mr. Kimmelman of a small detail, the museum is named after Sofia Borbón, the wife of Juan Carlos Borbón.

And who is Juan Carlos Borbón?

A fella given a lifetime job by Francisco Franco, the fascist dictator that ordered the bombing of Gernika (and Durango a couple of days earlier) because he wanted to murder as many Basques as the Nazi weaponry would allow him.

So you see Mr. Kimmelman, The Guernica is at the heart of the same fascist Madrid that the painting denounces. So, it would be a lot safer lets say, in Bilbao at the Guggenheim Museum, protected by the same Basque society that has a powerful emotional link to the painting that is a reminder of one of the worst crimes committed against the Basques by the Spaniards.

Here you have his conclusion:

Thanks to its historic authority, the aura of “Guernica” has become like a bubble or halo that psychologically separates it from the gazing mobs, never mind that there’s no longer a glass wall. Standing before it, you can almost imagine that it has, historically speaking, passed beyond harm — that to attack it now would only make the picture a martyr, that it’s indestructible.

Of course it’s not.

No, is not indestructible, one never knows when a fascist Spanish youth will cause harm to it, I mean, just in the past few weeks a 16 year old boy was stabbed to dead while opposing a Neo Nazi parade, a Colombian man was beaten by four youths that yelled "Long Live Spain!" while they were kicking him, an African youngster was so badly hurt that he is quadriplegic for life after being attacked by a gang and a teenage girl was kicked on the head in the subway by a drunken thug. All of those crimes were committed by Spanish citizens that suscribe to the Francisco Franco/Partido Popular ideology, yet, they do not get mentioned in your article.

Yes Mr. Zimmelman, there is that other violence, do not think that a certain reference to Basque violence escaped my attention.

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Garzón Exposed

This article was published by An Phoblacht:

11 October, 2007

Other News

Spanish judge targets Batasuna

BY SALLY GALLAGHER

SPANISH Judge Baltasar Garzón is back to his normal self. This you may remember is the man possessed of the peculiar notion that all defenders of the Basque right to self-determination should be considered ‘terrorists’.

On Thursday, 4 October, Judge Baltasar once again demonstrated the judicial application of this principle when he imprisoned 21 people who had been attending a meeting of pro-independence party Herri Batasuna in the village of Segura, Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country. Four of those imprisoned were later released on bail of between €10,000 and €24,000. And among those imprisoned were, coincidentally, several members of the national executive of Herri Batasuna. Some of those jailed have been charged with “membership of a terrorist organisation”.

Pernando Barrena, who has represented Batasuna at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in recent years, denounced Garzón’s decision to order the arrest and imprisonment of Batasuna’s leadership as an act of “revenge”. Garzon, he said, wants to punish the Basque nationalist Left for the position they adopted in the recently failed negotiations with the government.

Barrena did not attend the meeting in Segura as he was hosting Sinn Féin’s Bairbre de Brún MEP and Pat Rice, who had travelled to the Basque Country to visit Arnaldo Otegi, Batasuna’s chief spokesperson, imprisoned last June, in Martutene Prison.

Otegi has been a key player in promoting the peace process and a negotiated settlement in the Basque Country. Sinn Féin has called for his immediate release.

Commenting on the arrest of the national executive of Batasuna by Spanish police in Segura, a Sinn Féin spokesperson said:

“We have argued for some time that the banning of Batasuna and the jailing of its political representatives is not conducive to the successful advancement of a peace process in the region. All legal restrictions against Batasuna should be lifted.”

Pernando Barrena said that, with elections due in Spain in a few short months, the ruling Spanish Socialist 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”.

Despite this latest attack against the political representatives of the independence movement, 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. He had the following message for the Madrid government:

“The PSOE Government is not in dispute with the 23 people it has just arrested, or even with the whole of the nationalist Left movement. Their disagreement is with a people that wish to be their own masters. Their dispute is with the Basque Country.”

