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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Friendship Welcomes Dialogue Proposal

As you know, the recent proposal for dialogue in order to work towards a peaceful resolution of the Basque drive for self determination and eventual independence from both Spain and France has been received with harsh criticism by the Spanish establishment. Gladly enough, other voices are welcoming the proposal according to this note published at Ezker Abertzalea:

Friendship Group warmly welcomes the Abertzale Left's document

Today, the Friendship Group «Towards a peace process in the Basque Country» welcomes very warmly what we consider to be a step of great importance in order to achieve a peaceful scenario in the Basque Country.

Last Saturday, 14th of November, the Abertzale Left1 presented what they called “A first step for the Democratic Process: principles and will of the Abertzale Left”. In this document the Abertzale Left commits itself to a “democratic process” that “must be developed in a complete absence of violence and without interference, by the use of exclusively political and democratic means”. It also considers that “this process has to be conducted in accordance with the Mitchell principles2”.

We believe this decision facilitates a positive scenario that could end in a peace process, and we ask all parties involved in the conflict to react responsibly and to engage in a process that will lead to peace talks.

We as a friendship group that is working "towards a peace process in the Basque Country" would like to express our willingness to continue working in favour of the resolution of the Basque conflict.

We share the idea that the only solution that is valid for everyone is one that will be drawn up by a multilateral agreement and that is based on dialogue, peaceful and democratic means and entitles the Basques to decide upon their future freely.

Tomorrow heads of state of the EU are meeting in Brussels. We would like to ask the European Union and all its member states, as stated by the resolution adopted by the EU parliament in October 2006, to support and promote a peace process in the Basque Country. We hope that the upcoming Spanish presidency of the EU will be used in order to find a peaceful solution to this long-standing conflict. We urge the release of Arnaldo Otegi and all those arrested for their political activities, including former MEP Karmelo Landa whose release has been demanded by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in order to assure their involvement in a peace process.

Bairbre de Brún MEP and Tatjana Ždanoka MEP, on behalf of the Friendship Group: Towards a Peace Process in the Basque Country.

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The Boomerang Effect

More information about what is going on in Euskal Herria thanks to our Irish friends, this time at the blog published by the Irish Basque Solidarity Committees.

BOOMERANG EFFECT AGAINST SPANISH ATTACKS

-Forceful response to attack against the Basque pro-independence movement.

On Tuesday 13 October, 10 prominent activists, including Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi and former general secretary of the LAB trade union Rafa Diez, were arrested and accused of trying to "reorganise the leadership" of the Basque pro-independence left movement. Five of the 10 were arrested in a raid on the national headquarters of the LAB union in Donostia.

On Friday Judge Baltasar Garzon sent Otegi, Diez and three others to jail, accused of "membership of a terrorist organisation" and of trying to reconstitute the pro-independence Batasuna party on the "orders of ETA". Batasuna was outlawed in 2003.

Hundreds of people took to the streets and students organised strikes in the aftermath of the arrests.

A massive protest was held on Saturday 17 October in Donostia/San Sebastian to protest against the Spanish government's new wave of arrests against the Basque pro-independence movement.

More than 37,000 Basques protested against the arrests under the slogan "For liberty, all rights for all” in a very significant demonstration of unity among Basque society. The demonstration had been called by the majority of trade unions and supported by all Basque nationalist and progressive political parties.

The demonstration was the largest in the Basque Country in many years and even the pro-Spanish media had to recognise the huge success.

Statements of support also came from across the world like the World Federation of Trade Unions and the European Free Alliance. In Ireland, Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún and the Irish Basque Solidarity Committees cqalled for an end to such repression and the immediate release of those arrested and told the Spanish government they need to engage in dialogue with those they seek to demonise and criminalise. “This is the only way to reach a lasting settlement in the Basque Country” they concluded.

The Dublin Basque Solidarity Committee organised a protest outside the GPO on Sunday.

Batasuna responded to the arrests by saying: "The aim of these arrests is to stop political initiatives that the Basque pro-independence movement was due to activate - political initiatives to resolve the ongoing conflict and to create a democratic scenario for the Basque Country."

On Monday 19 the Basque pro-independence newspaper Gara published extracts from a 36-page debate document presented for discussion among the grass roots by Batasuna’s leadership. This discussion and its practical conclusions is what the Spanish government seems to fear and what they wanted to prevent with last week’s arrests.

In the document a new effective strategy is suggested. Batasuna’s leadership wants to promote a democratic process without any violence and external interference.

The latest arrests are part of the Spanish government's ongoing campaign of repression against political, social, labour and cultural organisations that are in favour of self-determination for the Basque Country. The central thesis of this criminalisation campaign, as formulated by Judge Garzon, is that “everything that surrounds ETA is ETA” , that is, any group or individual that shares ETA's goal of Basque independence, regardless of what methods they use, is part of ETA.

This process has often been led by politicians and the media but is given a 'democratic' cover and institutionalised by the Spanish courts through a series of judicial rulings initiated by Garzon in 1998.

The repression against all expressions of Basque nationalism has escalated dramatically during the summer, with the Madrid government working in concert with the Spanish chauvinist coalition government that took power in the south-west of the Basque Country in March.

-Another sucessful display of support to the Basque language.

Up to 100,000 people attended the annual day long festival to support the Basque language schools in the province of Navarre. This year’s edition was organised by the local school of Lakuntza with the slogan “Txikiak, handi” (The small ones are big).

Young and old came from across the Basque Country to enjoy lots of different activities like gigs, sport, food, street animation, workshops, cultural displays... 3,000 volunteers worked hard to make sure everything went well.

The money raised will help to build a new building for the Lakuntza Basque medium school.

These massive festivals are organised in each province of the Basque Country every year and become both a great way to fundraise for the vitally necessary Basque medium schools and to promote the Basque language.

