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.

.... ... .

Reply to Bruce Crumley

One of our readers left this reply to Bruce Crumley as a comment on our post titled "Sarkozy's Imprint" from September of last year:

Bruce Crumley,

Based on your misleading and incorrect information that you have written about the French Basque I think you can mislead and confuse your readers and especially those readers who have never heard of the Basques!

This is the convoluted article that you wrote, making implications, about the French Basque youths, in your article you stated, “alienated young French people of Basque origin don't share their parents' Spanish nationality but don't feel French, either. Some are beginning to identify as Basque, with a nationalist passion that inspires them to reach out to separatists on Spain's side of Euskal Herria, as they call the Basque country”.

Let me break down the convoluted misleading and incorrect information that you have written about the French Basque:

1. Alienated young French people of Basque origin don't share their parents' Spanish nationality but don't feel French, either – you have implied two things here:

q The parents of the French Basque youths had/have Spanish nationality

q The French Basque youth are alienated because they don’t feel Spanish like their parents but don’t feel French either since they are children of immigrants!!!

2. Some are beginning to identify as Basque, with a nationalist passion that inspires them to reach out to separatists on Spain's side of Euskal Herria, as they call the Basque country” You have implied here

q The French Basque youths are identifying themselves as Basques because they feel alienated for been the children of Spanish immigrants to France

q The French Basque youths are reaching out for help from the separatists Basques in Euskal Herria as they call the Basque Country

Let me correct your mess of misinformation with the following reasons:

1. The French Basque youths don’t feel alienated in their homeland the Pays Basque which is in France for the following reasons:

q They have French nationality

q They have French Basque origin

q The French Basque youths are called French Basque because they have/had parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so forth that have lived in France before the stone age, Celts, Romans and any latter invader/new comer to the country called France

2. The French Basque young, middle age and old have always proudly identify themselves as Basque or French Basque for the following reasons

q They are of Basque ethnicity

q They are French Basque because they and their ancestors are/were from the Basque Country/ Pay Basque in France

q The French Basque don’t want to be entangled in any geopolitical intrigue(s) or mess

The way you mention that the French Basque youth call Spain’s side of Euskal Herria or the Basque Country is unclear and somewhat incorrect.

Pays Basque is the name of the three French Basque Provinces of Labourd, Basse Navarre and Soule

Pais Vasco/Euskadi is the name for the three autonomous Spanish Basque provinces of Viscaya, Guipuzcoa and Alava

Euskal Herria is the Basque term for the historically and culturally Basque territory, which includes Euskadi (Spain), Navarra (Spain) and the Pays Basque in France

Note that Navarra was taken away from Euskal Herria

Throghtout history many have attempted the old tactics of “Divide et Impera” better known as Divide and Conquer or Divide and Rule against the Basques!

.... ... .

Igor Angulo

We received this information from the Belfast Basque Committee:

Basque political prisoner Igor Angulo (Bilbao 1974) was found dead today hanging from his cell window in Cuenca's jail (more than 600 kilometers from the Basque Country). He was the only Basque political prisoner in Cuenca. Because of the Spanish dispersal policy before he was transferred to Cuenca in 2001. He was kept in six different jails all around Spain. He was locked in his cell for 18 hours a day. He was tortured when he was arrested in 1996.

He is the third Basque political prisoner to be found dead in his cell in the last year and we want to make clear to everybody that this is a consequence of the merciless and brutal Spanish and French governments’ prison policy against Basques. More than 700 Basque political prisoners are kept in 80 prisons all around France and Spain suffering beatings, isolation, medical mistreatment, dispersal and being denided the most basic rights like education, speaking in Basque...etc.

If the Spanish and French governments are to be considered seriously about their aims towards a political resolution of the conflict they have to change radically their cruel policy against Basque political prisoners and stop treating them as political hostages.

.... ... .