Boise's Basque Voice

This article appeared at the Idaho Statesman a couple of weeks before I started blogging.

I reproduce it here because it is quite important, it shows the international community that the Basque quest for self determination has many sides.

Here you have it:

Sunday, November 4, 2001

Ambassador's visit brings Basque question home

In 1979, when the first Spanish ambassador to visit Boise was in town, he was not permitted to meet at the Basque Center. On Saturday, Ambassador Javier Ruperez got inside what locals call the "House of the Basques." But deep differences remain between Spain and Idaho Basques, who represent the largest population outside the homeland and who continue to press for a referendum on Basque independence.

After a closed-door lunch that lasted an hour longer than planned, Sen. Larry Craig was the first to emerge from the meeting, looking a bit shellshocked. "We got into a very spirited discussion," said Craig, who had met Ruperez on a trip to Spain and arranged his visit to Idaho.

"It got pretty heated, unexpectedly so," said Roy Eiguren, an influential Boise Basque and Spain's honorary vice consul in Idaho. The nut of the conflict is this: Ruperez and his boss, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, see the issue of Basque self-determination not as a political problem but as a matter of crushing the separatist terrorist group ETA, which has killed 900 people in 30 years. The government rejects proposals for talks with ETA's political arm, Idaho Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa's call for a brokered peace like that engineered in Northern Ireland by George Mitchell, and for an independence referendum in the four Basque provinces. "It is the overall conviction of the Spanish people that we don't have a political crisis," Ruperez said in an interview. "It should be solved mainly through the law enforcement agencies."

To put a referendum on independence to the people would be akin to letting an American state break away, Ruperez said. "We have one single country. We don't consider the possibility of splitting it up."

Aznar has characterized Basque nationalism, both violent and non-violent, as a "Nazi ideology." Ruperez offered his own bit of hot rhetoric: "I don't really care about the foment of Basque independence. What we do care about is violence." His passion is understandable. In 1979, the year Ruperez was elected to the Spanish Parliament, he was kidnapped by ETA and held for a month. Though he says that has no influence on his views, his voice betrayed bitterness when he said, "Those who kidnapped me, they are back on the streets, and not only back in the streets, but in the Basque Parliament."

Cenarrusa, who has been working on improving the lot of the Basque homeland for 30 years, wound up getting into what diplomats like to call "a frank and open" discussion. I wasn't in the meeting, but hearing it described afterward, it sounded rough and tumble.

Sitting around the same table after the lunch, I spoke with several of the principals, including Cenarrusa, Eiguren, Rep. David Bieter, D-Boise, Deputy Secretary of State Ben Ysursa and Gloria Totoricaguena, a Basque academic who lives in Boise.

"The ambassador gave his spiel but he didn't say anything about what the problems are over there," Cenarrusa said. "He talked about ETA, but I said, 'Where did ETA start?' It started with (Fascist Dictator Francisco) Franco suppressing Basque culture and assassinating people. Our end is to get rid of ETA, and he shares that goal," Cenarrusa said.

"But our other end is to allow the Basques self-determination," said Beiter, "and we don't share that goal." Ruperez rejects as a model two votes on separation in Canada's French-speaking Quebec, calling such a move "whimsy," and an attack at the "indivisibility" of Spain.

Beiter plans a memorial in the next Legislature urging Congress to back a referendum on Basque independence. "It's not whimsy. It's thousands of years of differences of language and culture. Quebec is the parallel. They got to vote."

That sentiment is gaining ground in Europe, where nationalist movements in Scotland and Wales may one day secure elections on independence. In September, the British magazine The Economist said Spain fuels terrorist sentiment: "Mr. Aznar's obduracy on the political front is playing into the extremists' hands – by pointlessly antagonizing the non-violent Basque majority." The Economist predicted independence would be rejected by voters, just as it was in Canada, a view Ruperez shares. But until his government changes, perhaps with Aznar's retirement in 2004, movement on resolving the Basque question seems unlikely.

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Basque Refugees in England

This article comes to us via Guardian Unlimited:

Torn roots

After the bombing of Guernica, many Basque children were evacuated to the UK. Sixty-five years on speak about their experiences

Peter Lennon
Guardian

Wednesday May 22, 2002

Sixty-five years ago today, the luxury liner Habana steamed into Southampton harbour with 3,800 half-starved Basque children crammed into a vessel which normally accommodated 400. The British government's policy of strict non-intervention in the Spanish civil war had been severely tested when Guernica, the ancient capital of the Basques, was bombed mercilessly by planes of the Nazi Condor Legion on April 26, 1937, making a mockery of Germany's official stance of non-intervention.

The images of women and children in the burning ruins of this small town of no military significance so inflamed public opinion here that the Conservative government was obliged at least to permit the entry of child refugees. But the terms were inflexible: the refugee committees which organised the exodus had to guarantee they would be responsible for the upkeep of the children for the entire length of their stay.

On May 21, the evacuation began from besieged Bilbao. The crossing of the storm-lashed Bay of Biscay, under the reluctant escort of the Royal Navy, was nightmarish.

Helvecia Hidalgo, now 79, was 14 when she sailed on the Habana with her 10-year-old brother and eight-year-old sister. "When we arrived in Southampton, the Salvation Army were waiting for us, throwing sweets at us," she recalls. "We thought the English always dressed up like that.

