Madrid Exports Political Persecution

This article was published at VHeadline:

Spain continues vendetta against ETA in Cuba, Venezuela and N. Ireland

Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Spain refuses to let go of laptop accusations against the Basque ETA armed group and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and alleged Venezuelan connivance and collaboration.

What is clearly emerging is that Spain wants Venezuela and Cuba to hand over ETA members residing in their countries.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has announced that the writ against ETA and FARC members allegedly plotting to kill Colombian presidents in Spain has been sent to Cuba and Venezuela via the Spanish ambassadors, who have been given the task of ensuring the collaboration of both countries in hunting down ETA.

In Cuba the main target is Jose Angel Urtiaga Martinez whom 15-minutes-of-fame Spanish Judge Velasco claims is ETA's representative to the FARC. Another is alleged second in command, Jose Miguel Arrugaeta San Emeterio. Both men are charged with relaying explosives training.

Moratinos has declared that the Spanish executive is acting in full cooperation with the autonomous legislative power and Congress. All three institutions have clubbed together on this one.

Yesterday, Moratinos took off his government's mask, saying Chavez has "collaborated in extraditions and has demonstrated his disposition to accompany the Spanish government's efforts to eradicate, combat and defeat ETA."

Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, Chilean-born Arturo Valenzuela has tuned into the Spanish-Colombian campaign against Venezuela and rebel organizations, declaring that Venezuela has given "some assistance" to the FARC who are receiving specific types of help from different groups.

Spain, Colombia and the USA will be attending the inauguration of right-wing crusader, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, who has made a great fuss inviting Venezuelan opposition leader, Antonio Ledezma to the event.

President Chavez said he will not be attending the inauguration but his name will be top of the agenda in corridor meetings.

Update: a "Don't Extradite the Basques" campaign has been set up in Northern Ireland against the British government's decision to allow the extradition of former ETA prisoner and hunger-striker, Inaki de Juana, who has been living in the North for the last two years.

The Sinn Fein party is organizing the campaign and the party's euro-deputy, Bairbre de Brun said Inaki was being pursued for his political ideas and extradition to Spain should be dropped.

De Brun argued that both the British and Spanish governments are ignoring important political initiatives in the Basque Country to resolve the conflict.

De Juana spent 21 years in a Spanish jail, of which 17 years were in solitary confinement.

Last year an ad hoc committee in Venezuela succeeded in stopping the extradition of another ETA member.

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Basque Society Shows its Solidarity with Political Prisoners

Thousands of people marched through the Basque city of Bilbao on Saturday to demand that rights for the Basque political prisoners are respected by both Madrid and Paris. The protest was called by leftist Basque nationalist groups, including Etxerat, an association of family members of political prisoners which accuses the governments of Spain and France of punishing relatives and friends by holding the political prisoners in prisons far away from their homes.

A judge in Madrid earlier Saturday rejected a legal move to ban the march by an extreme right group called Justicia y Dignidad. But he ruled that the participants must abstain from showing expressions of support for ETA. As a result, the marchers did not display photographs Basque political prisoners, unlike in a similar march one year ago.

The demonstrators marched peacefully across the Basque financial capital Saturday evening behind a banner reading "Basque prisoners, back home", and chanted "Basque prisoners to the Basque Country" and "No peace without amnesty."

Basque political prisoners are dispersed in prisons throughout Spain which makes it difficult for them to receive visits from family members. On Friday, Spain's Supreme Court ruled that the Basque regional government had exceeded its authority by providing aid to families of prisoners being held outside of the region to allow them to visit their loved ones.

The aid was awarded between 2003 and 2009 by the Basque Nationalist Party, which held power in the region until last May when it was replaced in elections by the Socialist Party. The fascist regime that rules in Madrid has murdered thousands of Basques since 1936 in a futile attempt to hold on to its illegal occupation of Euskal Herria.

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Blockade and Political Apartheid

We just received this communique from the Irish Basque Committees:

The Spanish government tries to blockade a new political initiative arresting 10 prominent Basque pro-independence activists

Less than two months after the Spanish Interior Minister’s threats against the Basque pro-independence left’s new political proposals last evening 10 people were arrested in Donostia/San Sebastian. All of them are prominent Basque pro-independence activists like Batasuna’s spokesperson Arnaldo Otegi and former LAB trade union leader Rafa Diez. Another one, Rufi Etxebarria, had been released from jail just one week ago after spending two years in prison for being a member of the outlawed Batasuna party.

Five of them were arrested in the LAB trade union’s offices and the others in different places around the country. All of them are being accused by the Spanish authorities and pro-Spanish media of reorganising the Basque pro-independence left’s leadership.

While some sort of repressive action was expected after weeks of strong Spanish criminalization and pressure the arrestes have shocked and outraged the majority of Basque society. Several political parties and the main trade unions have already spoken out against the police operation. According to them the arrests are political and are directed at preventing any new political initiative by the pro-independence left to bring the Basque Country to a scenario of peace and democracy.

It’s been publicly known that the Basque pro-independence left has been involved in a deep strategic debate for the last few months. At the same time discussions have been held with other progressive and pro-independence parties, trade unions and social organizations in order to form a strong pro-self-determination front.