Each year a different school organises the festival. It takes around 300 volunteers working for two years to organise it.


-Largest ever demonstration against High Speed Train.

12,000 people demonstrated in Baiona in the north of the Basque Country last Saturday against the construction of a new High Speed Train railway.

Over the last few years different plans to build High Speed Train railways across the Basque Country have been opposed by large sections of Basque society with the pro-independence left movement at the core of the protest campaigns.

ETA has also intervened with small bombs and the killing of a main contractor.

The High Speed Train would put the Basque Country’s future at risk due to the environmental destruction and huge consumption of energy and public funds.

-More political trials and more arrests.

Last Friday seven members of the Pro-Amnesty movement were arrested and taken to prison to fulfil the remaining sentences imposed against them by the Spanish Supreme Court for their political work against repression and in favour of the Basque political prisoners. They had been waiting for the outcome of their appeal.

Another 13 members of the movement were already in jail after all of them were sentenced to between 8 and 10 years in prison. Basque political prisoners do their time to the full.

The hard sentence has been understood within a context of political repression aimed to weaken the pro-independence movement and prevent new political developments that could take the Basque Country to a new scenario of peace and democracy.

Last week the first of a long list of trials began against alleged members of Segi, the pro-independence youth organisation. Over the last two years 16 police operations were launched in different parts of the Basque Country and 123 local youth activists were arrested, of whom 69 reported being tortured and 91 were imprisoned. All of them were well known youth movement activists in their towns involved in cultural, political and social public work.

Demonstrations, fasts, strikes, massive press conferences...have been organised recently to denounce these show trials and support the youth.

Two alleged ETA members were arrested by the French police on Monday 19 in Britanny. The Spanish media portrayed them as members of the ETA’s political office and tried to make conections with last week arrests of 10 prominent pro-independence activists.

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Basque Unions Lead the Way

This article was published at Indymedia Ireland:

Trade unions lead Basque society as they respond to Spanish State repression

Cormac Mac Gall

Spanish police attacks answered by moblisation of Basque working class and expression of wider Basque society solidarity in massive demonstration

After a Spanish police raid on the Donosti/ San Sebastian headquarters of the pro-Independence Left trade union LAB, arrests there and elsewhere of trade union and political activists, the Basque trade unions of LAB, ELA, ESK, STEE-EILAS, EHNE and Hiru led Basque society in an expression of resistance to Spanish state repression. The six trade unions between them represent over 70% of the Basque workers in the south of their country,. The protest on Saturday of well over 37,000 displayed a level of Basque unity not seen for ten years in which the whole pro-Basque spectrum of Basque political and cultural organisations were represented.

The numbers of those present at the Donosti/ San Sebastian demonstration on Saturday could not be precisely arrived at, given that people were still in the tunnel as the head of the march reached its destination; but the whole bay was packed and 37,000 was agreed as a conservative estimate. It is thought that many people were also prevented from reaching the city in time for the demonstration as Spanish Police operated many road blocks (around 30 between Bilbao and Donosti alone).

The recent train of events that led to this huge demonstration began on Tuesday when the Spanish police raided the Donosti headquarters of LAB, the pro-Independence Left trade union that represents just under 20% of the Basque workers. The police arrested five people inside, one of them Rafa Diez, ex-President of the union and another being Arnaldo Otegi. Five other well-known political activists were arrested elsewhere. Each of the ten was a well-known political activist and some of them were also active in the trade union movement.

All were taken to Madrid under the orders of Baltazar Garzón, the notorious judge of the Audiencia Nacional (special no-jury national court dealing with charges of “terrorism”). The ten were arrested under Spain’s anti-terrorism laws and Garzón’s interpretation rulings of the same legislation in which, for example, many political activists have been considered to be working for the same ends as the armed group ETA (e.g. a socialist independent Basque state) and to be “coordinating their political activities with them”. The ten were originally held incommunicado, raising fears of the kind of torture that many previous detainees have reported, but after a few days all gained access to their lawyers. After they appeared before Garzón and made their statements, some were released on bail but others, including Otegi, were sent to prison to await trial in the Audiencia. One was set at unconditional liberty after three days in detention in Madrid, as he had been in prison during the time of the alleged offences.

The arrests followed a week during which 20 alleged activists of Gestoras Pro-Amnistia (Basque anti-repression organisation) or of Batasuna (banned main political party of the Izquirda Abertzale movement), after a process of a year, had their sentences of eight to ten years confirmed in the Audiencia Nacional and their roundup by police was initiated. None are accused of any act of violence or of damage to property, but of political “collusion with terrorism”.

During last week small demonstrations were held at the workplaces of the ten detained on Tuesday, including factories, an office and a school, as well as in their home towns. Workers also gathered in front of the LAB headquarters in Donosti to demonstrate their solidarity, also in Bilbao, Gastheiz/ Vitoria and Iruňea. On Wednesday and Thursday, a number of meetings were held in Basque trade union and political circles and a joint press statement was released by the six trade unions calling for a massive demonstration of protest on Saturday. They also called for the immediate release of the ten, an end to Spanish state persecution of political activists and LAB had already called for international expressions of solidarity. During Saturday’s demonstration the union leaders also called for the repeal of Spain’s Law of Political Parties, under which many organisations of the Izquierda Abertzale (Basque pro-Independence Left) have been banned or prevented from fielding candidates in elections, and called for solidarity with the political prisoners.

SOLIDARITY WITH POLITICAL PRISONERS A CRIME?

The issue of the approximately 765 political prisoners is one on which the actions of the Erzaintza (pro-Spanish ‘Basque’ police) caused much conflict during the traditional festivals of the past summer months. The Audiencia Nacional declared that the displays of large photos of the prisoners, whether on balconies, in taverns or held by their relatives at vigils, were “glorifying terrorism” and therefore illegal. As the Erzaintza moved in to tear down photos and harass the weekly relatives’ vigils, clashes took place but afterwards copies of the photos appeared everywhere, including even on the walls of the house of one of the local leaders of the repressive campaign. Solidarity demonstrations were banned and took place anyway, answered by police riots with clubs and plastic bullets and also riots by Basque youth throwing stones and burning rubbish bins.