"We were sent to a camp at North Stoneham, outside Southampton, where we lived 10 to a tent. When we first came in the camp, they gave us tea. I couldn't bear tea. 'Oh no', we said, 'in Spain we only have it for medicine'. I wouldn't touch it for years.

"But we had lovely white bread; we had rationing in Bilbao, where gradually the bread got darker and darker. We used to say they swept the floor to make it. It tasted horrible, so when we arrived here it tasted so delicious some children got ill from eating too much white bread."

Hermino Martinez, now 72, came from a small mining village outside Bilbao. "My mother had five other children, so they sent me, aged seven, and my 11-year-old brother to England," he says. "All 3,800 of us were put in tents at Stoneham. The committee had only a few days to prepare for 2,000 children, but double that number came. Later it rained and rained; there were bog conditions - appalling. The latrines were just an open trench thrown up by volunteers."

The scene at Stoneham camp on June 15, when Bilbao fell to Franco's forces, was described at the time by Yvonne Cloud, a member of the Basque Children's Committee. "A priest announced the news from a loudspeaker van," she wrote. "The impulse to destroy the bearer of evil news was swift. From the wailing and weeping crowd of children, swaying rhythmically in an abandonment of grief, a little knot sprang forward, rushing the van in an impotent attempt to vent feelings of aggression."

One group of children wrote a letter to the prime minister, adding with a precocious understanding of the realities of politics "or whoever most rules England", asking for "some big boat... to defend our mothers and brothers and grandfathers and our invalids". But the government never budged on its policy of non-intervention and never gave a penny towards the welfare of the children.

Adrian Bell, author of Only for Three Months: the Basque Children in Exile, comments: "When I was writing that book [in 1996], there was this report about stranded Bosnian child refugees. It was winter and there was this busload of children, coming to England, stuck on a mountain pass because the Home Office could not get their act together to provide entry visas. Just like 1937."

The Basque children began to be dispersed throughout Britain, the intention of never separating siblings often having to be abandoned by the hard-pressed refugee committees.

"In August, I was sent to a colony in Carshalton," Hidalgo remembers, "where they would take whole families. A lovely big farm called the Oaks and it had a mansion. They put us in the servants' quarters: the rest of the place was open to visitors on Sundays, but we were not supposed to go there. We had a matron who spoke Spanish. We all had jobs on a rota and looked after the younger ones."

But such comfort was rare. "I was sent all over the country," Martinez says. "To Swansea, to Tynemouth, to Brampton, near Carlisle. The worst place was Margate. It was that terrible winter of 1939 and there was no heating. The place was so bad it had to be closed down. I was sent to live with a family in Leicester. I was very happy with them - we still keep in touch. But by that time, I was separated from my brother".

With the outbreak of war, financial support for the Basque children diminished and their survival depended often on the generosity of working people. "The miners were marvellous," Martinez says. "They gave even when they could ill afford it.

"There was constant pressure from Franco's government to have us sent back. They claimed my parents had signed a document, but it had been falsified. The fact is my father was in jail, only allowed out when he became partly paralysed when they used machine oil for cooking. My mother was terribly poor and only too willing for us to be taken away from hunger."

Hidalgo married a Catalan she met when working at the Spanish Institute in London where she still lives. Martinez married a Swiss woman he met when she came to Britain on holiday in the 1950s. He got a degree going to night school, taught at a comprehensive and retired as head of a large technical department of a school in Barnet, north London, near his present home. Over the years, the majority of the children were reunited with their parents, but often in foreign countries to which Basque families had fled - typically, France or South America. "I went back for the first time in 1959," Martinez says. "What first shocked me was the fear of the people under Franco.

"Meeting my family was not a very joyful experience. We were such strangers. They had suffered so much and they thought that in England I had had a very comfortable life, which was anything but the case. They were still very, very poor working people, struggling to survive. My parents were illiterate and I had managed to get an honours degree. They realised I was educated. It was heartbreaking."

"I did not see my mother for 12 years," Hidalgo says. "Thinking very, very closely and considering we had a much better life than we would have had in Spain, even so I sometimes think that the children should be left with their parents. It's never the same after; a bond is broken."

Martinez adds: "When Labour took over [in Britain] in 1945, we had great hopes, following the defeat of fascism in Europe, that Spain would be dealt with. But of course it was not to be. The US saw fit to keep Franco in power. We had terrible fascism in Spain long after it had been defeated in Europe."

For more information you can also read the post about Dorothy Legarreta's book titled "The Gernika Generation".

.... ... .

Ireland and Euskal Herria : Political Conflicts

In the article you are about to read you'll be able to understand why the peace process in Northern Ireland continues forward while Spain clamps down on Basque nationalism.

Here you have it is, it was published by CNN:

Similar conflicts, different paths

May 21, 2002 Posted: 9:13 AM EDT (1313 GMT)

By CNN's Alison Daniels

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The conflict in the Basque region bears some resemblance to that in Northern Ireland. In both, divisions are deeply entrenched.

But unlike the situation in Spain, major strides have been made in Northern Ireland towards a peaceful solution.

The Basque separatist group ETA watched closely as the Irish Republican Army declared a cease-fire in 1994 after 25 years of violence, and all sides in the Northern Ireland conflict began peace talks in earnest.

In 1998, ETA declared its own cease-fire. One of the leading figures in the Irish peace process, the republican Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams, visited the Basque town of Bilbao in September 1998 advocating peace talks.

