IBO : Xarlo Etxezaharreta Kidnapped

Here you have another demand for the immediate liberation of Xarlo Etxezaharreta, abducted in Hegoalde by the Spanish secret service, this one from the International Basque Organization for Human Rights:

September 29, 2003

Basque Journalist snatched off the street

Sunday night in Abadiño finished off a day of festivals. XarloEtxezaharreta was escorting a visiting friend around the region and was about to drive his friend home. Suddenly, strange men surround all, and Xarlo was put into a car and driven away. No charges read, no explanations given. None are needed when the victim is Basque and the arrestor is the Spanish Guardia Civil. All the more frightening is that Xarlo is from Hazparne,the northern Basque region, and is a French citizen.

Xarlo's friends were stranded and frightened, not knowing at that time who these men were or why they took Xarlo. His family was contacted and was confused, having thought of no apparent reasons for his arrest.

Sixty two year old Xarlo Etxezaharreta is the editor of the Basque political magazine Kale Gorria. This magazine writes commentary on politicians and organizations in Spain and the Basque region. In its previous incarnation, Ardi Beltza, Spanish authorities accused the magazine of being part of the terrorist group ETA because its articles were critical of politicians and those in authority. The magazine’s editor at the time, Pepe Rei, was imprisoned and later released due to lack of evidence.

Xarlo is also a member of Udalbiltza, a political group that spanned all regions of the Basque country. Udalbiltza was an organization made up of politicians and others from hundreds of city and town councils of the Basque region within Spain and France. They regularly met and discussed ways of working together politically, to advance Basque cultural and political causes. Spanish authorities did not like Udalbiltza. Here was an organization of Basque politicians, spanningborders, working together legally to change their political landscape. In order to stop this, the authorities called Udalbiltza an "integration of ETA" They outlawed Udalbiltza, and asked the United States to add them to their list of terrorist organizations. The US, owing a favor to their Iraqi War allies, did just that.

It was because of Xarlo's participation in Udalbiltza that he was arrested and held incommunicado this past Sunday night. Xarlo now joins the ranks of the dozens of politicians and journalists currently being held for the same reason: that they dared to work in a legal manner to change their political reality in the Basque Country.

International Basque Organization For Human Rights
PO Box 225 Corte Madera, CA 94976
www.euskojustice.org

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ADV : Free Xarlo!

Xarlo Etxezaharreta has been abducted by the Spanish secret police following an arrest order by Baltasar Garzón.

This is the press release by the Asociación Diáspora Vasca (Basque Diaspora Association) demanding Xarlo's liberation:

INTERNATIONAL PROTEST BY THE BASQUE DIASPORA ASSOCIATION OVER DETENTION OF ONE OF ITS MEMBERS

The Basque Diaspora Association, which groups Basque citizens and Basque descendants who live in twenty countries around the world, denounces the arrest yesterday (September 28th, 2003), on what amounts to abduction of Xarlo Etxezaharreta, natural and resident of Hazparne (Northern Euskal Herria, under French administration) on thetown of Abadiño (Southern Euskal Herria, under Spanish administration).

After being taken to an undisclosed location by his abducters in plain cloths, sketchy information indicate that Mr. Etxezaharreta was abducted following orders of Judge Baltasar Garzon Real. It is believed at this time while awaiting confirmation that he will be accused of colaborating with the armed Basque group Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA), also as being involved with Udalbiltza, organization of Basque representatives elected in formal elections, but criminalized under judicial investigation ordered by Garzon Real himself.

At this time we denounce the blatant abduction by Spanish police officers. The operative by the law enforcement agents mirrors the one that took place recently in Venezuela, where Jose Ramon Foruria Zubialdea was abducted and illegally turned into the hands of the Spanish police despite him holding the Venezuelan citizenship. This took place last week, and it has its precedents on the illegal prodedures that ended up on the unlawful deportation against Basque citizens Sebas Etxaniz Alkorta and Bittor Galarza.