NEW ATTACK

Following the raid on Segura, police reportedly brought the Batasuna spokesperson, Joseba Permach, to witness a further raid on the offices of Communist Party of the Basque Country headquarters. Permach is not a member of that organisation.

Of late, the Spanish media has spoken of the possibility of a new attack against Batasuna. The common thread is that Garzón’s action was initiated in the office of the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

On 9 September, the Spanish daily, El Pais, pointed out that Zapatero’s strategy against the Basque independence movement would include attacks against the political leadership of Batasuna and sister organisations.

On 30 September, another paper, Público, announced that the judiciary would force “the renovation of Batasuna” as part of a strategy designed by the government to fight ETA ahead of the elections.

There is little or nothing I could add but a heart felt thank you to our Irish friends.

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Is He Sure?

First, read this article appeared at EITb:

Politics

Basque-Argentinean Meeting

Ibarretxe encourages Basque Diaspora to take part in peace process

10/08/2007

During the National Basque Week celebrated in Rosario (Argentina) Basque associations supported Basque PM’s proposal.

Basque Premier Juan Jose Ibarretxe spoke to Basque community in Argentina and all over the world in order to invite them to take part in the peace process of the Basque Country.

Ibarretxe made these statements in Rosario (Argentina) where he took part in the National Basque Week which has already finished.

“I would like to invite you to participate in this political process and to choose our future, because not only those who live in Basque Country have right to decide but those who live abroad have that right too” declared Ibarretxe. Moreover, he attended several celebrations full of Basque folklore.

79 Basque communities from different countries support Basque premier’s proposal.

Does he really mean this?

So far their tight grip of the PNV (Ibarretxe's party) over the Eusko Etxeak (Basque Centers) has prevented full time pro-independence people to feel at ease in those places.

Usually those who seat in the boards of directors at the Basque Centers stubbornly opposed for the members to freely speak about the future of Euskal Herria. Furthermore, when Basque individuals that work on projects that are alternatives to the PNV's vision they usually get rejected when they ask for permission for a space to develop their activities within the premises of any given Basque Center.

Let see what happens, I do not think things will change any time soon.

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Bilbo's Island

Well, what would you know, Bilbo is getting an island.

You do not believe what I say?

Well, read this article and learn all the details:

A new island: Hadid unveils radical plan for Bilbao

· Billion pound project will cut off peninsula from city
· Neglected area to get new housing and businesses

Paul Hamilos in Madrid
Tuesday October 9, 2007
The Guardian

Ten years ago, Bilbao celebrated the opening of the Guggenheim museum that was to put the rundown industrial city in Spain's northern Basque region on the map, and draw in a million visitors a year. It has now launched an architectural project that may yet become an equally important symbol of the city's turnaround.

The British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid has presented radical plans for the city's neglected Zorrozaurre peninsula, part of a redevelopment that would see it converted into an island.

Once a crucial part of the port, the peninsula, in the estuary of the river Nervión, had been left to decay. With only around 450 people living there and a few small industries left, it seemed to have no part of Bilbao's glowing future.

Hadid aims to change that: she plans to cut off the land that joins it to the mainland, and reconnect the newly formed island to the city with eight bridges. The urban development will occupy 72 hectares (180 acres), with 6,000 new houses, two technology centres and a four hectare (10 acre) park. The Basque regional government has estimated the total cost, including transport links, business development and other infrastructure, at €1.43bn (£987m)

Hadid was once famous as the architect whose buildings never made it off the page. In recent years, however, her work has started to appear across the world, and she is working on some of the most important new buildings in Spain, including the civil courts in Madrid, the Spiralling Tower on Barcelona's seafront and other important buildings in Seville and Zaragoza.

Julia Madrazo, deputy mayor of Bilbao and regional minister for town planning and the environment, said the city did not want Hadid simply to design something beautiful. "If we had wanted just a symbol, we would have asked her for one building," she said. "This is about more than just the image. It is about creating a city to live in. We all have dreams of how a city could be, and I believe this is the closest thing to those dreams."