THE LAST STRAW

For many less politically-active or conservative Basques therefore, Tuesday’s police operations were clearly the last straw. Apart from the united call and action of the Basque trade unions, smaller political groupings of the Basque Left such as Izquierda Unida, AE and ARALAR all joined in the calls and in the demonstration on Saturday. The conservative Basque nationalist party PNV, which holds the majority of seats in the Basque Autonomous Parliament of three of the four provinces under Spanish rule, declared on Friday that they would be sending their entire executive council to support the demonstration and did so; however they declined from making any statement whatsoever, even to explain why they were attending. Many people famous in Basque society in the arenas of sport, culture, media and performing arts were also seen on the demonstration and many were willing to be interviewed, expressing their abhorrence at the lack of democracy in the Basque Country under Spanish rule.

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY

Messages of solidarity came in and were posted on LAB’s web page from the World Federation of Trade Unions, from trade unions and union socialist currents from Latin America, various parts of Europe and even Madrid, also of course from trade unions in Asturias (northern Spain, next to the Basque Country), Galicia and Catalonia (each of these also have their own trade unions), Canaries etc. Conspicuous in their absence were the two main Spain-wide unions Comisiones Obreras and UGT, who have been losing ground to more militant and also separatist trade unions in the Spanish state.

The Irish Basque Solidarity Committees also sent messages of solidarity and on Sunday a protest took place in O’Connell Street in which Basque and Irish flags were flown and large placards were displayed carrying messages such as:

“Franco lives on in the Spanish Government!” “Spanish Government represses Basque’s Freedom of Speech! Freedom of Assembly! Freedom of Press and Media!” “Hands off Basque Trade Unions!”

Other placards opposed the extradition requests for two Basques living in Belfast (Arturo Villanueva and Inaki de Juana), and asked what had happened to Jon Anza (an ETA militant who disappeared in France in April, believed by many to have been kidnapped, tortured and killed by Spanish undercover squads with French state collusion. The protest was organised jointly by Dublin Committee and Ógra Shinn Féin. The demonstrators met with expressions of support from passing pedestrian and motorised traffic but the reaction of tourists from the Spanish state were more mixed. Some were enthusiastic in their support, such as a group of Catalans and another of Asturians, but another group accused the Basques of being “terroristas” and condemned the protestors for supporting them. They were answered with cries of “Viva la libertad para todos!” (long live freedom for all!).

REPERCUSSIONS IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY AND FURTHER IN THE SPANISH STATE

According to Izquirda Abertzale spokespersons in Batasuna (banned in the Spanish state but not in France), Askapena (international expression of Basque anti-repression) and LAB, also commentators in GARA (Basque daily newspaper), the police attacks have boomeranged on the Spanish Government and also made collusion with them (i.e. by the PNV) more difficult. Indeed, the press on Monday reported the Spanish Labour Party in the Basque Country asking the PNV to make up their mind on which side they stand.

The project of the pro-Independence Left to forge a pan-Basque alliance under its leadership (or at least substantially influenced by it) and thereby to challenge Spanish hegemony, would seem to have taken a significant step forward.

We found out about this article thanks to Infowars Ireland.

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Eight Injured by the Ertzaintza in Lekeitio

The Madrid imposed government in the Basque Autonomous Community insists on unleashing police brutality against the Basque civilians during the traditional summer fetivities. As a result, eight people were deprived of their freedom in clashes with the Ertzaintza (Basque police force) in Lekeitio, in the early hours of Monday during the town’s main festivity. It’s understood that seven people were injured, including a police officer.

The violence escalated after a group of citizens began shouting out insults at officers inside the police station, with others joining in the crowd as police violently tried to disperse the group, who found themselves resorting to their favorite repressive tactic, to open fire with rubber bullets. A number of rubbish containers were set alight, and damage was caused to banks and insurance offices.

Rapid action by fire crews managed to prevent any serious damage to the PNV Basque Nationalist Party’s offices in the town which some amongst the crowd had tried to set alight.

The street violence came during the Lekeitio’s traditional "Day of the Goose" – the Antzar Eguna - when locals attempt to cross a stretch of water hanging by their arms from the neck of a goose suspended on a pulley across the port. It’s understood the geese used today are either already dead or artificial.

Despite Madrid and Gasteiz's efforts to criminalize the Basque solidarity with the victims of political persecution, there are reports that some of the boats used in the Antzar Eguna were seen displaying photos of Basque political prisoners or flags in their support.

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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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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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Basque Events Féile '09

We just received this information from our friends at the Irish Basque Committees:

Féile Carnival Parade

Assemble Kennedy Centre
Sunday 2nd August, 12pm – 1pm

Join the Belfast Basque Solidarity Committee with flags and banner to show your support for the Basque Country in the Féile Carnival parade.

Exhibition

St. Mary’s College, Falls Road.
Monday 3rd August – Friday 7th August.

“Life and Struggle in the Basque Country”, a unique exhibition from the Basque photographers collective Ekinklik detailing life, protest and political action in the Basque country.

‘A Picture Paints a Thousand Words’ Launch

Felons Club, 537 Falls Road.
Monday 3rd August 12 noon

Currently in the Basque country to display an image of a political prisoner publically has been made illegal and can carry a prison sentence of four year for ‘glorifying terrorism’. In solidarity all the images of all the current political prisoners will be displayed in Belfast in opposition the criminalisation process in the Basque Country.
Main speaker: Michael Culbert, Director of Coiste.