At this time, the Basque Diaspora Association does everything in its power to make sure that the Argentinian authorities do not give up to the demands by the Spanish government to extradite Jose Lariz, on preventive detention after being shamefuly expelled from Uruguay by the local authorities. On a heart lifting note, Mexico's government rejected ten days ago the extradition process against Lorenzo Llona, closing a judicial process that was corrupted by political quagmires and judicial treacheries under the lead of Garzon Real.

Xarlo Etxezaharreta is the director of Basque magazine "Kale Gorria" and he is an important and beloved member of the Basque Diaspora Association. From the everyday contact with him we admire his deep love towards everything Basque, his profound loyalty towards Euskal Herria, his solidarity with all the oppressed peoples, his sense of humor and his exemplary family life.

Xarlo Etxezaharreta joins Miriam Campos who was previously arrested and is today in jail under a sentence ad hoc instructed against her by Garzon Real. Miriam Campos who belongs to the previously mentioned organization Udalbiltza is part of our association too, which entitles us to be character witnesses of her high moral and human standards. Despite this, the Spanish executive/judicial tandem keeps her behind bars.

The abduction of Mr. Etxezaharreta is blatant example of the repression against the Basque people by the Spanish state. The way the case developes will demonstrate the degree of permisivness and complicity by the French state, Mr. Etxeharreta is under French jurisdiction due to the fact that he is a Basque citizen who was born and lives on territory under French administration.

In broadcasting this new abuse without borders against the Basque people, the Basque Diaspora Association appeals to the sensibility of individuals and organizations working in the defense of human rights, human rights which include the right to self determination of every people in the world. We also ask from the people reading this statement to express within their own space and means their rejection to this new abuse and display of excessive force by a state.

Asociación Diáspora Vasca
29 de septiembre de 2003

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Good News or Bad News?

I don't know if this is good news of bad news, but it happened and you can read it at Yahoo! News.

Spain's Basque government vows to push regional autonomy one step further

2 hours, 7 minutes ago Add World - AFP to My Yahoo!

VITORIA, Spain (AFP) - Spain's autonomous Basque government vowed to pursue a controversial plan to change the region's political status to one of "free association" with the rest of the country, prompting furious criticism from Madrid.

The president of the Basque government, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, told the regional parliament in Vitoria that the "new statute of free association" -- which essentially pushes autonomy one step further -- would be based on the "respect for the right of the Basque people to decide their own future".

He also offered to debate the issue with Madrid, but stressed that the Basque government intends to put the plan to a referendum regardless of the outcome of its talks with the central government.

Should Ibarretxe's project succeed, Euskadi, the Basque name for the region in the country's north, would be freely associated with the remainder of Spain by the will of its inhabitants rather than by the current constitutional arrangement that granted the region its autonomy, under the so-called 1979 Statute of Guernica.

But the plan will have to run the gauntlet of furious opposition from a right-wing Spanish government which derided it as "separatist and secessionist."

Ibarretxe, of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV -- in power in Vitoria since 1980), first drafted the plan a year ago. He revealed Friday that the Basque government was set to approve the project on October 25 and that it would be put to a vote in the regional parliament in September 2004.

After that, the Basque government would seek to hold six months of talks with the central government in Madrid with a view to modifying the region's autonomous status.

In Madrid, the conservative government of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar immediately warned it would oppose the plan, insisting that it "seeks to break apart the political and constitutional framework" of Spain, said government spokesman Eduardo Zaplana.

Zaplana insisted the Basque region already enjoyed "a level of autonomy unknown in Europe."

He described the plan as "legally impossible (to implement) in Spain as in Europe" and said the government was "categorically opposed" to the whole idea.

He warned that Madrid, which believes the plan is a move towards full independence, would go through the courts if necessary to knock down any proposals that did not abide by the Spanish constitution.

Ibarretxe meanwhile said that as the region's lehendakari or president, he would seek to ensure that the referendum would go ahead with an "absence of violence" and "without exclusion".