Over the last 13 years every time the pro-independence left has taken a new political step the Spanish authorities have responded with police operations. Batasuna’s spokesperson Arnaldo Otegi is a good example of it as he has been arrested and imprisoned on numerous ocasions for his political work. Just last week he was told he will be tried for the so called “Anoeta event” in 2004 when himself and other Basque pro-independence movement representatives launched a peace proposal in front of 15,000 people. The proposal was widely accepted and set the way for dialogue and resolution which led to the 2005 negotiations between ETA and the Spanish government and ETA’s 2006 ceasefire.

Despite the attacks the Spanish authorities haven’t been able to stop the Basque pro-independence left’s political initiative and strength. Arnaldo Otegi quoting father Alec Reid has repeated on many ocasions that “the more reasonable our proposals are the more they’ll persecute us”.

Since 2002 the Basque left has had to organise in the most difficult conditions, mainly underground due to the Spanish authorities continuous criminalisation policies. However the pro-independence movement has always kept a public profile refusing to be silenced.

At a conference in Bilbao last week United Nations Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin warned that cutting off the political ways is extremely dangerous.

As has happened in previous repressive attacks the Basque pro-independence left has also declared today: “Against more repression we’ll respond with more political initiative".

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A Reckless Farce

Last night, once again, the Spanish police arrested prominent Basque pro-independence leaders and activists: Arnaldo Otegi, Rufi Etxeberria, Rafa Díez, Arkaitz Rodríguez, Sonia Jacinto, Miren Zabaleta, Mañel Serra, Txelui Moreno and Amaia Esnal. Once again, a reckless and short sighted Spanish government orders the detention of political leaders that could only accuse of one thing: to labor in behalf of finding a solution to a political conflict. Once again, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba have received the priceless support of several media outlets and journalists that throughout Sunday used their news notes to thinly disguised their announcements that such an operation was about to take place.

Throughout these last few months Madrid has been trying to bring to the main stage a series of lies and misconceptions directed at preparing the ground for an operation of such large scope with all the resources at hand. Rubalcaba, as is quite obvious now, has been the mouth piece for this strategy, and media oulets like "El País" have echoed this farce aimed at manipulating the Spanish public's perception - and probably the European public's perception as well since there is a lot of interest and concern about the situation in Euskal Herria - into believing that "ETA has taken complete control over the pro-Independence left" and that "ETA lost all confidence on the political leaders and decided to leave them out of the political initiative that they wanted to propose during the fall", just like the mentioned media outlet published last Sunday. It doesn't matter if the message broadcasted from Madrid is loaded with misinformation, and that in the end it contradicts itself. Another example of this could be easily seen just yesterday by the language on the note reproduced by a large portion of the Spanish media outlets and news agencies, when they went on an on about how the detainees "had maintained meeting during the last months as a response to the political proposal announced by Arnaldo Otegi that the pro-Independence left pretended to use to return to the institutions presumably with an explicit distancing stance regarding violence". The kin reader would quickly notice, without a doubt, that the very same paragraph includes concepts like "political proposal" and "explicit distancing stance regarding violence", which could lead any European observer to shake his head in amazement - which is actually happening right now - when faced with the stark truth that the Spanish state continues to incarcerate politicians for tackling such issues, according to the mentioned media outlets and news agencies.

It is quite obvious that the absence of compelling reasons have never stopped the Spanish state, and that it has always counted with reliable operators in Euskal Herria to try and dilute the will of the majority of the Basque people.

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8 Basque Activists Arrested

Spanish police operating in the Basque Country arrested Arnaldo Otegi, Batasuna's moral leader, the banned political party, and eight other activists, accusing them for the second time of seeking to rebuild the party, judicial and police sources said.

Batasuna's spokesman Arnaldo Otegi was held in the city of Donostia along with top union leader Rafa Déz and three other Basque activists suspected.

The interior ministry said later that four other "leaders of the independentist left" had been picked up, two in the Basque town of Hernani and two in Iruñea. Batasuna was banned in 2003 because of its supposed links with ETA, an accusation that the Spanish state is yet to prove.

Police made the first arrests after a meeting at the Basque independence union LAB headquarters. The operation was ordered by Madrid's top inquisidor judge Baltasar Garzon. Those arrested included the secretary general of the LAB union, Rafael Diez Usabiaga, a well-known figure in the Basque independence movement, the judicial source said.

The group of Basque pro-independence activists has been meeting at the union headquarters since the beginning of the year in an effort to put forward a political proposal that includes a new initiative to restart the peace process that was derailed by Zapatero's government back in 2006.

Otegi in the past few months has made several trips to southern Iparralde, where he met with other leaders of his political party that happens to be legal in the French state. Otegi was last jailed in June 2007 after the Supreme Court upheld a 15-month sentence for "glorifying terrorism" after praising veteran ETA leader Jose Miguel Beñaran "Argala" at a memorial service in 2003. "Argala" was murdered by the GAL at the height of the "dirty war" against the Basque pro-independence movement.

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Rejection of Spain's Fascist Festivity Increases

The obsession by Francisco Javier Lopez and his junta to distance themselves from the previous tenants at the Ajuria Enea and loudly proclaim the change of pace that has allegedly taken place in Lakua's government is now in plain sight.

For example, just yesterday, Rodolfo Ares (born in Orense, Galiza and a rabid Spanish ultra-nationalist), in representation of Lakua's government, attended the Spanish Armed Forces parade in Madrid to celebrate the "Day of Hispanity". A carefully chosen decision by the Interior Minister and top commander of the Ertzaintza, to witness and also legitimate the outdated military display that each year exacerbates the must backwards Spanish cheap patriotism.