Discussion and Debate

“Political persecution in the Basque Country: the cases of Inaki de Juana & Arturo “Benat” Villanueva”

An Chultúrlann, 216 Falls Road.
Saturday 8th August 4pm.

Two members of the Basque community living in Belfast are facing extradition to Spain on politically motivated and manipulated charges brought against them by the Spanish government. Other have face similar proceedings across Europe and South America.

This discussion will provide an insight in this particular case and the many others.

Organised by: www.dontextraditethebasques.org

Speakers:

Julen Arzuaga, former director of Behatokia (Basque Human Rights Watch) and charged in one of the show trials, Inaki de Juana, Arturo “Benat” Villanueva and Niall Murphy, from Kevin Winters solicitors.

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Keep up to date on Basque struggle news.

Listen to Basque Info at www.feilefm.com on line on Tuesdays from 6.30-7pm and Wednesdays 12-12.30pm

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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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Solidarity With Etxeberria in Venezuela

This article was published at VHeadline:

AD thugs attack solidarity with the Basques activists outside Supreme Court

Patrick J. O'Donoghue

The Solidarity with The Basque People has organized another rally in front of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) in Caracas protesting against the possible extradition of Inaki Etxeberria to Spain.

According to a spokesperson, Etxeberria has been living legally in Venezuela for more than 12 years and the group accuses the State of illegally arresting Inaki in Valencia, Carabobo on April 21.

According to Venezuelan law, the case should have been declared proscribed because of the 15 years and four months that had passed since Etxeberria was charged in Spain for assassination.

The arrest warrant issued by Interpol, the spokesperson adds, contains contradictions in stating the actual terms surrounding charges.

The TSJ has not ruled on the matter, a spokesman comments, despite the fact that the Attorney General has declared that the case does not merit extradition.

However, it emerges that the protesters were attacked by opposition sectors that turned up outside the building accompanying Metropolitan Mayor Antonio Ledezma and opposition hardliner, Oscar Perez.

According to a report published by Aporrea.org, those supporting the Basque revolutionary were attacked with sticks and fists by Accion Democratica (AD) thugs.

Organizers complain that the Metropolitan Police (PM) not only failed to provide any protection, even though the anti-extradition group was there first but also forced them aside with tear gas to allow Ledezma, Perez and followers through to the TSJ building.

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Arrests of Refugees and Dispersal

We received this text from our friends at the Irish Basque Committees:

Basque political refugees arrested in Belfast and Venezuela

At the request of the Spanish authorities Arturo “Benat” Villanueva was arrested last Wednesday by the Extraditions Team of the PSNI. The arrest happened at 8am at his home. The PSNI officers involved in the arrest were correct throughout the arrest and the custody at the Musgrave barracks.

40 people supported Benat inside and outside the Court buildings. After a hearing before Judge Burgess and having previously agreed with both the Crown prosecution and the PSNI Benat was released on a £5000 bail, curfew at home from 9pm to 7am, he has to remain within the six counties and has to sign at a barracks every day once. A full hearing will be held on the 13th of May at the Lagan Court in Belfast.

As we’ve reported many times Benat’s case is not an isolated one, it’s part of a broader pattern of repression against the Basque Country . Over the last decade newspapers, political parties, youth groups, cultural associations...have been banned and their members arrested.

Benat has been living and working openly in Belfast for the past 5 and half years. He said: “I’ve made this country my home, made many great friends and become a proud part of a very strong community. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everybody for the welcome and support they’ve extended to myself and the Basque people over the years.”

Between Tuesday and Wednesday Basque political refugee Inaki Etxeberria was arrested in Venezuela. Very little information has come out surrounding this arrest.

The Basque pro-independence movement spoke out against the arrests and branded them as political and reflection of the overall political situation of repression in the Basque Country. The pro-independence movement asked other governments not to follow the Spanish authorities estrategy. Finally expressed their solidarity with the arrested and thanked those in Ireland, Venezuela and the rest of the world who have welcomed and supported Basque refugees along the years.

The Belfast Basque Solidarity Committee has stated that the arrest of a member of the Basque community , living in Belfast, is yet more evidence of the Spanish authorities attack on Basque Civil society.

Speaking on Wednesday a spokesperson for the group, Kevin Morrison, said:

“The arrest of a member of the Basque community, living in Belfast, Arturo “Benat” Villanueva, is yet more evidence of the continuation of attacks by the Spanish government on Basque civil society.

“The extradition warrant issued by the Spanish authorities is accusing Arturo Villanueva of membership of Segi, a youth organization banned in 2005 in a series of draconian clampdowns on Basque cultural and societal organizations.

“Since then newspapers and radio stations have been closed, human rights groups have been banned, and Batasuna, the Basque pro-independence party has been proscribed and its leadership arrested and imprisoned. All of these are blatant infringements of basic human rights and the freedom of speech within the European Union.

“This attitude of the Spanish government has recently been described by UN Rapporteur, Martin Scheinin as ‘too broad’ targeting ‘groups that have nothing to do with violence’.

“Benat has been living openly in Belfast for over five years and now has a life here.. We are a calling for immediate dropping of this case and an overall end to such repression of Basque civil society.”

20 years of dispersal policy

The EPPK/Basque Political Prisoners Collective released a statement on the 20th anniversary of the implementation of the dispersal policy by the Spanish government followed after by the French authorities. Since 1989 hundreds of Basque prisoners have been scattered in dozens of prisons across Spain and France. Nowadays 765 Basque political prisoners are imprisoned in 85 jails.

In the statement the EPPK says they won’t allow to be used to damage the Basque National Liberation Movement. They called upon Basque society to continue working against the dispersal policy.

The EPPK goes on to ask the French and Spanish government to take the prisons policies out of the confrontation lines and take the path of common sense.

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How the Spaniards Took Over the BAC's Government

This article was published at Green Left:

Basque Country: Spanish chauvinists oust nationalists

Emma Clancy


In the regional elections held on March 1 in the south-west Basque region (Bascongadas), the Spanish state banned left-wing Basque nationalist parties from taking part.

