ETA declares ceasefire in struggle with Spain
Basque separatist group ETA declared a ceasefire in its 42-year campaign for a homeland independent of Spain.
MADRID:
Basque separatist group ETA declared a ceasefire on Sunday in its 42-year campaign for a homeland independent of Spain, vowing to give up guns and bombs to seek a democratic solution.
ETA, blamed for the deaths of 829 people in attacks on Spanish targets, said it decided several months ago that it “will not carry out armed offensive actions.” It did not specify if the ceasefire was temporary or permanent.
ETA made the announcement in a video sent to the BBC and pro-independence Basque daily Gara, showing three people in berets and yellow hoods sitting at a table flanked by Basque flags and an ETA symbol on the wall behind.
Listed as a terrorist group by the US and European Union, ETA has not staged an attack on Spanish soil since August 2009, and the authorities in Spain and France have arrested much of its top leadership. The Spanish government reacted cautiously.
The Interior Ministry was still examining the declaration, a spokesman said. The ministry had spoken to parliamentary groups including the opposition Partido Popular, he said.
Government officials were quoted in the El Pais newspaper as saying the declaration was a move in the right direction but ETA must still definitively abandon the armed struggle.
The paper quoted unidentified anti-terrorist sources as saying the ETA statement did not go far enough.
“They do not announce the surrender of weapons nor the end of violence; it is not enough,” one source was quoted as saying.
ETA, which was founded July 31, 1959, had been under pressure from its political allies to declare a truce.
ETA, which carried out its first deadly attack on June 7, 1968, announced a “permanent ceasefire” in March 2006 but months later reversed course and in December 2006 set off a bomb at a car park at Madrid’s international airport.
Since the start of this year alone, Spanish police working with other forces including in France have arrested 68 suspected ETA members.
Spanish media say the ETA’s political wing Batasuna, which has been banned from running for office since 2003 because of its ties to ETA, hoped to return to the political game ahead of local elections in 2011.
In its ceasefire announcement, ETA said that it “reaffirms its commitment to a democratic solution... by which, through dialogue and negotiation, we Basque citizens can decide our future in a free and democratic way.”
It asked the international community “to shoulder their historical responsibility towards the commitment and willingness of ETA, by playing their part in working out a lasting, just and democratic solution to this secular political conflict.”
Published in The Express Tribune, September 6th, 2010.
Basque separatist group ETA declared a ceasefire on Sunday in its 42-year campaign for a homeland independent of Spain, vowing to give up guns and bombs to seek a democratic solution.
ETA, blamed for the deaths of 829 people in attacks on Spanish targets, said it decided several months ago that it “will not carry out armed offensive actions.” It did not specify if the ceasefire was temporary or permanent.
ETA made the announcement in a video sent to the BBC and pro-independence Basque daily Gara, showing three people in berets and yellow hoods sitting at a table flanked by Basque flags and an ETA symbol on the wall behind.
Listed as a terrorist group by the US and European Union, ETA has not staged an attack on Spanish soil since August 2009, and the authorities in Spain and France have arrested much of its top leadership. The Spanish government reacted cautiously.
The Interior Ministry was still examining the declaration, a spokesman said. The ministry had spoken to parliamentary groups including the opposition Partido Popular, he said.
Government officials were quoted in the El Pais newspaper as saying the declaration was a move in the right direction but ETA must still definitively abandon the armed struggle.
The paper quoted unidentified anti-terrorist sources as saying the ETA statement did not go far enough.
“They do not announce the surrender of weapons nor the end of violence; it is not enough,” one source was quoted as saying.
ETA, which was founded July 31, 1959, had been under pressure from its political allies to declare a truce.
ETA, which carried out its first deadly attack on June 7, 1968, announced a “permanent ceasefire” in March 2006 but months later reversed course and in December 2006 set off a bomb at a car park at Madrid’s international airport.
Since the start of this year alone, Spanish police working with other forces including in France have arrested 68 suspected ETA members.
Spanish media say the ETA’s political wing Batasuna, which has been banned from running for office since 2003 because of its ties to ETA, hoped to return to the political game ahead of local elections in 2011.
In its ceasefire announcement, ETA said that it “reaffirms its commitment to a democratic solution... by which, through dialogue and negotiation, we Basque citizens can decide our future in a free and democratic way.”
It asked the international community “to shoulder their historical responsibility towards the commitment and willingness of ETA, by playing their part in working out a lasting, just and democratic solution to this secular political conflict.”
Published in The Express Tribune, September 6th, 2010.