Looking to make himself clear, Ares went on to explain that he traveled to the Spanish capital in representation of "the Basque Government and, therefore, the totality of Basque society". More so, his presence was an "act of democratic normality of an autonomic government that emanates from the Statute, an Statute framed within the Constitution". Neither one is true. The current Lakua government is not the result of the will of the citizenry of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, but the result of the Apartheid like Law of Political Parties' political-juridic engineering. We should also point out now that the Spanish Constitution was never accepted by the Basque electorate, quite the opposite actually.

While Ares travels to Madrid to present the due abjection before the must outdated expressions of the Spanish kingdom, in the streets of Euskal Herria thousands of persons demonstrated against Fascism, the current and the former, the one that filled up the sides of the roads with dead bodies and the one that abducts and threatens Basque citizens. Besides, thousands of students showed up at their educational institutions, thus signaling their rebellion against a holiday that they do not regard as such. On top of that, several demonstrations were organized by the worker's union LAB to voice another demand, the sovereign right of the working class to decide its own calendar. That one and no other was the human landscape yesterday in Euskal Herria, a country that refuses to accept and imposed festivity.

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The "Black Hole"

You are not going to read about this note in the main stream media for one simple reason, the Spanish state enjoys the benefits of being considered one of the darlings on the eye of the news industry moguls. So lets get to it.

Amnesty International has issued yet another statement demanding for Madrid to stop with the incommunicado regime against alleged "suspects of terrorism", a label that pretty much applies to any Basque working in behalf of the cultural, linguistic and social identity of Euskal Herria, let alone in behalf of the right to self determination.

"They disappear as swallowed by a black hole". Amnesty International can not be more specific when it comes to referring about the detainees who receive the incommunicado regime while they remain in police facilities to be interrogated. They are also quite firm when they demand from the Spanish Parliament to void a law that "violates the rights of individuals to their freedom" and that fails to comply "with a total of seven pacts, agreements and international laws that guarantee the rights of the detainees".

The human rights NGO released to the public yesterday an inform in which it portraus the incommunicado regime as a common practice: the police requests it by default and by default is conceded by the judges, judges who had little or no interest with what goes on during detentions and interrogations at police facilities.

From then on, the detainee is not only deprived of his own defense lawyer, but soon the detainee realizes that the one assigned by court has very limited duties; its not allowed in certain "casual" interrogations (despite the fact that the content is later used in formal accusations) and never allowed to talk in private with the defendant who is supposed to be representing. The detainee can neither request a medic that he trusts, and any medical evaluation is conducted in the presence of police officers, with the degree of intimidation involved. More so, independent inquiries have shown that the majority of those "medical evaluations" do not comply with, by far, the international standards and protocols in the subject.

The rigorous inform by AI highlights the complex structure developed in the Spanish state throughout the years to make the incommunicado regime into a fool-proof system that bestows with complete freedom of action to the police officers conducting the interrogations, a system that also guarantees complete impunity. A "black hole" to swallow each and very single one of the violations to the rights of the detainees, defenseless before an all too powerful state.

Here you have a video released along the inform entitled "Spain: out of the shadows":

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The Ertzaintza to Operate in Iparralde

Ares has gone where no PNV member has gone before... Iparralde in now part of the Basque Autonomous Community. We still remember when Ibarretxe said at the Think Gaur page that Ipar Euskal Herria was just an "area of interest". Now photophobic Ares and his boss Francisco Javier López have accomplished something amazing, the Ertzaintza (a police force that is not allowed in Nafarroa within the Spanish state) will now operate in Iparralde which happens to be located in the French state according to this note at EiTB:

Ertzaintza agents to work at Hendaye's police station

According to Basque Interior councillor Rodolfo Ares, Basque police will settle on the office of Iparralde, or French Basque Country, "in the coming months."

Basque Government's Interior councillor Rodolfo Ares has announced that Ertzaintza, or Basque police, will have presence at Hendaye's station in the following months. In fact, Spanish and French police are already working together at Iparralde's offices.

"We will also be there," he told Basque newspaper El Correo.

According to Ares, "it is fundamental that Ertzaintza can work when it is necessary, through an immediate coordination to share information."

New Ertzaintza's division

Ares insisted that the "Basque police antiterrorist division" recently created is not integrated in any other area. "The information brought up here should be investigated in order to stop terrorists and to prevent that more people join ETA."

Last week, ex Interior councillor Juan Mari Atutxa denounced that Ares had not created any new unity but he had rebaptized an already existing one.

Lovely how Atutxa makes a big deal out of nothing. Who cares, the bottom line is, when it comes to suppressing the civil and political rights of the Basque people, suddenly Paris and Madrid are not as ultra-nationalistic as usual.

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Direct Attack Against Democracy

Baltasar Garzón, Spain's top inquisitor and enforcer of the Apartheid against the Basque people's civil rights who earlier this year suspended all activities of two Basque political parties, has now charged 13 of their members using the "one size fits all" accusation, belonging to ETA.

The candidate lists presented by D3M and Askatasuna for the Basque regional elections were banned by the Supreme Court in February this year and, 2 weeks before the poll was due to take place, Garzón suspended all of the two parties’ political activities for a period of 3 years.

In a ruling released to the press this Monday and without presenting one single piece of evidence to support his alegation, the judge has now indicated that D3M and Askatasuna both ‘acted under the leadership of the terrorist organisation Batasuna-ETA’. The 13 members charged include D3M’s spokesperson, Amparo Lasheras, and the President of Askatasuna, José Antonio Munduate.