Alluding to the violence by armed separatist group ETA, whose commandos have killed about 800 people in the past 35 years, Ibarretxe said he wanted to cut out "a cancer that does terrible harm to the Basque image throughout the world."

He added that the plan "is decisively going to contribute to slamming the door on violence and expel ETA from our lives."

Ibarretxe's reference to an all-embracing vote was seen as a reference to the banning earlier this year by the Spanish judiciary of Batasuna, ETA's political mouthpiece.

Ibarretxe said last year's sinking of the Prestige oil tanker off northern Spain, a catastrophe that polluted the whole of the north coast, as well as the war in Iraq -- supported by Madrid but not by the Spanish population at large -- justified his mission to give the Basques greater control over their own affairs.

He called both issues "two significant examples of the great chasm, the divorce that exists between Basque society and the Spanish government.

"The enthusiastic support of the Spanish government for the war against Iraq ... is an illegitimate, unjust and erroneous decision ... adopted without United Nations approval, against our European allies and against the will of Basque society," Ibarretxe charged.

A few things though, as usual the reporter sins of siding with the oppresor, first of all, Batasuna is accused of being ETA's mouth piece, this is something that neither one of the two formations has ever proclaimed, therefore for the time being, and since you are innocent until proven guilty, the reporter (if he was a true journalist of course) should say something like "Batasuna, the alleged mouthpiece...".

Second, the Basque plea for self determination is not illegal, it is actually consecrated by the UN charter that defends the right of any people on the earth to seek their self determination, the reporter fails to explain that to a public that may not understand that artificial states are bound to fragment sooner or later, like for example Yugoslavia.

Third, the name of the Basque city is Gazteiz, Vitoria is the way the invaders call it, you would think that out of respect the reporter would use the right name.

Remember, the guys that got upset are the same ones who not too long ago denied the Holocaust, just in case you feel like siding with them.

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Euskara's Woes in Navarre

Today at Berria:

UPN’s language policy denounced again by Europe through the EBLUL

The general assembly of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages has condemned the changes to the bylaws approved by the Iruñea (Pamplona) City Council “because they will have great influence on killing Iruñea’s bilingual landscape”

Alberto Barandiaran – IRUÑEA (Pamplona)

The European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages (EBLUL) has continually denounced the language policy of the UPN (Union of the Navarrese People), and has called on the Iruñea City Council to review the direction it has taken, and to bring it in line with the model specified in the European Declaration on Regional and Lesser Used Languages.

In the general assembly held in Helsinki on September 13 representatives of lesser used languages from the whole of Europe denounced the decision adopted by the Iruñea municipal council to modify the Basque language bylaws, and passed a resolution declaring that this measure contravened the foundations of the language policy of the European Institutions “in both the spirit and the letter.”

In a municipal council meeting this month the City Council, with the votes of the UPN and the CDN (Convergence of Navarrese Domocrats), approved the abolishing of the A and B level language profiles for its staff and the separation between Basque and Spanish on the printed forms and public signs. As far as the EBLUL is concerned, these changes “will have great influence on killing Iruñea’s bilingual landscape, and on restricting the relations Basque speakers have with the administration.”

The resolution states that “Basque is the only language in danger in this community and for this reason it should not have to suffer the damaging consequences of these reforms.”

Mitxel Etxebarria, who represents the Basque Country in the EBLUL, highlighted the fact that the new resolution rejects the UPN’s language policy. “Europe has said that language policy does not go down that road.”

On February 3, 2001, the EBLUL passed a similar resolution entitled “Résolution Basque”. At that time the government headed by Miguel Sanz had just passed a decree restricting the use of Basque, and this caused an outcry.

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Movie About Galindez

If you watch this movie you will find out that the CIA conspired with two dictators (Francisco Franco of Spain and Rafael Trujillo of Dominican Republic) to murder the Basque diplomat Jesús Galindez.

