Eusko Flickr : Untitled

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Russian Football's Basque Tactics

Too bad the Russian national team was unable to kick the annoying Spaniards out of the Euro Cup 2008 the way they did with the Dutch, here you have an article that comes to us via The Guardian about the link between the Basque and the Russian football tactics:

The Soviet tactical revolution has its roots in a 1930s Basque team

The fluid teamwork which came to define football in the USSR owes much to a 1930s touring team and the inspirational Dinamo coach who built on it

Jonathan Wilson
June 26, 2008 10:34 AM

Valeriy Lobanovskyi has a tendency to overshadow any discussion of the Soviet style and, given his success, understandably so. He was not, though, its progenitor. He shaped it to his vision and, thanks to his use of cybernetics, took it to new levels, but he was working in a tradition, a stream of thought that swept from Russia to Ukraine and back again to define the Soviet conception of the game.

It may have been the Dutch style to which football in the USSR ended up being most closely related, but the movement towards that philosophy was kick-started by encounters with a Basque select side that toured the USSR in 1937 to raise awareness of their cause during the Spanish Civil War.

A national championship had begun in the USSR in 1936, but football in the region remained fairly backward, tied to the old-fashioned 2-3-5 that was the default when British sailors first introduced the game to St Petersburg at the end of the 19th century. Isolation meant few games against foreign opposition, and little opportunity to recognise the advances that had been made elsewhere.

The Basques, featuring six of the Spain squad from the 1934 World Cup, soon exposed how underdeveloped the Soviet game was. Deploying the W-M formation that had been developed by Herbert Chapman at Arsenal in the late 1920s, they won seven and drew one of their nine games, losing only to Spartak, who were the one side to match them shape-for-shape.

"The performances of Basque Country in the USSR showed that our best teams are far from high quality," a piece in Pravda pointed out. "It is clear that improving the quality of the Soviet teams depends directly on matches against serious opponents. The matches against the Basques have been highly beneficial to our players (long passes, playing on the flanks, heading the ball)."

The lessons were there to be learned, and no one learned them faster than the Dinamo coach, Boris Arkadiev. Born in St Petersburg in 1899, he had moved to Moscow after the revolution, where he taught fencing at the Mikhail Frunze military academy. It was fencing, he later explained, with its emphasis on parry-riposte, that convinced him of the value of counter-attacking.

"After the Basque tour, all the leading Soviet teams started to reorganise in the spirit of the new system," Arkadiev wrote. "Torpedo moved ahead of their opponents in that respect and, having the advantage in tactics, had a great first half of the season in 1938 and by 1939 all of our teams were playing with the new system." Dinamo struggled to adapt, slipping to fifth in 1938, and a lowly ninth the year after.

Others might have gone back to basics, but not Arkadiev. With the mould broken, he experimented further. In February 1940, at a pre-season training camp in the Black Sea resort of Gagry, he took the unprecedented step of spending a two-hour session teaching nothing but tactics. His aim, he said, was a refined variant of the W-M. "With the third-back, lots of our and foreign clubs employed so-called roaming players in attack," Arkadiev explained. "This creative searching didn't go a long way, but it turned out to be a beginning of a radical perestroika in our football tactics.

"To be absolutely honest, some players started to roam for reasons that had nothing to do with tactics. Sometimes it was simply because he had great strength, speed or stamina that drew him out of his territorial area, and once he had left his home, he began to roam around the field. So you had four players [of the five forwards] who would hold an orthodox position and move to and fro in their channels, and then suddenly you would have one player who would start to disrupt their standard movements by running diagonally or left to right. That made it difficult for the defending team to follow him, and the other forwards benefited because they had a free team-mate to whom they could pass."

The season began badly, with draws against Krylya Sovetov Moscow and Traktor Stalingrad and defeat at Dinamo Tbilisi, but Arkadiev didn't waver. The day after the defeat in Tbilisi, he gathered his players together, sat them down and made them write a report on their own performance and that of their team-mates. The air cleared, the players seemed suddenly to grasp Arkadiev's intentions. On June 4, playing a rapid, close-passing style, Dinamo beat Dynamo Kyiv 8-5. They went on to win the return in Ukraine 7-0, and then, in August, they hammered the defending champions Spartak 5-1. Their final seven games of the season brought seven wins, with 26 goals scored and only three conceded, and Dinamo swept to the title.