The charge is membership of and collaboration with an armed group. 10 others escape the charge for lack of evidence, while a further 2 will not be prosecuted, as they are either charged in another case or are already in prison for another crime.

We would like to remind you that all these repressive measures against the Basque people were validated not too long ago when Strasbourg's Human Rights Court decided to join the flanks of those who refuse the right of the peoples (the nations without statehood in this particular case) to their self determination. So now the responsibility of an increased number of Basque political prisoners is shared by Madrid and Strasbourg's Court.

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A Pact Against the Pro-Independence Left

Just yesterday the president of the Basque province of Nafarroa, Miguel Sanz, announced a new political pact with the Navarre Socialist Party (the PSN, a satellite of Spain's ruling party) that, at first glance, constitutes flagrant evidence that is nothing more that a call to act against the Basque pro-independence left in every single possible way, including the displays of solidarity towards the Basque activist suffering political persecution. Trying to emulate the "change" enforced by Francisco Javier López in the Basque Autonomous Community, the pact includes threats against the political parties that fail to show open support for the State's armed and police forces.

All what Sanz needed to do was to seat down and wait for the Socialist government in Gasteiz to set the pace against the pro-independence left, yesterday was the day for him to announce that his government would promote along with the PSN "a great political and social pact in favor of freedom, coexistence and democracy" with the specific goal of "reducing any room available to impunity" in the public sphere. Regarding "impunity", Sanz referred to the pro-independence left being in charge of kick starting the festivities in Berriozar.

Despite the fact that during their meeting at the beginning of summer both Miguel Sanz and Francisco Javier López insisted about the differentiated identity of Nafarroa as opposed to the Basque Autonomous Community, when it comes to the pro-independence left this difference gets blurry. The PSOE, presiding the government in Gasteiz and maintaining the one in Nafarroa propped up, is in fact calling the shots regarding the line of action for Hegoalde.

Sanz spoke about the pact with the pSN during a press conference, just after celebrating the firs session of the Navarrese executive. He pointed out the the core issues of the pact have been adressed through the dialogue between himself and representatives of the PSN. "This is about reducing the room to impunity in the institutional sphere, during festive and cultural acts, in public spaces and such that the terrorists use to expand the criminal activities and berate both their victims and the government officials democratically elected". He then went on to criticize the opening ceremony in the Berriozar festivities because the person in charge of hosting the event is a pro-independence mayor (displaying his selective memory, Sanz forgot to mention that he was too democratically elected), and that during the txupin (a firework that is launched to signal the start of the festivities) a banner in support of bringing home the Basque political prisoners was prominently displayed.

In the political sphere, the pact will be enforced by avoiding to reach institutional agreements with "outlawed" political formations and with political parties "that refuse to firmly denounce ETA's violence or fail to support the institutions that conform the State, like the military and police forces. In doing so, Sanz directed a warning against Nafarroa Bai after the verbal brawl carried out in Iruñea in the aftermath of the attacks in Mallorca and Burgos when Aralar criticized the partisan nature of the "condemnations". Soon after Nafarroa Bai accused the ultra-conservative (the UPN is a satellite party of Spain's PP) government of using the announcement of "a pact that is a throwback to fascism in order to create a smoke curtain around the failed economic policies". The spokes person for NaBai, Maiorga Ramírez, disqualified the pact because its goal is to exclude "anyone that those not share the UPN's postulates", stating that in his opinion, "an authentic pact regarding coexistence and democracy must first acknowledge, respect and advance an stage that provides freedom of expression that ensures the development of plurality within Nafarroa". Ramíres also criticized the PSN due to the fact that with this new proposal "once again it surrenders to the postulates of the extreme right that consider that those who do not comply with their ideals must be excluded from the political sphere".

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Dog Day in Bilbao

The Ertzaintza brutally charged against the relatives of the Basque political prisoners that for years have been carrying out a demonstration every Friday in front of Sabin Etxea (headquartes of the Basque Nationalist Party, the political formation that first proposed the dispersion of Basque political prisoners) in Bilbao. Right after the bus that takes some of the relatives to the jails in Andalucia departed, the Ertzaintza officers attacked against the crowd, arresting one person and sending the mother of a political prisoner to the ER. Those attacked did not even carry pictures of their loved ones, only one banner with the motto «errepresaliatu guztiak etxera» (bring home all victims of repression).

It is quite possible that, due to the dismal lack of knowledge and the preposterous bias deeply rooted in Madrid regarding the Basque reality, a judge may believe that the criticism against the dispersion policy is simply an "ETA/Ekin slogan". This was stated by the Audiencia Nacional judge Eloy Velasco, who earlier this week pressed charges for "apology of terrorism" against a number of food service employees using such argument.

But even a poorly informed person, with no access to any other version but the one portrayed on the police reports (with few facts but extensive guess work), should be able to set apart simply trues, like a father displaying the photograph of his daughter, sentenced to life in prison and serving her time in a jail thousands of miles away and enduring inhumane conditions, is not responding to a slogan but to his own conscience and dignity.

As a matter of fact, that reality can not hide that in Nabarra, thousands of people consider that the Basque political prisoners fight for legitimate ideals, even those who do not share their goals nor their methods.