Hadid, who was awarded the project in 2003, initially met with resistance from residents when she suggested converting the peninsula into an island. "They feared they would be isolated from the rest of the city," said Ms Madrazo.

Over the next two years, as Hadid and her team worked with residents, local businesses and the regional government, the island's potential became clear. Added to locals' concerns were those of the Basque environment ministry that, if the peninsula was built on, it could easily be flooded, making the idea of a carefully designed island, with flood protection, even more attractive. As a result, the houses will be 4.7 metres above sea level and a canal will be joined on to the river Nervión, widening the riverbed to 75 metres, rather than the 50 metres originally planned.

But it was not just environmental concerns that dictated Zorrozaurre's redesign. The city was concerned not to destroy all of the old housing and businesses, many of which are being retained.

A quarter of the land has been given over to parks and recreation, and - crucial to the success of the project in the eyes of residents and the council - much of the housing will be low-cost. "This will not be an exclusive neighbourhood," said Ms Madrazo. There will be no uniformity in design, with buildings of various heights across the island.

Plans are in place for building work to begin in 2010, but it will not be easy going, with land to be decontaminated, eight bridges to be built and a canal to be widened.

It is expected that the work will be completed between 2025 and 2030.

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Call to International Solidarity

A blog called Pan African News Wire has published a post called "Solidarity for Survival, A Call to Stop Ethnic Cleansing and the imminent assault on Gaza". The topic is an essay by someone called Kali Akuno who addresses the punitive operation being prepared by the Israeli government against the Gaza Strip.

Here you have the opening statements:

The Question

Are the revolutionary and progressive movements in the US going to sit idly by and wait for the Zionists and imperialists to raze Gaza to the ground? Or are we going to take preventative action to stop the genocidal assault being so thoroughly planned (and executed) right in front of our eyes?

What is at Stake?

The US Left, and all of its national and social sectors, must be clear about what Palestine represents in the capitalist world-system today. Palestine is the barometer of the extent to which imperialism is willing to go to in the present era to liquidate the struggles for national liberation. In Palestine, particularly since the elections of January 2006, we see the overall political and financial commitment of imperialism to crush any movement that threatens the political integration and homogenization now required for capital accumulation.

Where white supremacy, colonial occupation, capitalist patriarchy, mass incarceration, and economic strangulation are not enough to either contain or destroy the national consciousness and anti-colonial sentiments, ethnic cleansing and genocide are now wholly justifiable and permissible options for imperialism. This is what is happening to Palestine, specifically to the people and political forces in Gaza being deprived of electricity, water, medical aid and supplies, and food by the Zionist occupying forces.

After a few more paragraphs it mentions the Basque people:

It should go without saying that given Palestine's preeminent position amongst the anti-colonial struggles of the world that if imperialism is able starve and cleanse Gaza in order to liquidate its liberation movement, either in whole or in part, the prospects for the remaining national liberation struggles, either less well-known or developed (ex. the New Afrikan and Puerto Rican liberation movements against US colonialism, the Basques, the Kurds, and countless 1st Nation or Indigenous Peoples), to attain self-determination and independence will be seriously compromised, if not practically extinguished for the foreseeable future.

I recommend that you read the entire article, is well worth it.

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Basque-phobe of the Week : Lavengro

Well, seems like Colin Davies is not the only English Basque-phobe living in Spain, now he has a conational by the name of Peter Harvey who uses the moniker Lavengro to publish his blog.

Lavengro decided to label all the Basques as terrorists in his recent post called "BBC and Terrorism". This is how he does it.

He starts by claiming that the BBC is too lenient when it calls ETA members "militants" or "separatists" instead of "terrorists":

We see that infatuation again here. People who kill and maim in support of political beliefs are, for the BBC, not terrorists but separatists or militants.

Then, he then goes into a rant that only he can understand, you be the judge of it:

Does the BBC tell the world that a bunch of people who, it is widely suspected, know rather more than any civilised person ought to know about a terrorist organisation that has killed getting on for a thousand people have been arrested so that the judicial authorities of a democratic country can sort things out? Err no.