Combined with an alliance between rival Spanish chauvinist parties, the result was that for the first time since limited autonomy was granted to the region in 1979, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) has lost control of the Parliament of the Basque Autonomous Community.

The Basque Country (Euskal Herria) straddles the Spanish and French borders. The majority of the 3 million Basques live within the Spanish state.

The Basque people have waged a long struggle for self-determination from Spanish rule.

The Bascongadas regional elections (comprising the Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Araba regions) disenfranchised about 15-20 % of citizens by banning political parties Spanish authorities claimed were linked to either the armed nationalist group ETA, or Batasuna — the pro-independence political party outlawed in 2003.

The PNV won the highest number of votes, but failed to win an outright majority in the 75-seat parliament. The two main Spanish parties, the local section of the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (the PSE) and the right-wing Popular Party (PP), who between them took 38 seats, struck a deal on April 1 to form a coalition government on the basis of opposition to Basque self determination.

In the lead-up to the poll, the Spanish judiciary increased its repression of the pro-independence movement. The Supreme Court banned two more parties — Democracy 3 Million and Askatasuna (Freedom) — from standing candidates.

The left-nationalists, who generally poll 15-20%, were entirely excluded. They have no representatives in the new parliament.

The left-nationalists responded by printing and distributing illegal ballots, with which more than 100,000 people voted. Including these ballots, a majority of voters (around 640,000) backed pro-self determination parties. The PSE and PP won 482,000 votes combined.

The pro-Spanish parties, bitter rivals in Madrid, agreed to make PSE leader Patxi Lopez regional government president in return for the PP taking the presidency of the Basque parliament.

Repression

The coalition has already indicated it intends to increase repression against the pro-independence movement. Plans include bolstering the security forces, and attacks on the Basque language and cultural rights.

In a particularly vindictive move, Lopez has announced plans to cut government travel aid to the families of hundreds of Basque political prisoners that helps them visit relatives in jails throughout Spain and France.

On March 23, top Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who is on a personal crusade against Basque nationalism, filed “terrorism”' charges against 44 pro-independence activists.

The activists are alleged to be members of banned parties, including Batasuna, the Communist Party of the Basque Lands (PCTV) and Basque Nationalist Action (ANV).

Among those charged is Mondragon Mayor Maria Inocencia Galparsoro.

In a December 16 report, the UN human rights special rapporteur Martin Scheinin said he was “troubled” by Spain’s Law of Political Parties, which provides the legislative basis to ban political organisations. He said it defined “terrorism” so vaguely that it “might be interpreted to include any political party which through peaceful political means seeks similar political objectives” as those pursued by armed organisations.

This reveals that it is not the tactics, but the political goals of the pro-independence parties that Spain seeks to repress.

Scheinin said the law against “glorifying terrorism” should “include the requirements of an intent to incite the commission of a terrorist offence, as well as the existence of an actual risk that such an offence will be committed as a consequence”.

The Spanish authorities are using this law to try to extradite former ETA prisoner Inaki de Juana Chaos, who served 21 years in Spanish jails, from Belfast, where he moved after his release last August.

A Spanish court is basing its extradition efforts on the flimsiest grounds. Its evidence is one media report that, at an August rally in Donostia, which de Juana Chaos did not even attend, someone said, “Kick the ball forward”. This is alleged to be a call to commit terrorist acts, although there is no evidence the statement was made by de Juana Chaos or that it was an incitement to terrorism.

In March, a Belfast judge ruled against de Juana Chaos, accepting the advice of the Spanish authorities that the phrase constituted “praising terrorism”. De Juana Chaos is appealing the ruling.

On April 21, 32-year-old Basque activist Arturo Villanueva Arteaga, who has lived in west Belfast running a tourism business for the past four years, was arrested under a European warrant issued by the Spanish authorities.

Spain is seeking his extradition on unspecified terror charges reportedly relating to proscribed left-wing nationalist youth organisation Segi. The extradition hearing is set for May 13.

The UN report also criticised the interpretation of kale borroka, or street fighting between young people and the security forces, as “urban terrorism”. This definition subjects those who take part in street fighting to anti-terror laws, including incommunicado detention.

The report slammed the fact that all the political cases are judged by National Bench, descended from fascist dictator General Franco’s Public Order Tribunal. The Supreme Court has only a limited ability to review the bench’s judgements.

Prisoners

The UN report criticised human rights abuses. These include the denial of the rights of “terror suspects”, who may be dheld incommunicado for up to 13 days without charge.

The UN report noted the frequent allegations of torture by those detained incommunicado, as well as the failure of the Spanish authorities to investigate these claims properly.

The Basque human rights NGO, Group Against Torture (TAT), has listed testimonies of torture from 62 people in 2008, most of whom had been held incommunicado. The allegations include beatings, sexual assault, plastic bag asphyxiation, food and sleep deprivation, use of stress positions, and threats to rape or kill detainees or their family members.

Another alleged common abuse was being forced to sing the Spanish national anthem or fascist anthems.

There are now 765 Basque political prisoners, the highest number since the Franco dictatorship fell in 1975. They are spread out in more than 80 prisons in Spain and France — on average about 600km from the Basque Country.

The return of prisoners to the Basque Country has long been a central demand of the Basque people.

Spanish chauvinists now also control the central institution that Basque nationalists have historically used to exercise a degree of autonomy — the Basque Autonomous Community parliament.

The opportunist alliance of the social democratic PSE with the right-wing, neo-Francoist PP brings into sharp relief the fact that self-determination remains the defining issue facing the Basque Country.

The conservative nationalist PNV must also realise that the Spanish state’s strategy of fostering division and trying to isolate the radical nationalists also hurts the PNV. It has lost the limited power it had, demonstrating its dependence on the left-nationalists.