The big issue here is that if the Spanish judges and politicians compare painting a graffiti in favor of ETA to a public demonstration in favor of the political prisoners' rights, the only result they will achieve is that the Basque dissidence will set up a barricade that will include the social base that supports the Basque Nationalist Party. This comparison established by the doctrine that "everything is ETA" even goes against the perception of reality by the majority of those who vote for the PSOE in the Basque Country. Despite the belligerent speech by the politicians and the wild verdicts by the judges, common sense prevails in Basque society.

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Defending Freedom of Speech in Euskal Herria

Bilbao's neighbors and festival organizers are calling out to demonstrate tomorrow at noon in defense of both freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. They also denounced the "repressive and authoritarian drunken rampage" by Lakua officials and several judges.

According to the organizers, the demonstration will take place tomorrow, the climatic day for the Aste Nagusia. The demonstration will be celebrated under the mott "Freedom of speech. Democracy", and its scheduled to depart at 13:00 hours from the Zabalburu Square with the finish line at Circular Square. The invitation to take part in the demonstration is to every single person that "is in favor of freedom and against the return of regimes from the past that represent censorship and terror".

During the public meeting that took place in front of the Arriaga Theater, they made clear "how worried" they are "on the face of a widest crackdown on civil liberties".

They explained how basic rights like the freedom of assembly and the freedom for mass public demonstrations "are violated every single day, often with brutality and violence". "Only this month, dozens of people have been injured, some seriously wounded, for wanting to express their ideas on the street on a peaceful fashion" they added.

Neighbors and festivity organizers expressed that the "repressive and authoritarian drunken rampage" by Spain's Interior Department and by "organizations that hold extremist positions, satellite groups of an specific political party" has gone to the extreme of having them deciding "what is legal", along with judges "holed up in their offices hundreds of miles away from the Basque Country".

In that sense, they criticized that social demands as "legitimated and rooted" as the repatriation of the Basque political prisoners, "assumed even by the Gasteiz Parliament, the Basque Autonomous Community legislative bodies and the totality of the Basque municipalities", the right of assembly, the right to mass public demonstrations, the demand for independence and even the defense of the Basque flag "have been outlawed by edict" all the way from Madrid.

The neighbors and festivity organizers also explained how "the persecution" has gone "to the extreme of criminalizing" some individuals "for their condition of being family members". They firmly stated that also, this "mobbing attitude" has derived "in grave death threats in the case of the txupinera".

Due to the extent of the repression, the speakers decried the "silence by many Basque social, political and union leaders, with honorable exceptions, like the major of Gernika".

The speaker concluded the act stating that the defense of the fundamental right to assembly, "just like the right to have your own opinions and ideas, and the right to uphold them in equal conditions", is becoming "a top priority" necessity.

This call to defend the freedom of speech comes preceded by a ban impossed by the Spanish Audiencia Nacional and Lakua's Interior Department against a demonstration organized under the motto «Independentziaren bidean, aldaketa politiko eta soziala» for that very same day in the Bizkaian capital city. There is no answer yet to the legal counter-draft presented before the TSJPV.

Before the demonstration organized by neighbors and festivity organizers was announed, the PSE stated that it would be "desirable" that "the pro-independence left would tone down its position" and refrain from celebrating any mass public demonstrations. On the other hand, the PP, directly demanded that the demonstration would be outlawed.

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Gernika: Violent Crackdown

The brutal crackdown that the Ertzaintza (Basque autonomic police force) carried out last Sunday night during the festivities in Gernika gave us the balance of four detainees -who were released from jail yesterday- and more than twenty injured. Several citizens defended themselves from the savagery of the police throwing bottles and setting up barricades, while many of those inside the festival's grounds harshly criticized the ertzainas' behavior and virulent actions.

The mayor of this Bizkaian town, José María Gorroño (EA), joined the criticism and considered that Sunday's crackdown was way out of proportion. This statement earned him a reprimand from the Interior Department that recriminated the mayor with a notice saying that all what the ertzainas did was to "enforce the law" and that with his statement the mayor "seemed to be placing the blame of the incidents on the Ertzaintza". According to the notice from the Interior Department the responsibility for the four detainees and the twenty injured was "from those who violate the Law, do not abide by the legal dispositions and carry out illegal acts".

If we're going to talk about responsibility, one of the basic principles of police actions is that they have to be proportional. Actions like threatening the elderly and children, break down parades, confiscate festivity floats and tear down banners do not seem to comply with this principle.

But that's what happens when an imposed government tries to suffocate every single aspect of social interaction which is exactly what the Spanish State is doing in the Basque Country.

Seventy years ago that very same town was the chosen target by the Spaniards to carry out one of the must infamous genocidal attacks against the Basques. The event is recorded in the collective memory of the international community as the epitome of all what can go wrong in a war. Unlike the Germans and the Italians, the Spaniard have never apologized to the Basque people for the destruction of the village and the death of over 1,600 defenseless civilians. Last Sunday was a reminder of the horror but thanks to the status enjoyed by Madrid due to the so called "war on terrorism" unleashed by George W. Bush and continued by Barack Obama the event has gone unnoticed by the international main stream media.