"There is bound to be distrust here. People have been hurt, people have been killed. There is bound to be suspicion. There is bound to be hatred. There is bound to be fear," Adams said. "And the way to resolve that is to seize that opportunity and build on that opportunity and widen the space which has been created."

But 14 months after it began, the Basque cease-fire was over.

"When ETA announced the truce in September 1998, it was a response to something called the Irish Forum -- meetings of Basque political parties to come to common conclusions about what was happening in Northern Ireland," said Inigo Gurruchaga, London correspondent for the Spanish daily newspaper El Correo.

"The influence was massive, but with the passing of time it has decreased. ... During the truce the Spanish government behaved without any political convergence," Gurruchaga said.

"And while they maintained clandestine direct dialogue with ETA, they always refused to maintain any type of political dialogue with their political representatives."

However, Spanish historian Anthony Gooch of the London School of Economics says the Basque nationalist party Herri Batasuna, despite its closeness to Sinn Fein, was also reluctant to be influenced by the Northern Ireland peace process.

"The Basques take what they like of the Irish experience ... and they leave what don't like, so they're very selective," Gooch said. "So you can't say Basques have followed the Sinn Fein model or ETA has followed the IRA model."

Dialogue and demographics

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has made it clear that dialogue is the only option in Northern Ireland.

"There is every reason to proceed with it and push it forward, and ... I've satisfied myself clearly that the political will exists to do that," Blair said in January 2001. "We've just got to find a way of getting over these remaining problems."

Blair's counterpart in Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, holds a very different view.

"The only possible position on terrorism is to wipe it out. We will stamp it out wherever we find it," said the Spanish prime minister.

For some, Aznar's stance -- and the equally hard-line position of ETA -- offers little opportunity for Northern Ireland-style negotiations.

"One has the impression that the IRA is more or less getting what it wants along the lines that are being followed, whereas ETA is not getting what it wants and it can't possibly get what it wants," Gooch said.

Another difference between the two situations is that shifting demographics are shaping events in Northern Ireland.

"The inevitability of a future Northern Ireland integrated into the Republic of Ireland is due to demographics, to the growing number of Catholic families," Gurruchaga said.

"This is not happening in the Basque country. ... The political divisions in the Basque remain stable."

It was almost 10 years ago that No. 10 Downing Street, the home of Britain's prime minister, was the target of an IRA mortar attack. But by the end of the decade, after years of exhaustive diplomacy that included visits to Downing Street by Adams, the political landscape was unrecognisable.

It was inevitable that comparisons with Northern Ireland would be made when ETA declared its cease-fire in 1998.

But with the resumption of violence in Spain, it has become clear that the path taken in London and Belfast is a route many in Madrid and San Sebastian do not seem inclined to follow.

Amazingly enough, this so called "Spanish historian" by the name of Anthony Gooch blames Aznar and Madrid's shortcomings on Batasuna. Something tells me Gooch is not to happy that peace is at reach for the Irish.

.... ... .

Bono the "Radical Chic Artist"

This article published by The Phoenix tells us what Fermin Muguruza thinks of Bono, the lead man for Irish band U2:

Basque planet

Fermin Muguruza takes Bono to task

BY JOSH KUN

On the opening night of the World Economic Forum last January, Bono introduced Jean-Paul Messier, the CEO of Vivendi-Universal, by calling him a " corporate motherfucker. " Far from an insult, it was an elbow nudge between millionaires and a sign of just how empty Bono’s merger of pop and politics has become. Even before Angélique Kidjo and Ravi Shankar took the stage to do a post–September 11 version of " we are the world, " the script’s finale had been written and performed: corporatized rebellion had triumphed, and the international audience of business executives and world leaders gathered to " address global issues " and to engage the forum’s " corporate members in global citizenship " had been assured that dissent can be bought.

As post-punk Basque singer/songwriter Fermin Muguruza reminds us on his 2000 album of cheery agit-ska, FM 99.00 Dub Manifest (newly available in the United States on Piranha), this was not the first time Bono had embarrassed himself in the presence of world leadership. In " Radical Chic, " Muguruza blasts Bono for calling the pope a " funky pontiff. " Bono’s blur of trans-national politics into corporate handshakes and wanna-be cool poses represents everything Muguruza — who since the 1980s has been a leading musical voice for Basque nationalist independence — is against.

Bono is what Muguruza calls a " radical chic artist " : someone who in trying to make rebellion cool sacrifices the true purpose of art: to be dangerous, to tell the truth, to upset the social balance. Just look at the yellow crime-scene tape bearing the slogan " Artist Line Do Not Cross " that adorns FM’s liner notes. At Muguruza’s world economic forum, the musician is not an entertainer but a people’s cop who protects and serves the non-corporate members of the global citizenry. The Basques are the oldest indigenous ethnic group in Europe, and for the past three decades many of them — the car-bombing separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ( " Basque homeland and freedom " ) being the most extreme example — have been struggling to be recognized as an autonomous people and region.

On FM’s opening track, Muguruza — who sings in Euskera, the Basque language — bills himself as the " commander " of a musical army armed with " dissident thinking against just one memory. " On " Nazio Ibilitaria Naiz, " a song from another Muguruza album now available, Brigadistak Sound System (Piranha), he calls himself " a wandering nation, " does a Public Enemy " fear of a Basque planet " riff, and then outlines a " strategy of symbolic resistance to linguistic domination, to the structured division of society. " He wants to keep modernization from becoming synonymous with cultural homogeneity — as he sings on " Big Benat and Korrika 2001: Reunite the World! " , he wants to be both a Basque and a citizen of the world, without having to sacrifice one for the other.