Here you have the info about the movie from the Toronto Film Festival's web site:

The Galindez File

The Galindez File, from Spanish director Gerardo Herrero, is a somewhat odd little film, with certain merits. It is a fictionalized account of the effort to discover the truth about the fate of Jesús de Galindez, a political refugee from Franco's Spain, who disappeared in New York City in 1956. Before he settled in the US, Galindez had lived in the Dominican Republic and become a firm opponent of the Trujillo dictatorship in that country, writing exposés of the regime's misdeeds.

In Herrero's film, based on a novel, an American researcher, Muriel Colber (Saffron Burrows) is pursuing the Galindez story in the 1980s. Muriel's determination to get to the bottom of things, unbeknownst to her, arouses concerns in US intelligence circles. It turns out that the CIA had assisted in the kidnapping of Galindez by the Dominican authorities, who proceeded to torture and murder him.

In the course of her pursuit of the historical truth, Muriel turns up evidence that points to Galindez' own unsavory political operations. She discovers that this "freedom fighter" was busy informing on a variety of leftist movements in the US on behalf of the FBI. A Basque nationalist, Galindez was presumably attempting to establish his "anti-red" credentials with Washington at the height of the Cold War. Why did another wing of the American state then conspire in his death? Apparently because Trujillo "filled many pockets" in the US Congress.

Aside from the performance of Burrows, who is not a great actress but conveys considerable integrity and sense of purpose, the film is useful for pointing out not merely the complicity of American intelligence in the crimes of the Trujillo gangster regime, which will hardly come as a surprise, but the agency's unhesitating readiness to liquidate US citizens who threaten its operations. Another point in the film's favor is the barbed depiction of Muriel's advisor, a "leftist" professor, who is quite easily pressured by the CIA into betraying his former student (and lover).

And still the USA dares to put Batasuna, a Basque political pary, on its list of "terrorist organizations".

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Will Someone Listen?

Here you have an analysis about the Julio Medem documentary by Amagoia Mujika published at Berria:

A daring, sincere proposal

‘La Pelota Vasca’. It was very well received the day before yesterday when it was shown for the first time; there are many views on it, but they nearly all coincide with Julio Medem’s proposal: dialogue is the way

Amagoia Mujika

Julio Medem’s proposal should not take us by surprise, but in a country where opinions are silenced and manipulated, the documentary ‘La Pelota Vasca’ (Basque Pelota) has caught us unawares; perhaps we, and other people, detect some gaps in it, each one misses people on his or her own side, but you can’t deny that it has brought many voices together, and that it is a sincere and daring stab at what is going on in this country. The person who went to see the premiere the day before yesterday is grateful for this; let us hope that the politicians present realise what point Medem was making: Ladies and Gentlemen, here we have a serious political problem, and dialogue is the solution.

The pelota player hurls the balls against the wall as if they were bullets; the tug-of-war participant wants to leave the opposing side exhausted; the heads in Asier Altuna’s ‘Topeka’(*) continually hit each other, and all this is interspersed with writers, politicians, thinkers, police officers, priests and victims... Shots of the Basque countryside and “images of primitive situations” together with Mikel Laboa’s “Gernika” songs are used to weave the themes together and reduce the tension.

Before the screening the attitude of the people was open, and when Julio Medem appeared on stage he was met with a round of applause, a gesture of audience solidarity for what has happened to him recently. The premiere began with the words of Bernardo Atxaga, and as the documentary progresses you realise that it is not specially directed at the Basque people, everything that appears is in some way familiar, but it could be an appropriate document for an international audience; it provides a historical perspective, it mentions the Carlist wars, the loss of the “fueros” [the ancient Basque laws and privileges], the Franco era, the transition and the current situation.

(*) Short film depicting rams fighting and the audience’s reaction.

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In Artozki

More information about the resistance movement against the projected dam in Itoiz:

Resistance against the Itoiz dam continues in Artozki

Today, 22nd September, is the eighth day of resistance in the village of Artozki, to prevent its demolition to make way for the Itoiz dam. Despite a big scare on Friday, when four vans of riot police entered the village with rubber bullet guns and batons, the village is still standing and full of life.