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The Basque Pro-Independence Left Proven Right

Quite used to labeling almost any event or declaration as "historical", this week both political leaders and the main stream media chose to tip-toe about an unprecedented moment that may prove to be more transcendental than the original assessment. For the first time in history an Spanish Interior Minister has conceded that the Basque pro-independence left is right. Because non less than that is what Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba did when he stated that even if the event that the pro-independence left were to condemn violence and then request to be within the law "the answer would be absolutely no". That was the end to the mantra that said that "all they needed to do is to condemn", thus validating what the pro-independence left said all along: that what really is outlawed is not any given political party but the ideals they stand for -the independence of the Basque Country and socialism-, and that the resolution of the political conflict can only be the result not only from the return of those ideals to the legal framework, but from the viability of their project being equal to the rest of the political options. With only one valid condition, that the only democratic demand will be to gather the necessary social support.

Previous to Perez Rubalcaba's statement the only time when something similar happened was when Jaime Mayor Oreja admitted that "ETA never lies". Only that by then Mayor Oreja was not the titular of the Interior Minister anymore and his word were encased in a verbal attack against the PSOE, which in turn reduced the value of the statement. Nevertheless, the big difference resides in the fact that the statements by the Interior Minister take place with him acting as the spokesman for the Spanish regime, a regime that has not rebuked Perez Rubalcaba's statements. Quite the opposite, Rodolfo Ares, who holds the equivalent post in the Basque Autonomous Community and as a member of his political party, supported his boss' statement.

The only person that may have pondered the gravity of Perez Rubalcaba's statement -besides the direct recipients of the statement- has been Patxi Zabaleta, who is usually used as a Troy Horse against the pro-independence left by the Spanish regime and the rest of the political parties. The stark evidence of what has been more than evident for so long, specially coming from the Spanish Interior Minister, exposes many of the pontifications that, disguised of innocence and good will, had been released in an attempt to blame the pro-independence left for the severe lack of civil liberties endured in the Basque Country.

It is certain, in any case, that the mere condemnation of violence, resorting for a moment to the terminology in vogue at this time, does not necessarily imply the honest compromise to what is being repudiated. Perez Rubalcaba himself is the best example for that for he belongs to a political party that throughout the years condemned the GAL's actions the while file and rank carried out a dirty war with the financial support by the very same government that he was a part of. The final guilty verdict, although merely testimonial, against a number of those involved in the violent deaths of 23 Basque citizens did not prevent the PSOE from openly showing its support, to the extreme of accompanying them all the way to the very gates of the detention center in Guadalajara.

And the same can be said about the PP with respect to the Franco era regime. Only that, on top of it, in this specific case the conservative Spaniard avoid making that condemnation public. In some cases, like in the case of the always honest Mayor Oreja, they have no qualms when it comes to speaking highly of the dictatorship.

Having said that, there will be those who will insist that the GAL, the Franco era regime and ETA are simply not the same. And it is true. But, why should they be different in the sense that they think and not in the senses considered by the pro-independence left?

Why are the Spaniards allowed to support their "truth", their view of history, but the pro-independence Basques are persecuted for stating what they think, or even for thinking the way they do?

The position held by the different political agents regarding the different kinds of violence do not depend from an abstract sense of morality, but from very specific political agendas. Another question is which one of such kinds of violence is moral on immoral and under which circumstances, or which kind of violence can sustain those agendas. But in the Spanish regime there is no freedom to discuss these issues.

There will be those who, when it comes the time, will consider that their political party has never been involved in any instance of political violence, that their slate is clean, and that it has only resorted to the lawful violence bestowed by the democratic institutions. Many in EA and the PNV will think that way. But, unless they consider that the appraisal done until now is false, that the reality shown without cover-ups by Perez Rubalcaba is not such, will have to accept the fact that this panorama is long ways from what could be considered democratic and that they have behaved as is if it was democratic. In such case, violence has been exercised in the name of law, but not in favor of justice nor democracy.

The very same, or even more, can be said about the present situation in which we find the Basque political conflict. The option to systematically outlaw demonstrations was first used by the PNV. The same way, those who refuse to accept their responsibility in the violence that has been generated should at least accept their responsibility for not thoroughly seeking a solution to the situation within the parameters of justice, democracy and liberty. The vertigo shown at Loiola by the top jelkides is a good example of that.

Summing uo, is time for everyone to renew their respective compromise, and stop their outlandish demands to others. Is time for some serious self-criticism, with no room for self-indulgence. Now is not the time for morally unproductive condemnations, whether they are true or false. Is time to propose political solutions in the short and long term.

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Cross-Border Civil Rights' Violations

Judge Baltasar Garzón incarcerated Basque political refugee Juan Manuel Intziarte who has detained by police at Madrid's Barajas airport after being expelled from Mexico. Itziarte's forced departure from the North American country, according to leaked information, was preceded by unusual circumstances, being that his detention began due to an "anonymous tip" that claimed that the presence of the Basque political refugee was "irregular". After the case of the six Basque political refugees extradited by former president Vicente Fox in which the Mexican citizenry took the streets in support of the prisoners the Mexican has resorted to expelling the Basque citizens requested by Madrid to avoid another sticky situation that may again highlight the human and civil rights' violations that have to be in place to achieve an extradition since the Mexican Constitution forbid extraditions to countries that practice torture and summary executions, like Spain.

With a complete different outcome, another Basque political refugee, in this case in Venezuela, this very same week faced the possibility of being extradited to the Spanish State. Eventually, Iñaki Etxeberria was released at dawn on Friday after the Supreme Court in the South American country found no elements to support his extradition. The "unusual" circumstances" were also present in this case as denounced by Etxeberria himself. He was illegally questioned by the Interpol, there was unjustified delays for his release and he even witnessed the visit of the very Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos. This chain of events made him fear for a negative outcome to his situation, that fortunately, did not come through.