Although both albums were released more than two years ago, it’s hard to listen to either FM or Brigadistak without hearing them through the ears of Passover massacres and Jenin border attacks. Both albums come from a world of bombs exploding on city streets and of people so wedded to the land they call their own that they are willing to saturate it with their own blood. On FM’s " Ekhi Eder, " Muguruza laments that " the right to live in the place of birth appears to be on sale. "

Ever since the Franco dictatorship that Muguruza was born into suppressed Basque culture with death squads and political imprisonment, the violent tug-of-war between the Basques and the Spanish has had its echoes of the Middle East conflict, complete with political assassinations, ethnic separatism, and anti-state violence committed in the name of future state formation. Throughout Brigadistak — where Muguruza’s " musical army " is backed up by a global crew of " fellow travelers " that includes Mexican border punks Tijuana No and peripatetic Franco-Spanish agitator Manu Chao — he sings of language as if it were a weapon of war, of occupation as a way of life, and of culture as a military battlefield. He pays homage to his favorite Arabic bar while " remembering the words we have in common " ; he equates the US bombing of Iraq with " Madrid fascists " killing Basques.

You could see this as a shortsighted, even irresponsible, conflation of very different political situations. Or you could see it the way Muguruza does, as a brand of global thinking that instead of merging economies and linking national interests to international markets merges oppressions and links struggles. In short, one that calls Jean-Paul Messier a corporate motherfucker and doesn’t expect a laugh.

Issue Date: May 9 - 16, 2002

By the way, Manu Chao is Basque too, his mother is Basque, not Spaniard.

.... ... .

Letter About Basque Language

This letter was published back in November of 2001.

Better late than never, so, here it goes:

Euskal Editoreen Elkartea, the Association of Basque Publishers, is an organisation formed by 20 publishing houses that has been working towards promoting, structuring and strengthening the production of books in the Basque language since 1984. There are many different types of publishing houses operating in the Basque Country today, variety being one of our sector's principal characteristics, as regards both production and focus.

Nevertheless, we are all united in our conviction that our activities play a vital role in our country's cultural development. As in all modern societies, the publishing industry is a key factor in cultural and economic development, providing the tools required for the development of ideas and philosophies, as well as for the fundamental areas of research, education and training.

In the Basque Country, this is doubly true. Basque culture, including the Basque language, is a fundamental component of the society we are currently in the process of building, and the development of the publishing sector is vital to its evolution and normalisation.

This link, however, works both ways, and the difficulties and obstacles encountered by culture and language are often directly reflected in the literary and publishing sectors.

One characteristic of the publishing houses that make up the Association of Basque Publishers is that we are all involved in the publication of books in a minority language that is also one of Europe's oldest tongues. The Basque language, spoken in seven territories divided between France and Spain (Lapurdi, Nafarroa Beherea, Zuberoa, Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Nafarroa Garaia), has, since Roman times, been subject to numerous trials and tribulations.

Nowadays, however, the Basque language is well on the road to normalisation, a circumstance that has had a profound influence on our particular sector, since the number of Basque speakers necessarily limits the expansion of the Basque literary market. Nevertheless, although the number of people capable of reading and writing in the Basque language has risen over recent years, the number of Basque speakers still accounts for only 26.6% of the population, and furthermore, we cannot assume that all Basque speakers are necessarily potential consumers in our field. In absolute terms, we are talking about only 800,000 people. Within this context, the Basque publishing industry produces around 1,400 new titles every year, more than half of which are original works rather than translations. The number of books currently on the market, however, is much greater, over 3,000,000 to be exact. As we mentioned earlier, the number of Basque speakers has a direct influence on production, and on average, each edition published runs to around only 2,000 copies.

This limitation is one of the main reasons why it is often so difficult to market Basque books and strengthen our industry's infrastructures through strategic investments.

In spite of these obstacles however, our industry has embarked on a process of professionalisation that has enabled it to rise to the challenge posed by this situation, an effort in which it has been supported by a number of Basque organisations.

The dynamism generated by professionalism is, therefore, one of the characteristics that best defines the Basque publishing sector. Dynamism implies movement and development, and these are indeed the tools used by all of us at the Association of Basque Publishers in our efforts to foster literary creation and publication, safeguard and expand our heritage, promote books and reading, strengthen the Basque literary market and disseminate our cultural wealth throughout the world. These activities, which are firmly based on the principles of variety and freedom, are a source of cultural and linguistic wealth in today's new Europe.

Indeed,there are currently 40 million minority language speakers throughout the European Union. Nevertheless, with regard to our sector in particular, it seems that some factions within Spain have set in motion a media strategy designed specifically to undermine our efforts and activities.

This is no mere series of isolated cases. Over the last few years, a number of different sections of the media have published a succession of extremely serious and totally unsubstantiated accusations, whose only possible explanation is a deep-seated desire to weaken the position of the Basque publishing industry and, by association, Basque culture and language also. In the singular sociopolitical climate of the Basque Country, it seems that certain factions wish to define the mere fact of working in favour of the Basque language and culture as somehow suspect, whereas in Europe and the rest of the world, the presence of minority languages and cultures is seen as both natural and enriching.