Today, 22nd September, is the eighth day of resistance in the village of Artozki, to prevent its demolition to make way for the Itoiz dam. Despite a big scare on Friday, when four vans of riot police entered the village with rubber bullet guns and batons, the village is still standing and full of life.

Friday's police incursion was met with an impressive show of passive resistance, with people chained in concrete barrel lock-ons across the road, and people resisting on rooftops, tripods and locked on to the houses. They pushed and batonned the people they found in the square and violently moved the barrel road block with people still locked to it. After filming everyone the police finally agreed to talk to a mediator, told her they were just there to disconnect the electricity, and left. A generator arrived soon after, and Artozki still lives!

This weekend the town celebrated a week of resistance with a fiesta, with residents of the village and neighbours from the surrounding areas affected by the dam.

A week ago, when residents left their homes with tears in their eyes, no one could have imagined that the houses would still be standing and the village alive with festivities one week later. Around 250 people took part, with traditional Basque dancing, giant puppets, games and food, as well as debates and discussions about the dam project and the continuing resistance.

Around 80 people took part in the discussions, where the previous residents of the village made it clear that they have not voluntarily left. The six families who remained living in the village to the last were forcibly removed from their homes. They gave their support and thanks to the people who have stayed to defend the village and denounced the fact that they have spent 18 years living under the threat of the Dam.

Over the past week the current occupants of the village have been subjected to constant police harassment, with road blocks on the incoming roads, police incursions into the village and low flying helicopters buzzing us and filming the inhabitants (and exploding our straw puppets with the wind they create!)

At noon today, for example, a van of Navarran Policia Foral drove into the village square, and six riot police got out, waving rubber bullet guns and batons, wandered around the village and then left again. They are testing the level of resistance in the town and how quickly the defences can be activated.

We are still expecting them to try to evict any day now. We are not dropping our guard and we repeat the call to action - come help the resistance in Artozki!

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No Englishness Gene

Now we know where the Irish and the Welsh got their strong will and determination, read on:

Facing the past

Are we descended from the Vikings, Saxons, Romans or Celts? For centuries, many believed our physical features revealed our origins. But are the British simply a breed apart?

Investigation by Richard Girling

So: there is no gene for Englishness, Irishness or Scottishness. And yet we all came from somewhere and, in a society increasingly disconnected from its roots, we are ever more desperate to find out where. This means reaching back through the millennia, identifying our earliest likely ancestors and tracking their progress through history. As it happens, wherever they go, migrants leave a distinct genetic footprint - the Y chromosomes that are passed down unaltered from father to son across the generations. By matching these between existing populations, scientists have uncovered a small but vital piece of evidence. The modern people closest to the ancient Britons, whose tribal lands also included England, are those of Ireland and Wales. By comparing their Y chromosomes with others, we can start to make connections.

Mark Thomas, of UCL's Centre for Genetic Anthropology, explains: "When we look at the Y chromosomes in Wales and Ireland, we find a very close match with the Basques." Other genetic evidence, he says, "strongly suggests that the Basques are the descendants of the Palaeolithic inhabitants of western Europe prior to the arrival of farmers between 9,000 and 6,000 years ago". It is reasonable therefore to conclude that the Basques took refuge in the Iberian peninsula when the freeze was at its maximum, then moved northward behind the thaw to become the first people to recolonise Britain after the last Ice Age.

Did they then survive to become the Romano-British and later be overrun by the Saxons? Or were they displaced earlier by other, more sophisticated newcomers? "We do not know," says Chris Stringer, the head of human origins at the Natural History Museum, "whether they were supplanted by later influxes of farmers, and by Bronze and Iron Age peoples, or whether they simply embraced the new technologies as they developed. This is a matter of fierce debate."