In power, the PNV failed seriously to oppose the persecution of the left. Such collaboration with Madrid's anti-democratic policies, out of narrow self-interest, has backfired.

A new nationalist united front, with a strategy of extra-parliamentary mass mobilisation, will be vital to defend the political, cultural and economic rights of Basque people against attacks from the chauvinist coalition.

Left-nationalists have begun holding meetings to discuss the way forward. Basque nationalist trade unions have called a general strike for May 21.

International support for a serious, inclusive peace process — in which the Spanish and French states acknowledge the Basque people’s democratic and national rights — is now more important than ever.

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Criminalizing Solidarity

Officers from the Ertzaintza (Basque police force), have today removed photographs from the railings outside a bank in Arrasate-Mondragón, after receiving an order from the Public Prosecutor of the country's High Court.

The officers went to the bank in Calle Maalako Errabala, where the photos were on show, and unscrewed the aluminium board being used to display the pictures, which included Basque political prisoners like Unai Parot, José Ignacio Gaztañaga, José Gabriel Urizar, María Asunción Arana and Eugenio Barrutiabengoa, amongst others.

The court order came from Public Prosecutor, Vicente González Mota, who had reacted to information provided by members of parliament for the Basque Country about the existence of the photographs.

The Public Prosecutor's office acted on direct orders from Francisco Javier Lopez, a member of the PSOE who decided that Spain should criminalize displaying the photos that are placed in public spots to show solidarity towards the Basque political prisoners and therefore ordered them to be removed. The order is part of an strategy by the fascist Spanish government aimed at increasing the repressive measures against the Basque political prisoners and their families. Let us remember that the very same Spanish government has refused to remove the Francisco Franco's regime memorabilia still in place on streets, town squares, churches, schools and military installations, memorabilia which includes the present flag and the national anthem.

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Basque Political Prisoners Join Boycott Against Israel

This article was published at Workers World:

Movement spreads to boycott Israel

Kathy Durkin

The Palestinian Unified Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel is taking hold and growing in unions, universities and among political forces on many continents.

A worldwide focus is organizing for March 30—Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Action Day—when progressive forces are being asked to carry out concrete, strong protests to further this key campaign in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
www.pflp.ps

Many exciting actions and commitments to the BDS campaign have taken place within the last month.

Inspiring activists worldwide, Basque political prisoners at France’s Fresnes jail strongly spoke out for the people of Gaza, despite threats of reprisal. They avowed, “We, Basque political prisoners, refuse to buy [Israeli] products [in the canteen] [to] show our solidarity with [the] Palestinian people.” (www.bdsmovement.net)

On Boycott Israel Day, Feb. 14, picket lines circled grocery stores throughout Denmark. Protesters targeted produce sold by Israeli companies, especially Carmel Agrexco, Israel’s biggest exporter of fruits and vegetables, which are grown in occupied Palestine.

The city of Stockholm, Sweden, has terminated an agreement with Veolia Transport because it is connected to a tramway project in Israel.

The BDS call has swept through Norway’s union movement. Six top Norwegian unions and many organizations are calling for a campaign to end state investments in Israel. The Union of Trade and Office Workers, Norway’s biggest union of store workers, has called on its members’ employers to stop purchasing Israeli goods.

The Norwegian Trade Unions confederation, which represents 20 percent of the country’s population, condemned Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza and called for strong protests. (More than 28 cities were sites of protests during the siege.) This union also expressed solidarity with COSATU when South African dockworkers refused to unload an Israeli ship last month.

Italy’s largest metalworkers’ union, the FIOM, representing 360,000 members, has called for war crimes’ trials for Israeli officials for the Gaza siege. The union also demands agreements be terminated between Israel and Italy, and between Israel and the European Union.

An academic boycott of “all Israeli institutions participating in the occupation [of Gaza]” was announced in a call by many French academics, who are promoting a wide scale BDS campaign and want to see war crimes’ trials for Israeli leaders.

The Consumers Association of Turkey called for a nationwide boycott of Israeli, U.S. and British goods that are sold by companies that “openly declare their support and cooperation to Israel [and] the ones that transfer funds to [the] Israeli Army.” Among companies listed are Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Starbucks, McDonald’s and Burger King. (bdsmovement.net)

The Association of Social Workers of Mauritius has called for the removal of Israeli products, including food and medicines, from store shelves and for a boycott.

University workers’ delegates in the Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 200,000 public sector workers, just passed a resolution which calls for an academic boycott of Israel. It calls for an educational campaign on Israel’s “apartheid,” asks the union to back the BDS movement, and more.

The Australia BDS campaign has picked up steam, especially in recent weeks in Sydney. There have been direct actions, campus organizing and strategizing on long-term campaigns. A key target is Max Brenner Chocolates, an Israeli-owned company in the transnational Strauss group, which supports the IDF’s Golani brigade, notorious for its ruthless offensives in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.

And as of March 1, the city of Tulkarem, which is in the Occupied West Bank, is initiating an all-out boycott of Israeli food and other products.

March 1-8 will be the fifth annual Israeli Apartheid Week. It will be commemorated with cultural events and protests in the Occupied West Bank at universities and refugee camps, and in cities worldwide. Activities will help to build the BDS campaign under the theme of “Standing United with the People of Gaza.” (stopthewall.org)

Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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Spain Jails Basque Activists

This article concerning the fascist clampdown on Basque political parties and against Basque activists was published at World War 4:

Spain expands crackdown on Basque political parties

About a dozen members of the new leadership of the Basque political opposition were arrested in several towns across Spain's País Vasco Jan. 23. The arrests follow a court order by the Spanish High Court magistrate Baltasar Garzón, who claims that 3DM and Askatasuna, two new parties fielding candidates in the forthcoming local elections, are fronts for the outlawed Batasuna party.