Over the last few weeks, for example, 21 Basque publishing houses have been accused by certain sections of the media as having links with 'ETA's financial network', despite the fact that no legal charges have ever been brought against them. The Basque publishing houses have reiterated time and time again, on the last occasion in conjunction with the Basque Ministry of Culture, that our activities are strictly confined to the creation and fostering of Basque culture, and we are not prepared to stand by and watch our good name and reputation be sullied by this underhand campaign of defamation.

Our everyday sales and publication activities provide our only source of income, and the subsidies we receive from certain Basque government institutions are granted solely on the basis of the special circumstances under which our language exists. As we at the Association of Basque Publishers have reiterated on countless occasions, we are still very much in need of industrial and fiscal assistance if we are to strengthen our infrastructures and succeed in making the Basque publishing sector a strong, competitive industry. The policy of granting subsidies to the publishing sector is not unique to the Basque Country. Many European countries (including Finland, Iceland and Norway, among others) have also implemented similar policies over recent years, but what is considered a model in those countries, is deemed highly suspect in the Basque Country.

Within this context, and in light of the extremely serious and totally unfounded accusations levelled at us by certain sections of the media, we believe that it is important for us to inform the international community (albeit briefly and somewhat superficially) of our true objectives and activities, as well as, of course, the attack under which we currently find ourselves, since the Basque publishing sector is gravely in need of the help and support of all cultural workers both in Europe and throughout the world.

Thank you for your time and interest, and please do not hesitate to contact us at the address printed below if you would like any further details or clarifications. We would also be very interested in hearing your thoughts and comments.

Euskal Editoreen Elkartea
Zurriola pasealekua 14, 1. ezk
20002 DONOSTIA (SAN SEBASTIAN)
Tel.: 34 43 292349
Fax.: 34 43 277288

.... ... .

Lapurdi

Time to travel north of the Pirinioak to Iparralde and more specifically to the Basque province of Lapurdi. So far I have posted information about three provinces located in Hegoalde (Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa).

Lapurdi is historically one of the seven provinces of the historical Basque Country. Lapurdi extends from the Pyrenees to the river Aturri, along the Bay of Biscay. To the south is Gipuzkoa and Nafarroa, to the east is Nafarroa Behera, to the north are the Landas. It has an area of almost 900 km² and a population of over 200,000 which makes it the most populous of the three provinces of Iparralde. Over 25% of the inhabitants speak Basque (17% in the Baiona-Anglet-Biarritz zone, 43% in the rest). Lapurdi has also long had a Gascon-speaking tradition, noticeably next to the banks of the river Aturri but also more diffusedly throughout the whole viscounty (about 20% in Baiona-Anglet-Biarritz).

The main town of Lapurdi is Baiona, although the capital, where local Basque leaders assembled, is Ustaritz, 13 km away. Other important towns are Biarritz, Anglet (between Baiona and Biarritz), Hendaia, Ziburu and Donibane Lohitzune along the coast, and Hazparne inland. The area is famous for the five-day Fêtes de Bayonne and the red peppers of Ezpeleta. Many tourists come to the coast, especially at Biarritz, and the hills and mountains of the interior for walking and agri-tourism. Larrun, a 900m high hill, lies south of Donibane Lohitzune on the border with Hegoalde. The hill is a Basque symbol, with spectacular views from its peak.

The traditional buildings of Lapurdi have a low roof, half-timbered features, stone lintels and painted in red, white and green. The house of Edmond Rostand, Villa Arnaga at Kanbo, is such a house and is now a museum dedicated to the author of Cyrano de Bergerac and to Basque traditions.

Lapurdian (Lapurtera) is a dialect of the Basque language spoken in the region.

History

Ancient Lapurdi was inhabited by the Tarbelas, an Aquitanian tribe. They had the port of Lapurdum, that eventually would become modern Baiona, and give its name to the region.

In the Middle Ages it formed part of the Duchy of Vasconia or Wasconia, that eventually came to be called Gascony. In the year 844 Viking raiders conquered Baiona where they established a base for their incursions. They were only expelled in 986, leaving a legacy of naval expertise in Lapurdi and all the coastal Basque Country.

In 1020 Duke Santxo VI ceded the jurisdiction over Lapurdi and what came to be known as Nafarroa Behera, to King Santxo III the Great of Iruñea. This monarch made it officially a Viscounty in 1023, naming as Viscount certain Lupo Sancho, a relative of the Duke of Gascony. This territory included all modern Lapurdi and possibly some parts of modern Nafarroa north of the Bidasoa river.

C. 1125, Baiona was chartered by Duke William IX of Aquitaine. In 1130-31, King Alfonso the Battler of Aragon and Navarre attacked Baiona over a dispute on jurisdictions with the Duke of Aquitaine, William X the Saint.

Lapurdi was ruled directly, between 1169 and 1199, by Richard Lionheart, who gave a second charter to Baiona c. 1174 and, c. 1175, gave to the merchants of this city the return of the duties they paid in the tolls of Poitou, Aquitaine and Gascony. This caused an uprising of Gascons and Basques (including Labourtines from outside Baiona) but Richard defeated all the cities that had sublevated.