"Our players worked to move from a schematic W-M, to breathe the Russian soul into the English invention," Arkadiev said. "We confused the opposition, leaving them without weaponry with our sudden movements. Our left-winger, Sergei Ilyin, scored most of his goals from the centre-forward position, our right-winger, Mikhail Semichastny, from inside-left and our centre-forward, Sergei Soloviov, from the flanks."

Movement and the interchange of positions became key. War caused the abandonment of football for four years, and by the time the league began again, Arkadiev had moved to CDKA, where he instituted the same principles that continued to underpin Dinamo's method. Between them, the two sides won the first seven post-war Soviet titles, and as his 1946 book, Tactics of Football, became acknowledged as a bible for coaches across eastern Europe, the Arkadiev style became the Soviet style.

Most significantly, its effectiveness was recognised abroad as Dinamo charmed British fans and experts on their 1945 tour. They played, Geoffrey Simpson wrote in the Daily Mail, "a brand of football which, in class, style and effectiveness is way ahead of our own. As for its entertainment value - well, some of those who have been cheering their heads off at our league matches must wonder what they are shouting about". Nine years after being taught a lesson by the Basques, Soviet football was handing out lessons of its own.

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Udaleku '08

This note comes to us thanks to The Buffalo Bulletin:

Basque-ing in the culture

Summer camp draws teachers and students from afar

By Grant Smith

Published: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 10:02 AM CDT

Since its inception in 1973, the Udaleku summer camp has offered youths the opportunity to expand their interest in Basque history and culture in the hope of preserving and continuing Basque tradition from one generation to the next.

“Many of our participants have an interest in Basque language or music and they feel weird because none of their friends can relate. We give them the opportunity to see that they aren’t so odd in their interests,” said Kate Camino, the internal director for the camp.

Camino, a Buffalo native who works in the Basque Studies Department at the University of Nevada Reno, used her professional contacts to assemble a group of energetic instructors willing to travel to Buffalo and share their skills.

Jexux Larrea agreed, despite not knowing English. Jexux, who is teaching Basque dance at the camp in Clear Creek Middle School, came from the city of Donostia in Spain where he works as a dance master in a culture group that teaches the methodology and history of Basque dance.

Larrea remembers his interest in dance being sparked at an early age. “I started dancing at 14 and never stopped,” said Larrea, speaking through a translator. He further noted that the language barrier has not been an impediment in conveying his passion. “If you want to teach the history or the background of the dance you must know the language, but to teach the dance itself you can just teach by example,” said Larrea.

Another native of the Basque country teaching at the camp is Eneko Espiro, who came to Buffalo from the town of Vitoria Gasteiz. Espiro agreed to instruct students on the playing of the txistu — a Basque fipple flute containing only three holes. “It has been a great challenge to take kids who don’t even know how to read music and then teach them how to do that and learn a new instrument, but almost all of them will be doing really well at the end of two weeks.” said Espiro.

In addition to music and dance, participants take courses in Basque culture and language. Incorporated into the classroom sessions are outings geared towards exploring first hand different facets of Basque culture. Such activities include a camp-out in sheep wagons, caroling through Buffalo during the solstice celebration of San Juan, and a trip to the Gatchell Museum to learn about early Basque sheep ranchers in Johnson county.

Forty-three students between the ages of 10 and 15, including visitors from six different states, are participating in the camp this year. “All the out-of-state campers are housed by volunteers in the Buffalo community and we owe them a big thanks for their support and assistance,” said Camino.

The students will showcase their new talents during an end-of-camp show at 7 p.m. Friday, June 27, at the high school auditorium.

“We eat, live and breathe Basque culture,” said Camino, “What we really want to do is to inspire these kids to the point where they will take our positions in the preservation effort.”

For more information concerning next year’s Udaleku camp or other Basque activities go to www.nabasque.org or contact Teresa Fieldgrove at 758-4540.

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Eusko Flickr : Donibaneko Hondartza II

Donibaneko hondartza II
Originally uploaded by josu.orbe

Basquephobe of the Week : Martti Ahtisaari

Meet Martti Ahtisaari, our Basque-phobe of the week.