Spain's Supreme Court banned Batasuna in 2003 on the grounds that it was a front for the armed organization ETA, closing down its offices and barring it from all political activity. Prior to its prohibition, Batasuna used to garner some 12% of the vote in Basque Country elections. According to Spanish news agencies, the police are gathering evidence of links between the outlawed Batasuna and the new parties 3DM and Askatasuna. Police also reportedly carried out searches on the homes of several prominent Basque militants, including Tasio Erkizia, Mariné Pueyo, Santi Kiroga and Joxerra Etxebarria. None were arrested. (EiTB, Bilbao, Jan. 23)

This operation and the incarceration of eight Basque activists ordered by inquisitor Baltasar Garzón brings the number of Basque political prisoners close to 800, a figure that surpasses the all time high during Francisco Franco's murderous regime. Which pretty much means that Spain IS NOT a democratic state.

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Irish Judge Exposes Spain's Corruption

Unlike judges in Mexico and Canada who bought Spain's campaign of lies against Basque pro independence activists, a judge in Ireland has exposed Spain's corruption by declaring that Madrid has nothing more than a news paper's opinion to accuse Iñaki de Juana of apology of terrorism.

This article about this Irish judge's defiance against Spain's repressive and violent campaign against the right of the Basque Country to its self determination was published at The International Herald Tribune:

Basque militant fights extradition to Spain

The Associated Press
Published: December 12, 2008

DUBLIN, Ireland: A Belfast judge reserved judgment Friday in the case of a notorious Basque separatist fighting extradition to Spain — but emphasized that the Spanish authorities' case was weak.

A Spanish judge last month formally asked British authorities to ship Inaki de Juana Chaos back to Madrid to answer questions about a letter in which he allegedly "praises terrorism."

But Tom Burgess, the judge hearing the extradition case at Belfast Crown Court, expressed skepticism about the Spanish case against de Juana Chaos as he heard arguments from both sides' lawyers.

Spain says it wants to question de Juana Chaos about a letter — purportedly a message from himself to supporters of the Basque paramilitary group ETA — calling on them to continue bombing and shooting in hopes of securing an independent homeland in northeast Spain and southwest France.

Burgess heard that the Spanish case was based on a journalist's account of an ETA rally and the letter's contents — and defense claims that the message could be translated into many things besides "praising terrorism."

The judge said a journalist's characterization was not good enough as evidence. He said the message transcript itself needed to be produced and verified as coming from de Juana Chaos.

"I have no idea what this document is," Burgess said, referring to third-hand accounts of the letter's contents. "It seems to be potentially dangerous for this court to start looking at a document for the purpose of whether or not a crime is involved. Is it hearsay, double-hearsay, triple hearsay?"

Burgess adjourned the case without saying when he would give his verdict.

De Juana Chaos denies any connection to the letter. One of his Belfast lawyers, Kevin Winters, said someone else read out a speech at a pro-ETA rally shortly after Spain freed de Juana Chaos from prison in August — but denies that the speech amounted to a letter authored by his client.

De Juana Chaos was convicted in 1987 in a string of ETA bombings and shootings in Madrid that killed 25 police officers, military personnel and civilians. He twice pursued lengthy hunger strikes in prison, and Spanish authorities also convicted him of issuing death threats while behind bars.

Kudos to judge to Tom Burguess for standing for justice and reason.

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Visiting Zapatista Chiapas

This article was published in the section Frugal Traveler at The New York Times:

In the Village of the Zapatistas

The entrance to Oventic, a village in the Chiapas highlands about an hour north of San Cristóbal de las Casas, is easy to miss. It’s a simple metal gate with nothing in particular to distinguish it. Cargo trucks and Nissan taxis roll by as they do anywhere else in the state, and in the cold fine mist of an October morning, Oventic seemed to vanish behind the gate into thick fog.

That was oddly appropriate, given that Oventic is an autonomous enclave run by the Zapatista National Liberation Army, the armed, largely indigenous rebel group that for many in the United States is synonymous with Chiapas. It was the Zapatista uprising on Jan. 1, 1994, that put Chiapas on the political map and drew attention to the group’s war against Mexico’s government over the poverty of peasants in Chiapas.

With the suave, pipe-smoking, balaclava-clad Subcomandante Marcos as their mysterious frontman, the Zapatistas captured towns (including San Cristóbal), issued communiqués and declarations from the Lacandón jungle (whose outer edge I visited last week) and managed to negotiate agreements with the government on land reform and autonomy for the region’s native people. Those agreements, however, were never fully enacted, the Mexican military occupied swaths of Chiapas, and paramilitary groups killed Zapatistas sympathizers (the most notorious being the 1997 massacre of 45 Tzotzil Indians in the village of Acteal). Rarely, if ever, were tourists affected by the conflict.

In the last several years, however, the conflict has calmed significantly (although not necessarily to the Zapatistas’ benefit) and receded from international view, leaving the movement of today a bit of a mystery. After reading “The Zapatista Reader,” an anthology of essays, magazine articles and documents, I wanted a firsthand view of life in a modern Zapatista community. As it happened, Oventic, which is apparently open to visitors, was just a 30-peso colectivo ride away from San Cristóbal.

First, however, I had to get through the gate.

“Your passport,” said the man standing guard, his voice muffled by a ski mask.

I handed over my passport, and he walked into a nearby shack, emerging a few minutes later to escort me in. Inside the shack, two men sat at a table, ledgers open, while three others stood around them. All wore ski masks as well, not — as I’d first thought — to ward off the chill but to hide their identities.

They, too, asked for my passport and began to fill out a form. Where did I come from? Why was I here? How long did I hope to stay? All were easy to answer — until they asked my profession.

The problem: As a New York Times travel writer, I’m not supposed to reveal my identity to the people I’m writing about. This is primarily to prevent hotels, restaurants and other businesses from giving me special treatment, but it’s also so that I experience places as an everyday tourist would. To tell the Zapatistas I’m a writer would alter their attitude toward me, and worse, I wouldn’t be able to find out if a regular tourist could visit.