Richard married Navarrese princess Berenguela in 1191, which favored the trade between Nafarroa and Baiona (and England). This marriage also induced a juridisctional transaction that shaped the borders of the Northern Basque Country: Nafarroa Behera was definitively annexed to Nafarroa, while Lapurdi and Zuberoa remained as parts of Angevine Aquitaine. This pact was formalized in 1193 in form of the sale of their rights by the legitimate viscounts of Lapurdi, who had established their seat in Ustaritz. Ustaritz was since then the capital of Lapurdi instead of Baiona, until the suppression of the province in 1798.

John I of England, gave to Baiona the Municipal Law, that created the figures of mayor, 12 jurors, 12 counsilors and 75 advisors.

Lapurdi passed to French hands in 1451, just before the end of the Hundred Years' War. Since then and until the French Revolution, Lapurdi was largely self-ruled as an autonomous French province.

In 1610, Lapurdi suffered a major witch-hunt at the hands of judge Pierre de Lancre, that ended with some 70 supposed sorginak burnt at the stake.

In 1798, the newly born French Republic, with its centralizing Jacobin ideals, suppressed the historical provinces, including Lapurdi, incorporating them into the newly created département of Basses-Pyrénées, together with Bearn.

In the last decades there have been repeated petitions asking for the spearation from Bearn and the creation of a Basque département, together with the other two historical Basque provinces of Nafarroa Behera and Zuberoa. Though these petitions have almost universal support inside Lapurdi and the rest of the Pays Basque, they have been ignored by successive French governments

Mariner activities

Lapurdi, like the other coastal territories of the Basque Country, played an important role in early European exploitation of the Atlantic Ocean.

The earliest document (a bill) that mentions the whale oil or blubber dates from 670. In 1059, Labourdin whalers already gave to the viscount the oil of the first captured animal. It seems that Basques disliked the taste of whales but made good business selling their meat and oil to the French, Castilian and Flemish. Basque whalers used for this activity the longboats known as traineras, that only allowed whaling near the coast or based in a larger ship.

It seems that it was this industry, along with cod-fishing, is what brought Basque sailors to the North Sea and eventually to Newfoundland. Basque whaling in Newfoundland and Labrador began in the 1530s. By at least the early 17th century Basque whalers had reached Iceland.

The development of rudder in Europe seems also a Basque and specifically Labourdine development. Three masted ships appear in a fresco of Estella (Nafarroa), dating to the 12th century, seals preserved in the Navarrese and Parisian historical archives also show similar ships. Rudder itself is first mentioned as steer "a la Navarraise" or "a la Bayonaise".

After Nafarroa lost Donostia and Hondarribia to Castile in 1200, it signed a treaty with Baiona that made it the "port of Navarre" for nearly three centuries. Role that extended also into the Early Modern Age, after Nafarroa had been annexed by Castile (but both provinces remained autonomous).

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Legarreta : The Basque Refugee Children

In the article you're about to read you'll learn about one of the issues that those who call the shots in Madrid would like for you never to find out.

Without further intro, here you have it:

After Gernika: The Basque Refugee Children, 1937–Present

by Dorothy Legarreta

Dorothy Legarreta, Adjunct Professor of the Basque Studies Program, is currently in Vizcaya on a post-doctoral fellowship to interview Basques who were child refugees.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), the Basque provinces – particularly Bizkaia – became the proving ground where modern war technology was to be tested. Thus it happened that incendiary saturation bombing and strafing were used for the first time against an “open” or non-military city, Gernika, in 1937. This historic and beloved center of Basque freedom was the target chosen by Franco’s airforce of the newest German Condor Legion planes. After four hours of continuous aerial attack, most of the city was a burning ruin, and many old people, women and children, lay wounded or dead.

The rebel forces continued to blockade and bomb Bilbao and other nearby towns; even outlying caseríos were strafed. Various humanitarian groups formed to help the civilian population, especially the children. The fledgling Basque Republic, through its major political parties, quickly organized the largest evacuation of children in modern times. Beginning in May, 1937, nearly fifteen thousand children, aged three to fifteen, sailed away from their parents and country to France (5,305), England (3,805), Belgium (3,128), Russia (1,489), and Mexico (456 – but in this group were many Catalans). In each country, education and housing were provided, using facilities ranging from private homes in Belgium, group homes in France and England, to large-scale institutions in Russia and Mexico. Basque teachers, aides, priests*, and sometimes even cooks, went with the children and helped them to adjust to their new life as refugees in a strange land. Whenever possible, entire classrooms and political party youth groups went together. Money for the care of the Basque children poured in from humanitarian, labor, political and religious groups all over the world…an international cause célèbre. In a few months, however, this concern for the Basque child refugees was overshadowed by Hitler’s activities in Central Europe.

Shortly after the Spanish Republic collapsed in 1939, World War II began, and France, England, Belgium, and Russia had to fight to survive themselves. Already, many Basque refugee children had been repatriated. Large numbers stayed on, however, especially in France, and there rejoined their families, now themselves refugees. Basques were shot or imprisoned. Families were frequently fatherless. Some remained in the French-Basque provinces; others emigrated to more hospitable Latin-American countries: Venezuela, Argentina and Mexico. The Basque children in both Russia and Mexico stayed or there, since neither Stalin nor Cardenas recognized the Franco regime in Spain.