The press calls this individual by terms like peace-maker and conflict mediator. His resume includes work in high profile cases like Northern Ireland, Aceh and Kosovo, yet, when it comes to Euskal Herria his response is no, nyet, nein, the Basques do not deserve their independence because he says so.

He is so ignorant in this matter that he thinks that Euskal Herria is occupied only by Spain, not a word about France. Then he insists that Euskal Herria does not deserve its freedom like Kosovo because "the history of both regions is diametrically different". But then he does not care to elaborate why are they so different because then people would figure out that it is precisely because of their history that it is hard to deny freedom to the Basques while granting it to the Kosovars.

After saying that the Basques in their obsession to put forward their invalid call for freedom would go to the extreme of claiming Kosovo as a precedent even if Kosovo was located in a different planet (just try to imagine the amount of euro-pesetas Madrid paid Ahtisaari to say something like that) he goes on to say that it was Milosevic's genocidal campaign in Kosovo what set the background for Kosovo's independence.

What about Francisco Franco? Being a protege of Hitler and Mussolini, bombing the civilian populations of Durango and Gernika, executing hundreds of gudaris after Bilbao's armistice, banning Basque culture and language throughout his four decade reign of terror does not count someone as a criminal like Milosevic? He was worst than Milosevic!

And what about his excuse that the history of Euskal Herria and Kosovo being diametrically different?

Actually it is, Francisco Franco murdered more Basques than Milosevic did Kosovars while perpetuating a 500 year genocidal campaign by Castile/Spain against Euskal Herria.

The note with Ahtisaari's statements comes to us via BalkanInsight:

Ex-Envoy: Kosovo Not Precedent for Basques

23 June 2008 Pristina _ Kosovo’s independence is absolutely no precedent for Spain’s Basque Country, the former UN envoy for Kosovo’s final status, Martti Ahtisaari argues.

Ahtisaari dismissed any connection between Kosovo’s independence and any move towards separatism by Spain’s Basque country saying that the history of both regions is diametrically different.

“Perhaps some people try to turn Kosovo into a precedent and use it so but they would do so even if Kosovo was from another planet,” Ahtisaari told Spanish daily, El Pais.

Appointed by the United Nations Secretary General, Ahtisaari facilitated two-year talks between Belgrade and Pristina over the final settlement of Kosovo’s political status, which has been administered by the UN for nine years since the end of the war between Serb military forces and ethnic Albanian majority in 1999.

At the end of negotiations, Ahtisaari proposed a comprehensive proposal for Kosovo’s ‘supervised independence’ with exclusive rights and provisions for minorities, particularly Kosovo Serbs.

However the internationally-mediated talks failed to produce a mutually-agreed solution, since Serbia insisted on keeping Kosovo under its sovereignty as an autonomous region, while Kosovo asked for nothing less than independence. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17 based on Ahtisaari’s blueprint.

Twenty out of twenty-seven European Union member states have recognised Kosovo’s independence so far but countries like Spain, Romania or Cyprus refuse to do so, arguing that the move violated international law.

Madrid is particularly concerned that Kosovo’s independence sets a bad example for its autonomous provinces, particularly the Basque Country, where demands among Basque hardliners for independence has led to decades of sporadic bombings and shootings.

Recently Britain’s former Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane wrote in an editorial that Spain was lobbying against the recognition of Kosovo’s independence in Latin American countries. Read more: http://balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/11190

“When in the case of Kosovo one defends the international legality, one does not say that it was Slobodan Milosevic who unconstitutionally annulled the autonomy of Kosovo and illegally ordered the slaughters and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Albanians,” Ahtisaari told El Pais.

He said Serbia lost Kosovo as a consequence of the policies of former Serb strongman Milosevic, and that the international community must now help Serbs understand that there is no way back and nothing will change.

Ahtisaari added that EU countries who now oppose the statehood of Kosovo had declared during the final status negotiations that the Kosovo case is unique.

Well, if it is of any consolation for Ahtisaari, his hatred towards the Basques is anything but unique.

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Eusko Flickr : San Mames En Ikurrina

San mames en ikurrina
Originally uploaded by mundakaweeee

Empty Promises

Zapatero will continue with the Spanish State policy of depriving the Basque citizens of their must basic human rights. Irene Khan of Amnesty International would make a huge mistake if she takes Zapatero's word as the word of a man with moral integrity.