So, here you have the article by the BBC (he does not link to it, not much of a pro blogger):

Basque protest urged over arrests

Batasuna spokesman Joseba Permach was among those held

Basque separatists have called for street protests over the arrest of more than 20 top members of the banned political party, Batasuna.

Spain's Attorney General, Candido Conde Pumpido, welcomed the latest arrests, saying some of those held were accused of co-operating with an armed group.

"These activities cannot be tolerated, so if the police find out about them, as they did in this case in Segura, it seems prudent that they be ordered to intervene," he told Spanish public radio RNE.

However, Basques have been urged to protest against the arrests.

This is why Mr. Harvey earns his designation as Basque-phobe of the week, the BBC article never once refers to ETA, at least not on the paragraphs he reproduced.

The article refers to Basques in general and to the members of Batasuna, a political party accused of being ETA's political wing. So lets take it step by step.

In a democratic state someone accused of something is innocent until proven guilty. Spain accused Batasuna of being ETA's political wing but since that did not stick Aznar and his Partido Popular created a law that was a throwback to the Franco regime, the Law of Political Parties was the tool that Madrid used against Batasuna claiming that its leadership had never condemned ETA's violence. This has to be the first time in recorded history in which someone is accused of apology of terrorism not for what he or she said, but for what he or she did not say.

But the problem does not stop there, the problem with Madrid's move was that on the day a political party was banned for the first time since Franco the Spanish police raided the headquarters of Batasuna and many other of the party's district offices, seizing computers and files. That was in 2003, this is 2007 and the case has not been given a court date, so much for that other tenet of democracy known as "timely trial".

This is why the BBC does not fail when it calls the members of Batasuna by militants or separatists (separatist is wrong also but that would be subject of a complete new post), innocent until proven guilty.

Funny thing is that Peter refers to a previous link in his quest against the BBC, this one called "ETA and the BBC, Again". In it, to make his point he quotes no one else than... Winston Churchill!

Here it is:

Winston Churchill once said that he refused to be neutral between the fire brigade and the fire.

Yes indeed, the Hitler minded Englishman who instigated war crimes when he ordered the airborne bombing of unarmed civilians back in the 1920's in what is today known as Iraq. Yes indeed, it was not Hitler and his Luftwaffe in Durango and Gernika, it was Churchill and his Royal Air Force the first ones to use biological weapons against the Kurdish refugee camps. Churchill then went on to commit more war crimes during the many colonialist punitive actions carried out by England, but somehow the West has managed to clean up his image to make a hero out of this clown.

Then there is the penchant by English bloggers like Colin Davies and Peter Harvey to label anyone that moves a terrorist. That coming from a country that bestowed its best honors on pirates, a country that carried out ethnic cleansing operations in America, Africa, Oceania and Europe, a colonialist power than tried to wipe away the entire population of Ireland by creating a famine. If you are going to call someone a terrorist that would be London's governments for the last 500 years.

But why do these conservative Englishmen hate the Basques so much?

Simple, the Basque quest for self-determination has inspired many others to fight for their own political rights, so now England sees how Scotland and Wales are freeing themselves from its tight colonialist-era grip.

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How Bad Press Works

At this time there is two authoritarian regimes cracking down on their opposition. One of them is Burma, called Myanmar by the military junta that rules it, there has been a lukewarm reaction to the events taken place there, after all, the USA and England benefit from the political unrest in the area.

Guess what is the other authoritarian regime getting away with flagrant human rights violations.

You do not know the answer?

Well, may be you have been reading articles like this one:

Basque separatist says Madrid has declared war with arrests

Sat Oct 6, 9:21 AM ET

A top member of banned Basque separatist party Batasuna said Saturday the arrest of most of the party's leadership was "a declaration of war" by the Madrid government.