Surprisingly, this mass exodus of children, some of whom have been in exile for 42 years, has been almost unreported since 1937. One notable exception is “El Otro Arbol de Gernika,” Luis de Castraesana’s fictionalized account of his experiences as a child refugee in Belgium, which was recently televised in Spain.

In order to recover and reconstruct this significant chapter of Basque history, therefore, it has been necessary to use the techniques of oral history, e.g., extended interviews with those who experienced the event. Fortunately, Basques are a very cohesive group, and family ties are maintained in spite of wars, emigration and repression. Furthermore, whenever Basques find themselves far from their homeland, they seek out other Basques and hold informal reunions.

From such family and club sources in Spain, Mexico and England, nearly 100 Basques who were child refugees, or teachers, priests or cooks, have been interviewed thus far. The original plan of the study was to focus on four major issues in the interview.

1. How did the refugees, as children, cope with separation from parents, home and country?

2. Were they able to maintain their Basque ethnic identity and culture while away and later in life?

3. How did the refugee experience affect their lives – general satisfaction with life, economic well-being, marriage, and parenting?

4. How do you think the trauma of child refugees could be lessened, e.g., what would they insist on if their own children (or grandchildren) had to be evacuated?

In addition, many remarkable insights and anecdotes have spontaneously emerged during the interviews, which are well worth reporting.

In general, the Basque children coped quite well with the trauma of separation from parents and home, particularly if they were at least ten or eleven years old when evacuated. They all remembered widely the seasickness (and, often, head lice) suffered on shipboard, the horrible vaccinations, and sometimes quarantine or delousing upon arrival; but also, the white bread and chocolate (after a diet of garbanzos and rice in Spain), and the warm welcomes in England, Belgium, Russia, and Mexico – less warm in France. Their all-important mentors – Basque teachers, aides, priests, and cooks – gave them affection and counsel, and helped them keep alive Basque culture, language, and traditions. All such staff interviewed commented on the infrequency of stealing among the children (though local apple and pear orchards suffered minor poaching), as well as little bed-wetting, in marked contrast to reports on later groups from the Spanish Civil War, the adjustment to a collective life was less smooth.

Published reports on the health of the Basque children upon their arrival in England praise their fine physical condition and their passion for watching everything in sight, including younger brothers and sisters! Fortunately, in France, England, and Belgium, great effort was made to keep family groups together in dispersion to schools and group homes. And in all countries, visits and letters were encouraged among siblings. And, very frequently, the eldest child had been expressly told to take care of the younger ones, and staunchly refused to permit separation even if, as in one family with a paralytic sister, the three children had to live – but together – in an institution for handicapped Belgian children. Another, the eldest, refused a place in a fine English private school in order to look after her three younger sisters.

One event all the Basque refugees remark upon is the fall of Bilbao, which caused near-hysteria among the children. Some of the hundred-odd Basque girls on the Isle of Wight recall their spontaneous pilgrimage, on their knees, to a nearby hill (Mt. Tennyson) to pray that Bilbao would not fall. That day, they even refused the candy given to comfort them!

The role of community volunteers and foster parents was encouraged in England and Belgium and proved very important to the Basque children sent there. Ties remain to this day, with letters, photos, and visits exchanged with “my English/Belgian family.” In France, Russia, and Mexico, greater separation from the host community seemed to occur.

Basque culture, particularly the songs, dances, language, and holidays, went to each host country (except Mexico) with the children and staff. Public programs were put on frequently by the children by England with a small entrance fee collected to help defray the children’s keep. In other countries, there were Basque choral groups and dancers, trained by their priests and teachers. One important side-effect of those presentations was to educate the host communities to the fact that Basques are different from Spaniards.

Educational experiences for the children varied widely, with Russia providing the most thorough technical and professional training. Dolores Ibarruri (La Pasionaria) saw to it that the Basque children did not serve in the military during World War II, and some Basques recall that during the war, their bread ration was 700 grams daily, while Soviet children only received 450 grams!

The great majority of Basque refugees interviewed, including those sent to Russia and Mexico, have maintained some ties with their families in Spain. Cultural ties of the expatriate group vary, but many display the Basque flag, the family heraldic emblem, etc. A minority married Basques. Of those repatriated, all married Basques and are culturally strongly Basque. Some commented that they first learned to speak Basque in the host country, since its use had been discouraged at that time in the Basque Country.

When asked about their general satisfaction with life, most seem relatively content, and all those with families have enjoyed being parents, though they were parentless, themselves, for at least part of their childhoods. Almost without exception, those sent to England, Belgium, and Russia describe their refugee experience as having had mostly positive effects: learning another culture and language, helping them become self-reliant and mature. Those sent to France and Mexico express more negative feelings, and frequently comment that false propaganda, saying Basques were “Red Separatists,” preceded their arrival and prejudiced the host community.

The role of the Catholic Church in the mass evacuation was complex and deserves mention. Though Franco and his rebel forces were the official defenders of the Catholic faith in Spain, the Basque clergy were largely faithful to the nationalist aspirations of the Basque Republic. This caused untold consternation in the official Catholic hierarchy and press, solidly pro-Franco in France, England and Belgium, but obliged, given ordinary Christian charity, to help the very Catholic Basque refugee children.

