Thursday, May 26, 2005

I Stand Corrected

Seems like there has been some reactions in the international media regarding the arrest of Arnaldo Otegi.

This comes from Yahoo News, via AFP:
The detention of a leading Basque politician, following a spate of bombings by his hardline nationalist allies, sparked anger in the region and buffeted Spanish government hopes of brokering a political dialogue.

The banned Basque nationalist party Batasuna accused Madrid of being behind the detention overnight of its spokesman Arnaldo Otegi and called on supporters to demonstrate against his imprisonment.
Of course, the note stinks, for Otegi was not indicted, he was accused. And in the civilized world we tend to uphold a simple legal concept that goes like this: You are innocent until proven guilty.

Madrid claims that Otegi and Batasuna are the political arm of ETA, therefore, it is up to Madrid to prove it. It has been more than two years since Batasuna was banned thanks to a law of political parties that reminds us how much José María Aznar loves Francisco Franco.

In those two years, the courts have produced nothing, violating a second principle in law, timely trial.

So, that part about "his hardline nationalist allies," is what we can call drivel.

Here is another pearl:
However, Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar insisted Otegi's incarceration showed the "determination of all institutions to deal with ETA."
Meaning, arrest and incarcerate any Basque that moves.

This the one shoe fits all tactic; if they want to speak Euskera, if they want self determination, if they speak of freedom, they all belong to ETA.

Easy and simple, that line of thought worked for people like Franco, Pinochet, Mussolini, Milosevic, Stalin and Hitler.

This whole thing just comes to show the state of exception and the blatant political apartheid in place against the Basques.

The article gets only 0ne thing right, actions like this one do nothing to improve the dialogue. It takes away hope.

After all these years of violence, all what people want is peace.

* You can read the entire article at Artxiboak along with all the other articles mentioned today.

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