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A Basque Ball With Spark

Some people just can't handle the truth, and no I am not quoting Jack Nickolson, check out this information straight from Donostia:

"Basque Ball" sparks bitter debate

Fiachra Gibbons, arts correspondent in San Sebastian
Monday September 22, 2003
The Guardian

The most controversial Spanish film in decades had its premiere last night despite a government campaign to ban it. "The Basque Ball", an emotional documentary by the acclaimed director Julio Medem, urges the government to reopen talks with Basque extremists. It received a five-minute standing ovation at the San Sebastian Film Festival after convulsing Spain in an ugly debate over whether it should be outlawed.

The ruling rightwing Popular party refused to cooperate with the film, and has kept up a ferocious assault on what it termed Basque-born Medem's "suspicious enterprise".

But many anti-secessionist Basques have rallied to the director's defence, with the socialist mayor of San Sebastian, Odon Elorza, claiming the clock was being turned back to the "time when the man with the little moustache [General Franco] covered women's breasts, had the bottoms of nudes in museums draped and eliminated all 'red' films".

He added: "It is one thing to criticise a film, but it's another to do all you can to make sure it is never shown."

Medem, the director of "Sex and Lucia", and "Cows", claimed he was not a nationalist, but despaired at the division that the lack of talks was causing in the Basque country, where half of the inhabitants were "immigrants" from the rest of Spain.

Advocating talks with the separatist group ETA or its supporters, however, has been a heresy since the prime minister Jose Maria Aznar's government banned its political wing Batasuna last year and closed down a string of cultural groups, which it claimed were fronts for its terrorist activities.

The ban has revived support for the party, whose vote had plummeted to 10% after Eta broke a 14-month ceasefire in 1999, alleging that Mr Aznar had sabotaged peace talks.

The culture minister, Pilar del Castillo, led the attacks on festival organisers, and refused an invitation to see the film. He condemned Medem for blaming Mr Aznar's "Spanish ultra-nationalism" as much as the terrorists.

"When you start from the position that a legally constituted government voted for by 10 million people is one pole, and the other is a terrorist group, that puts you in a delicate position," he said.

But far from taking a pro-nationalist line, the film, for which more than 70 of the autonomous region's politicians, intellectuals and victims of violence were interviewed, makes extremely uncomfortable viewing for Basque nationalists, never mind ETA.

The author and academic Maria Delgado said: "There is no comfort in the film for Basque nationalists, but neither is there for the government."

Meanwhile, a film about another murky chapter in Madrid's ties with the Basques, is also making headlines.

"The Galindez Mystery", starring Harvey Keitel and Saffron Burrows, recounts how the CIA allegedly colluded in General Franco's kidnap, torture and murder of the former Basque prime minister Jesus Galindez, who was living in exile in the US after the Spanish civil war.

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IBO Press Release: Freedom of Expression

PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Freedom of Expression takes another hit in the Basque Country

September 19, 2003

Recent events in the Basque Country again point to a dire lack of respect for freedom of speech on the part of Judge Baltasar Garzon of the Spanish National High Court. On Monday, September 15th, Spanish police detained three people and closed down three establishments in connection with an authorized demonstration that took place in Donostia (San Sebastian).

The three people, Juan Joxe Petrikorena, Inigo Balda and Ainhoa Inigo were detained and accused of organizing a demonstration that took place on August 10th under the slogan "No apartheid. Autodeterminazioa" (No to Apartheid. Self-determination). Permission for the demonstration was originally denied but then granted upon appeal. The three establishments closed are claimed to be the places where the organization of this demonstration took place.

The International Basque Organization for human rights (IBO) decries this latest denial of basic human rights by Judge Garzon and the Spanish state. This is only the latest of human rights abuses that have taken place in the past months - including the closure of Egunkaria and the arrest and torture of editors, journalists and directors of that newspaper.

For more information, please contact:

International Basque Organization For Human Rights
PO Box 225
Corte Madera, CA 94976
415 924-2151
www.euskojustice.org

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