This report appeared today at Amnesty International's page:

Time for Spain to deliver on human rights

20 June 2008

In Madrid today, Amnesty International made public the human rights agenda for the Spanish government’s second term, a review of progress to date and a number of concrete suggestions for future action which was presented yesterday to President Rodriguez Zapatero.

“We welcome the commitment President Zapatero gave us to adopt a national Human Rights Plan by the end of 2008,” said Irene Khan, Amnesty International’s Secretary General. “This is an opportunity to show leadership in delivering results on human rights.”

Spain – a Stronger commitment, more effective action – A Human Rights Agenda for 2008 – 2012 reviews progress made over the government’s previous term, defines the key human rights challenges facing Spain, and sets out a roadmap for change which includes a list of 17 indicators to test the government’s performance against its promises.

“President Zapatero told us his Human Rights Plan will be ambitious, and we shall certainly hold him to that,” said Irene Khan. Amnesty International is calling for a plan which is widely consulted, consistent with Spain’s international obligations, and coherent in demonstrating the same commitment to human rights at home and abroad. The plan must be responsive to the human rights challenges facing Spain, strengthening protection for those most vulnerable in society such as women survivors of violence, children, migrants and the detained. It should set challenging and clear benchmarks, against which progress can be mapped in a transparent manner.

“The plan must not be just a paper promise – it must be a plan for delivery of results,” said Ms Khan.

Amnesty International’s review of the past four years shows progress in some areas but also the need for stronger commitment and more effective action in some others. Amnesty International welcomes the law to control the trade in military equipment and the law to combat gender-based violence. They show political will but much more than political will is needed to convert these measures into effective action. The law on the rights of victims of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime was an important first step but it has fallen short of expectations on truth, justice and reparation.

“The time is ripe for a truly ambitious national Human Rights Plan – a Plan that builds on these achievements and boldly moves further to tackle the critical human rights challenges of today,” said Ms Khan.

One of the challenges the government faces is that of the continuing grave abuses by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA). Amnesty International has consistently and unreservedly condemned the violence by ETA as grave human rights abuses and categorically refutes any arguments or objectives which attempt to justify them.

The government has an obligation to protect people from such attacks but it must do so within the framework of human rights and the rule of international law. “Terrorism cannot be overcome by undermining human rights and the rule of international law – that is Amnesty International’s message in the fight against terrorism worldwide and it is our message in Spain,” said Ms Khan.

Another of the complex challenges facing Spain, and indeed the whole of Europe is that of migration. While Amnesty International recognizes that states have the right to control their borders this should not, however, be at the expense of undermining the human rights of migrants, whether they have documents or not.

“Having no documents does not mean you have no rights,” said Ms Khan, “and Amnesty International is deeply disappointed by the adoption on 18 June of a European Union directive which will now allow member states to detain people who have not committed any crime, including minors, for up to 18 months”.

The Spanish government has indicated that it will be revising its Aliens Law. Amnesty International calls on Spain not to drive down its standards on the treatment of migrants to the lowest common denominator of Europe. The government reiterated the commitment it made in its election manifesto to ratify the Convention on Migrant Workers, which Amnesty International welcomes. “We challenge the Spanish government – in developing its National Human Rights Plan – to take the lead in Europe to build a migration policy of best practice based on human rights,” said Ms Khan.

Spain must also wake up to the Europe-wide challenge of racism and xenophobia. Despite the creation in Spain of an Observatory on these issues, no data or statistics have been published. “Racism and xenophobia are alive in reality, but invisible in official terms. Such a situation must be brought to an end immediately,” said Ms Khan. Amnesty International calls for the adoption of a comprehensive strategy for gathering and publishing such information throughout Spain, as part of a wider plan to combat racism and intolerance.

Research by Amnesty International and others shows that incidents of torture and ill-treatment, while not systematic, continue to be reported by a wide range of individuals from across the country. The organisation welcomes the increasing recognition on the part of the authorities that torture and ill-treatment are not isolated aberrations, and calls for action to tackle the problem, including through the establishment of an independent mechanism to investigate complaints against the police, as is done in a number of European countries. Safeguards such as this are the best way to protect both the rights of detainees and the reputation of law enforcement officials against false complaints.