Both cases are evidence of the unflinching efforts by the Spanish regime to bully sovereign states into violating international law regarding the figure of political asylum. That legal frame was seriously damaged by the offensive initiated by the US administration after the 9-11 attacks in the so called "war on terrorism", an offensive that counted with the enthusiastic support of many other states, among them, for obvious reasons, the Spanish state. But time has proved the complete and utter failures of this strategy that violates human rights as a cover up for more devious goals and, more so, its slow but unstoppable lack of support within the international community. A reality that the Spanish state rebuffs obsessed in extending it policy of suppressing the civil liberties beyond its own borders.

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The Reign of Silence

The nightmare goes on. The Spanish Audiencia Nacional has decided to go ahead with the process open against the Basque newspaper "Euskaldunon Egunkaria", despite the request to drop the case by the defendants' defense team and the district attorney's office. As a direct result from this decision, five Basque citizens with professional ties to the Euskara printed newspaper that was shot down on orders by Spanish judge Juan del Olmo will now be forced to seat at the bench, accused of "integration" to ETA. They will have to face the indictments made by the extreme-right groups called Dignidad y Justica and Asociación de Víctimas del Terrorismo, both groups are resorting to a civil lawsuit, since the district attorney will not present any federal charges. The district attorney's office is not pressing any charges due to a powerful reason, after seven years of police investigation and the exhaustive analysis of thousands of documents no one has been able to find one single piece of evidence to sustain the slightest connection between ETA and the newspaper.

Powerful but insufficient reason obviously, given the decision by the judges, for this exception tribunal to declare desert a case that should have never been opened in the first place. A case that started covered by the cloak of secrecy in an obscure Guardia Civil office, that developed as a result of the internal disputes within the Audiencia Nacional, that flourished in full force with the arbitrary and traumatic clamp down on Egunkaria, and that, despite being destined to succumb due to the lack of solid evidence is being kept alive due exclusively to the dark political impulse that moves the Spanish justice system when it comes to the Basque Country.

And when it comes to the Basque Country, there is no boundaries for the Spanish democracy, that even in the XXI century allows itself to shut down Basque media outlets over one single justification: suspicion. They did it with Egin, and satisfied about the result, they did it again with Egunkaria. ¿Solid evidence?¿No room for reasonable doubt? tiny technicalities with no consequence, easily disregarded by the importance of the mission: to silence the dissidence, gag those who dare to expose and denounce the official discourse. And next to the forced silence, the chosen silence, the option by the majority of the media outlets (both Basque and Spanish) that prefer to bow before the official discourse and hide so much injustice from the public.

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Political Prisoners and Dirty War

The executive order to remove the pictures of the Basque political prisoners from the squares and streets of Euskal Herria is just the one more absurd and useless tactic, since it does not solve any single kind of issue.

During the last few years whe have seen how several youngsters have been incarcerated without them ever having committed a single act outside the law, we are also witness to how a number of individuals are in jail without ever even touching a fire arm. Despite this they get sentenced over "terrorist acts" and "collaborating with an armed band" charges, without incontestable and solid evidence.

The whole thing is an entire process of ill-intentioned repressive tactics. The media outlets in the Spanish state, including radio stations and tv channels broadcast news and phony debates year long, using comments with no intellectual nor political or historical value regarding the situation in the Basque Country. They freely hand out labels like "etarras", "violent bunch", "dangerous people", "the must wanted", "the masterminds" and just about any epithet that they may find suitable. And then the arrests start, really young people with their entire lives ahead of them. The arrests are loud, humiliating, brutal, and in must cases they involve torture, physical abuse, threats, humiliation and incommunicado regime.

Then they are subjected to Kafkian trial where all the main witnesses are police officers that often contradict themselves or that even commit perjury to sustain their accusations, with no evidence which is not actually the worst part, there is not even logical arguments to justify the arrest, which in turn is irrelevant too. The trial are a circus show, absurd theater plays and then the conviction comes, even more absurd, out of proportion and with no legal coherence. They are thrown into inhumane jails, taking special care in dispersing them all over the geography of the Spanish and French state. The worst jails, the worst conditions, without access to doctors or psychologists, without any humane consideration, they even endure being kept from the right to get an education and all kinds of obstacles are put up to make impossible to communicate with their relatives, friends and life partners. They receive the worst treatment a prisoner can get.

The great majority of Basque political prisoners serve unfair sentences over makeshift crimes. They serve lengthy sentences over minor crimes and are forced to serve the length of their sentences despite experiencing health problems, and many of them, with terminal illnesses are still in jail years after having completed their time.

Eternal trials and sentences, and on top, with all kinds of trickery serving time at inhumane detention center in the worst condition, and in the eventuality of regaining their freedom then there is plenty of more opportunities to continue to punish them: confiscate their homes or property, harassment, put them in jail for writting a book or an article at a newspaper, for clapping their hands, for drinking a beer at an herriko or maybe for speaking Euskera or breathing pro-independence air. And if all of this does not work, dirty war will do the job, like having them going missing, abduct them, execute them... no problem at all, because in the end, in the Spanish state this atrocities are never published, nor commented, let alone punished.

Victoria Mendoza/Gara

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The Wrath of Ares

Rodolfo Ares who acts as the head of the Basque Autonomous Community's Interior department issued a series of threatening statements against anyone that dares to show some solidarity towards the Basque political prisoners.