Pernando Barrena, the most senior official of the political wing of the armed ETA group still at liberty, said the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero wanted to "slam the door" on the Basque independence movement.

"The repression will not make us back down" from the fight for independence, he said.

Barrena, accompanied by some 80 Batasuna militants, was speaking at a press conference at a hotel in the port city of San Sebastian in northern Spain.

Sporadic incidents of violence in Spain's Basque Country, including the burning of a post office on Saturday, followed Thursday's arrests, regional police said earlier.

Four masked men burst into the post office in the town of Lezo, told the single employee present to leave then sprinkled the room with petrol and set it alight, gutting it.

In other incidents, petrol bombs were thrown at a courthouse and municipal office building at Pasai San Pedro, and an attempt to set a bus on fire at Markina was thwarted by police.

The actions were typical of youthful supporters of ETA, which is fighting for independence of the Basque Country of northern Spain and southwestern France.

A total of 23 people were detained late Thursday in a police raid on a meeting of Batasuna in the Basque town of Segura. They included 19 members of the banned party's leadership, two of whom are French.

They will appear Sunday morning before Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who ordered the crackdown in a hardening of the government's stance on ETA since the group officially ended a 15-month-old ceasefire in June.

Spanish radio said some of the suspects were being transferred to Madrid Saturday, but police searches in the region were still going on.

Premises raided included a property near San Sebastian of the Communist Party of the Basque Lands, which is allied to Batasuna but not banned.

On Friday hundreds of people demonstrated in protest against the arrests in various Basque cities, including 1,000 in Bilbao, the region's financial and cultural centre.

ETA has killed 819 people during almost four decades of fighting for its cause. Both Batasuna and ETA are listed as terrorist organisations by the European Union and the US government.

Barrena said Friday that the roundup was designed to boost the Socialist government ahead of March elections, when the question of regional autonomy and the "Basque problem" are expected to be major issues.

Batasuna has been banned as a party since 2003 for refusing to condemn violence and cut its links to ETA. The detained leaders face charges related to Garzon's investigation into those links, especially the party's suspected financing of ETA's activities.

Yes indeed, the press covering the issue places a few paragraphs to distract the reader from reality and voila, nobody says nothing to demand an explanation to Madrid's totalitarian measures against Basque politicians thus violating basic human rights and civilian liberties, oh yes, I went ahead and highlighted those paragraphs.

What the note does not tell you is that despite the four years since Batasuna was banned in great part thanks to a law that is a throwback to Franco's regime the Spanish government has been unable to act accordingly to one of the cornerstones of justice, timely trial. Indeed, four years later court dates have not been established in spite of judge Garzón having access to all of Batasuna's classified information that has been is his hands since the day the political party was banned when the police stormed the headquarters seizing all the computers and files.

What else does Garzón needs to take the Batasuna members to trial? Is he that dumb as a prosecutor? Yes, what you read is not a mistake, in Spain individuals like Garzón act as district attorneys and as judges at the same time, name another democracy in the world with a judicial figure like that one.

Madrid scored big when it got the international community organizations like the UN and the European Community to consider ETA a terrorist group, shortsighted, those who followed Madrid's lead now witness how the Spanish political class accuses any Basque organization that they wish to attack as being part of ETA. That way Madrid has closed down schools, radio stations, magazines, newspapers and banned political parties. Yes, I said Madrid not Moscow, not Beijing, not Yangon but Madrid. One would thing that blatant attacks against democracy could never take place in Western Europe, but there it is, backwards Spain doing it again and again.

But as long as the UN and the EC do not demand more accountability from Madrid's actions individuals like Zapatero and this predecessor Aznar will continue to twist and bend the law in order to step up their repressive measures against the Basque people.

Yes, there has been demonstrations against the Yangon government in the last few days, but due to articles like the one I just presented there will hardly be any demonstrations against Madrid's abuse of power.

The silence of the lambs will be defeaning.

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Eusko Flickr : freebatasuna

FREEBATASUNA
Originally uploaded by pepiñe*

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”.

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