One welcome preventative measure in this regard has been the introduction of video cameras to monitor detainees in police custody – a move pioneered by the Basque Country and now followed by Catalonia. The introduction of measures that would allow judges to order the video surveillance of incommunicado detainees held by state police forces is an improvement. Amnesty International calls for such a measure to be made compulsory in all cases of detention. “In any case, the Spanish law on incommunicado detention is an anomaly in Europe, and should be repealed,” said Ms Khan.

In the international arena Amnesty International calls on Spain to show a commitment to human rights consistently across the entire spectrum of its foreign policy. Amnesty International welcomes Spain’s commitment to multilateralism and the positive support it has given in recent years to the human rights institutions at the United Nations. But it needs to show a similar commitment to human rights in its bilateral relations with governments such as China, Colombia, Morocco, Russia, and the USA.

“Subordinating human rights to short-term economic, strategic and political interests in bilateral relations is not only short-sighted, it contradicts and undermines the Spanish government’s overall foreign policy goals of promoting human rights multilaterally,” said Ms Khan.

“President Zapatero has launched a bold initiative for a global moratorium on the death penalty, which we support,” said Ms Khan. “We challenge President Zapatero to be equally bold in leading on other pressing human rights challenges at home, in Europe and abroad. In its second term the Zapatero government has got a unique opportunity to deliver on human rights.”

Background

An Amnesty International delegation, led by Secretary General Irene Khan, has been in Spain since 14 June, meeting with representatives of civil society, parliamentarians and members of the government. In the Canary Islands the delegation met with the President of the autonomous government and visited a centre for unaccompanied minors. In the Basque Country Irene Khan met the President of the autonomous government, the Ombudsman and the Counsellors of Interior and Justice. She was also invited to address the Basque parliamentary Human Rights Commission. While in Madrid Irene Khan´s official meetings included those with President of the government, the Minister of Justice, the Secretaries of State for Migration, Interior and Foreign Affairs, the Attorney General, the President of the Criminal Chamber of the National Criminal Court, representatives of the General Council of the Judicial Power, and representatives of different political parties in the parliament.

Following their crazy imperialist quest, the Spaniards have been murdering people for the last 500 years, they have destroyed entire civilizations and countless cultures and languages and to this day they have never apologized for what they've done, so why is Zapatero going to change things now? After all, he watered down "the law on the rights of victims of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime" despite the fact that his own grandfather was assassinated by Franco's underlings. Zapatero is a spineless coward at the orders of Juan Carlos Borbon who today is Spain's king due to the work of one man, Francisco Franco, you do the math.

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National Geographic's Politics

Go ahead and read the caption for this picture:

PHOTOS: Summer Solstice Marked With Fire, Magic & More

June 19, 2008—Flames illuminate thousands of revelers in a cave in Zugarramurdi, Spain, during a 1998 Aquelarre, or Witch Coven.

Held on or near the summer solstice, the festival commemorates the alleged witches who used the cave in centuries past—many of whom died by fire during the Basque witch trials of the 1600s.

For millennia the summer solstice has been embraced as a time of rebirth and hope, and as a herald of abundant food and warm temperatures to come.

Falling this year on Friday, June 20, in the Northern Hemisphere, the longest day of the year is still regarded by many as a day of mystical and religious significance—and the cause for many a celebration.

Innocent isn't it?

Well, not really, read these paragraphs again:

Flames illuminate thousands of revelers in a cave in Zugarramurdi, Spain, during a 1998 Aquelarre, or Witch Coven.

Held on or near the summer solstice, the festival commemorates the alleged witches who used the cave in centuries past—many of whom died by fire during the Basque witch trials of the 1600s.

This is the problem when a geography and travel magazine gets into politics. First they state that Zugarramurdi is in Spain, no mention of the cave being in the Basque Country. But then it refers to the Witch Trials conducted by the Spanish Holy Inquisition as "Basque witch trials". We all know the negative view that people now a days have about the witch trials, so National Geographic gets into the smear campaign against the Basque people by starting the caption without a mention to the Basque country but then "dropping" the word Basque to refer to the witch trials that were conducted by the Spaniards to punish the Basques by murdering as many Basque women as they could.

Shame on National Geographic.

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Tartalo

Remember how not too long ago an US "journalist" accused the Basque society of being unable to compete in the modern world because of its stone-age language suited only for sheepherding?