He has announced that his department will violently clamp down on owners of 'txosnas' (Basque mobile bars for festivals) who support or allow the placement of posters or banners of Basque political prisoners or torture victims in their premises.

In an interview with Radio Catalunya, Ares explained that the decision is aimed to reduce the human, civil and political rights of the Basque citizenry using as an excuse that they will be acting "against violence collaborators or against people allowing that those actions take place in our streets, towns or villages" for whatever that means.

"We will act against everything that offends the memory of the victims, against everything that infringe Law," he added. Curiously enough, he belongs to a political party (PSOE) that deployed a terrorist group in the Basque Country known as GAL, a group that murdered, tortured and maimed dozens of Basque citizens. None of the members of GAL are today in jail due to certain political manouvering by the PSOE, the PP and the Spanish crown. That tells you just how hypocrite this Spaniard is.

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The Fascist Friendly Catholic Church

It is not enough, you could actually file this one under the "too little, too late" label, but at least it brings into the lime light one historic fact that is often denied by revisionist historians, the Catholic Church supported the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco, a murderous regime that lasted forty years. This note regarding the ceremony by the Basque Autonomous Community's bishops to ask for an apology for their silence regarding the execution of Basque priests by Francisco Franco's troops during the so called Spanish Civil War was published at The Telegraph:

Basque Bishops call for Catholic Church apology

Bishops in the Basque Country have urged the Roman Catholic Church to apologise for its silence over the killing of priests by General Francisco Franco's Right-wing forces during the Spanish Civil War.

Fiona Govan

Spain's Catholic Church supported Franco's uprising against the elected Left-wing Republican government. While the Church has always honoured the thousands of clergy who died at the hands of the Republicans, those who were killed by Franco have been officially ignored.

In an unprecedented step, a service was held in the cathedral of the Basque Country's capital, Vitoria, to remember 14 priests who were killed by Franco's forces during the 1936-39 war.

"The silence with which officials of our Church surrounded the deaths of these priests is not justifiable, nor acceptable for much longer," said Miguel Asurmendi, the Catholic bishop of Vitoria, during the ceremony.

"Such a long silence was not only a wrongful omission, but also a lack of truth and an act against justice and charity."

The Catholic Church has beatified hundreds of "martyrs" who were killed by the Republicans, who were explicitly anticlerical. Pope Benedict XVI staged the largest beatification ceremony ever in October 2007 when he honoured almost 500 Spanish priests, monks and nuns who died in this way.

There are plans for another such ceremony, sparking further criticism by Spaniards who feel the Church should atone for having supported Franco's regime, which lasted until the general's death in 1975.

Spain has made great strides in coming to terms with the trauma of its recent history. Two years ago, the socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero passed the Historic Memory Law, which recognises Franco's victims.

Sadly, the author chooses to give Zapatero a free pass. Yes, a Historic Memory Law was passed under this government but it is actually a watered down version of the original. Zapatero made sure that this Law would represent no danger to the Spanish elites that today uphold Francisco Franco's principles, a Law that erects all kinds of roadblocks for the NGO's trying to literally unearth the truth of what happened. After all, Zapatero works directly for Juan Carlos Borbon, a "king" that was selected by Francisco Franco himself to perpetuate his regime.

No, regarding the Basque bishops act of contrition, it is not enough with asking for forgiveness. The damage caused must be repaired. The names of the priests that murdered Republicans must be provided, the Catholic Church archives have to be available for researchers and truth commissions, the continuous support of the Catholic Church towards fascist regimes must be denounced. Asking for forgiveness leads to nothing. What's so courageous about condemning yesterday's executions when today you join ranks with the direct descendants of those who ordered the executions?

Truth and justice, trial and punishment for those responsible. That's what they must demand, not just play it easy and resort to a deceitful request for forgiveness.

Asking for forgiveness does not right a wrong, only justice does. Not forgotten, not forgiven, a loud and clear no to reconciliation.

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Strasbourg Upholds Spain's Apartheid

This article was published at Easy Bourse:

Court Ruling On Spain's Batasuna Ban "Bad News" - Leader

SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain (AFP)--A ruling by the European Court of Human Rights upholding Spain's decision to ban the Basque separatist organization Batasuna is "very bad news," the group's leader said Wednesday.

Conceding that Spain had won a political battle, Arnaldo Otegi told a press conference in the northern Spanish city of San Sebastian that it was also a "serious mistake."

"It gives political cover to the state of apartheid in the Basque Country," he said.

In three rulings, the Strasbourg court rejected all the petitions of the Herri Batasuna and Batasuna organizations, which had tried to register as political parties in 2001 but were declared unconstitutional by the Spanish government and disbanded in March 2003.

The groups had appealed to the court on the grounds that their rights to freedom of association and expression had been violated.

But the court said disbanding the parties was a response "to a pressing social need," given their ties to Basque militant group ETA, listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the U.S.

"Given the situation in Spain for several years regarding terrorist attacks, these ties can be considered objectively as a threat to democracy," said the court, backing the position of the Spanish authorities.

The judges said the Basque parties "contradicted the concept of a 'democratic society' and presented a major danger to Spain's democracy."

Otegi said the ruling smacked of the "war on terror" declared by former U.S. president George W. Bush," adding that Batasuna's demand for negotiations with Spain leading to the right of self-determination for the Basques was unaltered.

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