When the affected Basque parents are asked to discuss the experience of being a refugee child, responses vary widely. Some say their children should have been disposed to die with them – it would have been better than evacuation. Others note that relocation with families having children of their own was best; others, that no child younger than twelve should have gone; most, that the presence of Basque personnel was essential in the readjustment of the refugee children. All say that more love and affection should have been shown to the children: “It’s more important than food, clothes, or a rich foster family.” Some children cried themselves to sleep for weeks; all had a long-standing terror of airplanes; one vomited for months. Few, however, expressed any anger at their own parents for sending them far away, realizing it was necessary at the time.

Many of the spontaneous anecdotes are valuable. Most speak of the terrible years after repatriation, beginning in the concentration camps near the French border; the continuous food shortage during the 1940s when tuberculosis soared in Euzkadi and children stole food from the horses’ nosebags to survive. They tell stories of the repression of all things Basque under Franco. One woman, a child refugee in France, was denounced in 1943 for not wishing to carry the Spanish flag in a parochial school musical presentation and spent six months in jail at age 17. Many express surprise that no one has been interested in the long history of the Basque people.

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Gernika Remembered

Today, Basques all over Euskal Herria and the world, commemorate the fascist attack on the heart of our nation, Gernika.

Gernikako arbola de bedeincatuba,
euskaldunen artean guztiz maitatuba.
Eman ta zabalzazu munduban frutuba
adoratzen zaitugu arbola santuba

~Jose Maria Iparraguirre

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Learning From the Past

Today in history:

In April 26 1937, after months of fighting the Basques during the invasion of the newly formed Basque Republic, Francisco Franco, desperate to deliver what he promised to his master Adolph Hilter, asked from Wolfram von Richtoffen to bomb the town of Gernika, the very heart of the Basque Country, here is what happened that afternoon.

This is what the Times reported a day later.

This is Colleen Corraldi's "Guernica" inspired both by the events and Picasso's painting.

This is all what the History Channel has to say about it, what a shame:

Guernica

Guernica, town (1981 pop. 17,836), in the Basque prov. of Vizcaya, N Spain. The Guernica oak, under which the diet of Vizcaya met, symbolizes the Basques' lost liberty. One of Picasso's greatest paintings commemorates the 1937 destruction of Guernica by German bombers aiding Franco during the Spanish civil war.

This is the German Goverment official apology for what happened that day:

Herzog's statement on 60th anniversary of Guernica bombing.

This weekend the small Basque town of Guernica remembered the bombing by German fighters sixty years ago. In a statement read out at the commemoration ceremony on Saturday morning, President Herzog addressed the descendants of the victims. He said "I want to take full responsibility for the past and expressly acknowledge the blame of the German aircraft involved." On April 26th 1937 the German Condor legion bombed Guernica, destroying three-quarters of the town. Up to 1700 people were killed. The air strike against the strategically unimportant town served to demonstrate the Nazi's support for the future dictator, General Franco, and also tested the strength of the Luftwaffe.

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No Peace on Sight

Going against many treaties and conventions, and in total disregard to the US peace efforts, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is now an all out rogue fascist and colonialist war monger. While in the Netherlands the whole goverment crumbles under the weight of the guilt for doing little or nothing to stop the massacre of muslim bosnians in the UN haven of Srebrenica at the hands of the Serbian Bosnian army where 8,000 men and boys were murdered, in Palestine, a country illegaly invaded and colonized by Israel, Israeli forces are destroying the whole infraestructure of an already empoverished land.

But they show no signs of remorse, why? Because they think that what Hitler did to them allows them to do whatever they want. And God forbid that you decide to side with the Palestinians, or not even side with the Palestinians, is enough if you to show simpathy towards the Palestinians, for the Jews and Israelis to call you anti-Semitic.

Well, I got news for them, the Palestinians are also a semitic people that speaks a semitic language, and therefore, if I say that I am concerned over the well being of inocent civilians in Palestine, I DO NOT become an anti-Semitic, since I am showing concern over the well being of a semitic group of people, the Palestinians.

They should stop and reconsider on what Hitler did to them, they got a country because people around the world thought it was necessary to provide them with their own land so things like that wouldn't happen again (beats me why people around the world does not use the same criteria when it comes to the Basques, who were also attacked by Hitler and fought him and the Nazi Army from 1936 up to 1945), so it is sad to see that today, the Israeli Army is doing exactly the same in Palestine, and the Jews are the ones that go around saying "Never Again".

Do they mean never again as in never again or as in never again to them?

They (the Israelis) are abusing their military power, they are colonizing a land that is not theirs and going against UN resolutions by doing so, they are also stomping on the Geneva treaty of which they are co-signers since it says that an occupying power can not displace its own civilian population into the occupied country. The Israelis have illegally taken over 59% of what the press likes to call the West Bank but that actually is Palestine.

And do not, I repeat, DO NOT give me the "God gave them that land", because every single deity in every single mithology has given "that land" to every single human group.

I know that the Arab nations around them have harbored terrorists and attempted over running Israel three times, but from the very moment the Jews decided to "buy" half of Palestine from England, they knew the Arab nations were going to do everything they could to expell them from that land. The Arab nations in that area are not my favorite cup of tea, trust me, I know that they are a bunch of pitiful dictators that have no regards for their people or for peace and democracy. On top, a very sick religious extremism engulfes the area, the educational systems are backward, and there is almost non existent democratic institutions.

I don't forsee peace coming to the area any time soon, not as long as ruthless "leaders" like Ariel Sharon and Saddam Hussein decide to forget about their own people in order to win their pathetic piss contest.

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