Well, seems like things are not so bad in Euskal Herria when it comes to technology, check out this article appeared at Physorg.com:

Tartalo the robot is knocking on your door

A research team from the University of the Basque Country, led by Basilio Sierra, is devising a robot that can get around by itself. Tartalo is able to identify different places and ask permission before going through a doorway.

We are accustomed to seeing robots programmed to carry out a concrete task such as the robotic arms well known in industry. What is surprising is to see a robot walking without help and making decisions for itself. This is precisely what the Autonomous Robotics and Systems Research Team at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) are involved in: increasing the autonomy of robots so that they are evermore capable of carrying out more tasks on their own. Some years ago they developed Marisorgin, the robot for distributing mail and now they have put Tartalo into operation.

Those working on the third floor of the Computer Science Faculty in the Basque city of Donostia-San Sebastián find it normal and everyday to meet Tartalo in the corridors- meet, not bump into! This 1.5-metre tall, intelligent machine side-steps any obstacle in its path, thanks to sensors that have been installed around its "body": sonars that emit and detect ultrasounds, infrared sensors and laser rays. The laser, for example, measures the distance of the robot from any object within a radius of 180 degrees. Mr Basilio Sierra's team, although it did not build the robot, having acquired it, but it is developing and enhancing its abilities.

With these sensors and the computer that is the robot's 'brain', Tartalo will have the wherewithal to move from one place to another without problems; in fact, to wander. What the research team at the Department of Computational Sciences and Artificial Intelligence want to achieve, however, is a robot capable of going anywhere it is told to.

Finding one's way inside buildings

The machines best known for guiding one from a starting point to a given goal are GPS navigation systems. However, these do not function inside buildings and neither would it be realistic to create a database with the plans for every building in the world. For this reason the UPV/EHU researchers use biomimetic systems as a basis for developing the robot, meaning that Tartalo does the same as a person or animal on entering a new place: explore the terrain and take in points of reference. But, for a machine to carry out what living creatures do by, as it were, instinct, the computer programmers have to nevertheless put in a huge quantity of data, programmes and calculations.

Buildings are semi-structured environments wherein determined common spaces are always found. Tartalo has been "taught" (programmed) to recognise four of these: room, corridor, front hall and "junction". Thus, if we were to take the robot to our home, the first thing it would have to do is to carry out a process of auto-location, going around the apartment in order to memorise the location of these four places. By this process the machine creates a species of topological map and the homeowner only has to teach it what each space is called. For this to be possible, UPV/EHU researchers are designing systems of interaction between machine and persons. For example, in order for the robot to understand instructions, they are perfecting a voice recognition system and touch screen.

Single eye, sharp vision

In order to identify what is in front, to distinguish between a room and a corridor, for example, Tartalo uses this single eye - which gives it its name ?as a camera. It measures the images received through the eye-camera, compares them with its database and then evaluates probabilities to decide what the image that it has ahead looks like. The robot knows, for example, that if the space is long and narrow, it is a corridor.

The most important skill that Tartalo has been taught is to recognise doors. In fact, in order to access most of the places instructed to do so, the robot will have to pass through a doorway first. This is why the camera is located at the level of the doorknob or handle, which is what enables the identification of the door. When this happens, the system is programmed so that, when moving down a corridor, it seeks and negotiates doorways. If the door is closed, as it is not yet fitted with an arm to open it, it knocks two or three times on the door with its "feet".

The aim of the UPV/EHU research team is to develop the navigation system of the robot and the recognition of doors is fundamental to this end. From now on, Tartalo will have to learn to distinguish between many other things, such as faces, voices or any object that it is asked to fetch. But each one of these actions requires a specific programme and this, for the time being, is outside the remit of the research being undertaken by the UPV/EHU Autonomous Robotics and Systems Research Team. Nevertheless, little by little the skills developed by other teams will be incorporated into this robot.

Source: Elhuyar Fundazioa

But where did the robot got its name?

Here you have the answer, via Wikipedia:

Tartalo

In Basque mythology, Tartalo is an enormously strong one-eyed giant very similar to the Greco-Roman Cyclops. It is speculated that the name may derive from the Greek underworld Tartaros. He lives in caves in the mountains and catches young people in order to eat them. He also eats sheep. In Biscay, it's known as Alarabi. There is a story about him that appears to be derived from the Odyssey.