Still, I hated lying — I couldn’t simply invent a profession. Fortunately, as a freelancer, I technically don’t have a job. Plus, my wife was about to have a baby, and we’d decided that I would stay home to take care of our child. Conveying this arrangement, however, was a challenge. A jobless American on vacation without his wife, but planning to watch the baby? Leaving the form blank was an impossibility — they may have been rebels, but they were also bureaucrats.

Finally, after several minutes of questioning, we settled on a profession: amo de casa, the male version of ama de casa, or housewife.

A guide brought me out of the shack, and I began to get a sense of Oventic. Structurally, the village was simple. A wide, straight concrete road led steeply down the hillside, with buildings on either side. Some had obvious functions — a hospital, a school — while others did not. Many were low, wooden buildings with corrugated tin roofs and brilliant murals mythologizing the struggle. Emiliano Zapata — a hero of the 1910 Mexican Revolution — stared out from the Snail Mu’ktal Tzob’onbail (in Tzotzil, the House of Grand Meetings), machete in one hand, an army behind him. A purple-faced woman, the red handkerchief around her face stamped EZLN (the movement’s Spanish abbreviation), looked out from another wall under the slogan “There is no weapon more effective than truth in thought.”

The guard led me to another shack, on whose door was a painting of an ear of corn, each kernel representing a masked Zapatista. The room was decorated with leftist paraphernalia from around the world: posters of Che Guevara and Hugo Chávez, the flag of Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, a banner calling for Basque prisoners to be returned to Basque country, and even a big Mexican flag. The Zapatistas may be rebels, but they’re also patriots.

From behind a wide table, two middle-aged men in balaclavas — one portly and sleepy, the other thin and earnest — invited me to sit down on a bench and asked me for the same information (my passport, name, origin and profession) causing the same confusion along the way.

Formalities out of the way, the thin one — who identified himself as the Explanation Committee — began to tell me the Zapatistas’ story. Before 1994, he said, poor people in Chiapas couldn’t get clinics or schools built in their communities, or have electricity installed, or benefit from the gold, oil and other valuable commodities on the land.

Now, he said with some pride, they had their own towns that existed entirely apart from those governed by Mexico, with their own clinics and schools. Oventic — named for a local tree — was just one of the many Zapatista ejidos, or communes, throughout the state, with new inhabitants joining all the time. How many? “Muchos,” he said.

The Zapatistas’ separatism was not, however, without its drawbacks. The government may tolerate ejidos such as Oventic, but it still restrains the movement. When I asked about the military checkpoints along the Chiapas highways, the Explanation Committee got emotional. The military, he said, often denied his people passage, justifying the blockade by saying, “These roads and bridges are only for Mexicans, and since you’re in opposition to the government, you’re not Mexican.”

I then asked about Subcomandante Marcos, the charismatic and still-unidentified Zapatista frontman, who has written everything from elliptical political tracts to children’s books. The Mexican government has been saying for years that he was in fact Rafael Guillén, an economics professor from Mexico City. Who, I asked, was he?

“Es muchos,” said the Committee, seeming to smile under his ski mask. He is many.

Outside, the mist felt colder and thicker than before. I wandered — alone, unescorted — down to the bottom of Oventic’s main road, where it dissolved into a muddy field. It looked like the edge of the world.

Maybe it was the dreary, cold weather that day, but Oventic hardly felt like a place where “muchos” lived. The only people in the street were 16 unmasked men hoisting a new electrical transformer atop a pole, and I watched them work from the veranda of the only open business in Oventic, a general store, where I bought a cup of coffee (10 pesos) and a folk music CD, “Canta David del EZLN y su Guitarra Volume 2” (20 pesos). Perhaps the most surprising thing about Oventic was its normalcy. Apart from the masks and the murals, this could have been any sleepy ejido in Mexico.

At the same time, I knew there were things as an outsider I could never see, like the weapons the Explanation Committee said they still possessed. While the officials and citizens of Oventic calmly answered my questions, they were not exactly outgoing. (Perfectly understandable, given the history.) And while I was allowed to take pictures, I was twice told not to include people in any of them.

Then, with nothing more to do in Oventic, I left through a smaller side gate, hailed a pickup-truck colectivo and climbed into the back, where two boys were hanging onto the railings and enjoying the rollercoaster ride. We stopped once on the way down, to pick up an older couple and their plastic crate full of hot corn on the cob. The smell was wonderful, and as I inhaled deeply, the old man offered me one. I pulled off the husk, removed a small worm that had been steamed along with the kernels and, in the honest chill of the highlands, ate my last lunch in Chiapas.

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Canada Extradites Basque Citizen

Ivan Apaolaza Sancho, 36, was extradited to Spain despite the evidence that the charges brought against him by Spain were based on information obtained through torture.

Disregarding the many reports on the subject of torture against Basque citizens by human rights organization like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the Canadian government acted against the rights of Ivan Apaolaza.

Ivan Apaolaza is wanted by Spanish authorities on charges of terrorism, hiding arms and explosives and collaborating with an armed group, the kind of charges that Spain always issues against Basque nationals. Just a reminder, Asier Arronategi who was extradited from Mexico to Spain has been released after more than four years of incarceration without Spain ever taking him to court for the alleged charges that prompted his extradition in the first place.

Ivan was arrested in Quebec in June 2007 carrying false identity papers. Immigration officials ordered that he be deported back to Spain in May this year. Apaolaza's supporters fear for his safety when he arrives in Spain and are calling for Spanish authorities to guarantee he will not be subject to incommunicado detention and torture.

No matter the outcome, with this decision Canada has become a country that approves the use of torture against members of minority ethnic groups, rights activist and authoritarian regimes' dissidents.

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