Story

One day, while two brothers of the Antimuño baserri (a kind of basque farm) were hunting, a storm broke, so they decided to take refuge from the rain in a cave, which was Tartalo's cave. Soon after, Tartalo appeared with his flock of sheep. He saw the two brothers and said: "Bat gaurko eta bestea biharko" ("one for today and the other for tomorrow").

That same day he cooked and ate the eldest one, and then, he went to sleep. While he was sleeping, the youngest brother stole Tartalo's ring and then he stuck the burduntzi ("roasting spit" in Basque) in his only eye. Tartalo was blind, but not dead yet.

He started to look for the boy among his sheep, but he put on a sheep's skin and escaped from Tartalo. But, unluckily, when he got out of the flock of sheep, the accuser ring started to shout: "Hemen nago, hemen nago!" ("Here I am, here I am!").

Tartalo got out of his cave and he started to run after the ring, hearing its shouts. The young one wasn't able to take off the ring, so, when he arrived to the edge of a cliff, he cut off his finger, and since Tartalo was near, he decided to throw it down the cliff. Tartalo, following the ring's shouting, fell off the cliff.

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Canada Collaborates With Torturers

Canada is supposed to be a country that protects and defends human rights, well, it just failed to live up to that status. As it happens, Canada just delivered a Basque citizen to a government known around the world for its widespread practice of torture.

This note comes to us via Yahoo News:

Suspected Basque terrorist has been deported to Spain from Vcr

Tue Jun 17, 2:34 PM

By The Canadian Press
ADVERTISEMENT

VANCOUVER - A man accused of being a Basque terrorist has been deported from Canada to Spain, where he faces trial for attempted murder and his alleged role in a bombing campaign.

Canada Border Services Agency confirms Victor Tejedor Bilbao was put on a plane in Vancouver and sent back to Spain on Monday.

"The government takes its obligation to safeguard public safety very seriously and will take all necessary measures to ensure Canadians are protected. Canada's doors are not open to those who break the law and endanger the safety of our citizens," the agency said in a statement released Tuesday announcing the deportation.

Agency spokeswoman Faith St. John said no further details would be released.

Late last year, 51-year-old Bilbao was ordered deported by the Immigration and Refugee Board after it ruled he had been a member of the Basque terrorist organization ETA and had engaged in terrorism in 1981.

Spanish authorities accuse Bilbao of taking part in the bombing of power stations and the attempted murder of a Spanish journalist considered a "squealer" by ETA. Two of his co-accused have been sentenced to 17 years in prison in Spain.

Bilbao was arrested in June 2007 in Vancouver, 11 years after arriving in Canada and beginning a new life under an assumed name.

Bilbao tried to claim refugee status in Canada after his arrest, arguing that he was a member of the Basque political group Herri Batasuna nearly 30 years ago but, to his knowledge, it wasn't a front for the Basque terrorist groups.

The Immigration and Refugee Board denied his claim and ordered Bilbao deported last November.

A lawyer for Canada Border Services had argued that Bilbao was considered to be a flight risk, saying Bilbao confessed in 1988 that leaders of ETA had ordered the hit on the reporter.

But Bilbao later recanted and said he made a false confession because he was tortured.

His lawyer Phil Rankin fought the extradition, warning his client faced the risk of torture or death at the hands of Spanish police.

Rankin cited an Amnesty International report stating Spain cannot control the police treatment of prisoners - particularly Basques - but the board disagreed and ordered the accused terrorist returned to face Spanish justice.

Agency lawyer Jesse Davidson told an earlier hearing that there was no finding by the court system that Bilbao was ever tortured.

The Immigration and Refugee Board has also ordered the deportation of Ivan Apaolaza Sancho, who was arrested on board a Quebec City ferry last summer.

Sancho, who is wanted by Spain in connection with a series of car bombings tied to ETA, had been living in Canada since 2001 under false aliases and forged documents. Sancho initially lived in the Vancouver area, rooming with Bilbao, and moved to Montreal in late 2006.

He, too, says he will be tortured if returned to Spain and his lawyer is appealing the board decision.

Sancho has admitted to being part of the Basque nationalist movement but has denied ever supporting ETA.

I'm sure that wherever he is, Francisco Franco is proud of Jesse Davidson.

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