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Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA (Basque for "Basque Homeland and Freedom"; IPA pronunciation: [) is an terrorist Basque nationalist organization that seeks to create an independent socialist state for the Basque people in the Basque Country, separate from Spain and France. On March 22, 2006, the organization declared a permanent ceasefire stating it will commit itself "to promote a democratic process in the Basque Country in order to build a new framework within which our rights as a people are recognized, and guarantee the opportunity to develop all political options in the future." ETA is considered by Spain, France, the European Union, and the United States to be a terrorist organization, with more than 800 killings attributed to it.

ETA's motto is Bietan jarrai ("Keep up on both"). This refers to the two figures in the ETA symbol, the snake (a symbol of secrecy and astuteness) wrapped around an axe (representing strength). The organization was founded in 1959. It evolved rapidly from a group advocating traditional cultural ways, to an armed group fighting for independence.

Aims

ETA has focused primarily on two demands:
  • That an independent socialist government be created in the Basque-inhabited areas of Spain and France,
  • That imprisoned ETA members currently awaiting trial or serving prison sentences in Spain and France be released.

The Basques consider their culture distinct from those of their neighbours and they speak a language unlike any other in Europe.http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,780872,00.html

However, during the 1980s, the goals of the organisation started to shift. Four decades after the creation of ETA, the idea of creating a socialist state in the Basque Country had begun to seem utopian and impractical, and ETA moved to a more pragmatic stance. This was reflected in the 1995 manifesto "Democratic Alternative", which offered the cessation of all armed ETA activity if the Spanish-government would recognize the Basque people as having sovereignty over Basque territories and the right to self-determination. Self-determination would be achieved through a referendum on whether to remain a part of Spain. The organization has adopted other tactical causes such as fighting against:

Context

ETA forms part of what is known as the Basque National Liberation Movement (Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Vasco, MLNV in Spanish). This comprises several distinct organizations promoting a type of left Basque nationalism often referred to by the Basque-language term ezker abertzale or by the mixed Spanish and Basque izquierda abertzale (abertzale stands for patriot in Basque). These include ETA, Batasuna/Herri Batasuna/Euskal Herritarrok, and the associated youth group Haika (formed by Jarrai, Gazteriak, and Segi), the union Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak (LAB), Gestoras pro Amnistía and others.

There are also some left-wing nationalist groups seeking Basque independence but clearly disapproving of violent methods, such as Aralar (as of 2005, with a representative in the Basque Parliament, Aintzane Ezenarro) or the Navarran coalition Nafarroa Bai [http://www.nafarroabai.org (as of 2005, with a Spanish M.P., Uxue Barkos). In Basque, they could be called abertzale, but that wouldn't mean they support violence. In mainstream Spanish media, though, this term is generally applied only to ETA supporters.

Social support

The roots of ETA's support lie in attempts of the Spanish state under Francisco Franco to destroy Basque nationalism. Since Basque nationalists had sided with the Republican government in the Spanish Civil War, Franco restricted virtually any public expressions of Basque culture and banned all expressions of Basque nationalism, including public display of the nationalist flag, celebration of nationalist holidays, speaking the Basque language in public and teaching it in schools; even baptizing children with non-Spanish names was illegal. However, the recovery of the Basque industry was swift because of Franco's support attracted a massive rural exodus from Castile, Galicia, Andalusia and Extremadura, leading to further dilution of the Basque identity.

During the Franco era, ETA had considerable public support even beyond the Basque populace, reaching its peak after the 'Burgos Trials' of 1970, which drew international attention to the organization's cause and highlighted the repressive nature of the Franco regime, and their assassination of Almirante Luis Carrero Blanco in 1973 (Carrero Blanco was appointed by Franco as his successor in the rule of Spain). Spain's transition to democracy from 1975 on and ETA's progressive radicalization have resulted in a steady loss of support, which became especially apparent at the time of their 1997 kidnapping and countdown assassination of Miguel Ángel Blanco. Their loss of sympathizers has been reflected in an erosion of support for the political parties identified with the MLNV.

In recent years, ETA supporters represent a minority in the Basque region. A Euskobarómetro * poll (conducted by the Universidad del País Vasco) in the Basque Country in May 2004, found that a significant number of Basques supported some or all of ETA's goals. (33% favored Basque independence, 31% federalism, 32% autonomy, 2% centralism.) However, few supported their violent methods (87% agreed that "today in Euskadi it is possible to defend all political aspirations and objectives without the necessity of resorting to violence".) The poll did not cover Navarre, where Basque nationalism is weaker (around 25% of population) and the Basque areas of France where it is still weaker (around 15% of population are regionalist, not necessarily independentist).

Tactics

See also List of ETA attacks.

ETA's tactics include:

  • Assassination and murder, especially by car bombs or a gunshot to the nape of the neck. Before bombings, ETA members often make a telephone call so that people can be evacuated, although these calls have sometimes given incorrect information, leading to increased casualties.
  • Anonymous threats, often delivered in the Basque Country by placards or graffiti, and which have forced many people into hiding; an example was the harassment of Juan María Atutxa, member of the Basque Nationalist Party, and one-time head of the department Inner Affairs and Justice for the autonomous government of the Basque Country.
  • Protection money, the so-called "revolutionary tax" paid by many businesses in the Basque Country and in the rest of Spain and enforced by the threat of assassination. In 2002 the judge Baltasar Garzón seized the herriko tabernas ("people's taverns", bars owned directly or indirectly by Herri Batasuna) which were reportedly collecting these "revolutionary taxes". This was seen by members of the Basque left as an attack on the social fabric underlying the independence movement.
  • Kidnapping (often as a punishment for failing to pay protection money).

ETA operates mainly in Spain, particularly in the Basque Country, Navarre, and (to a lesser degree) Madrid, Barcelona, and the tourist areas of the Mediterranean coast of Spain. The overwhelming number of ETA's assassinations have historically targeted so-called "military targets" (which was traditionally limited to the military proper, the Spanish Civil Guard and the Spanish National Police). As the autonomous police (Basque Ertzaintza and Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra) took a greater role in anti-terrorism, they were added by ETA to the "military targets". Beginning with the killing of Gregorio Ordóñez in 1995 this was expanded to include politicians of any non-Basque nationalist party, journalists and other civilians.

A police file, dating from 1996, indicated that ETA needs about 15 million pesetas (about 90,000 Euros) daily in order to finance its operations. Although ETA used robbery as a means of financing in its early days, it has since been accused both of arms trafficking and of benefiting economically from its political counterpart Batasuna. Kidnapping and extortion are other key methods that the organization has used to obtain finances. ETA has also occasionally burgled or robbed storehouses of explosives. It has often maintained large caches of explosives, often over the French side of the Basque border rather than within the Spanish jurisdiction.

ETA victims have included, among others:

Government Repression

Members of ETA have often taken refuge in southwestern France, especially the French Basque Country and Aquitaine. Although this used to be tolerated by the French government, especially during the Franco dictatorship when ETA members were often regarded as political refugees, the expansion of violence into France by Spanish government death squads (GAL) in the 1980s forced the French to reconsider their stance and they have since become extremely active against ETA, including fast-track transfers of detainees to Spanish tribunals. Also ETA carried out actions against French policemen and menaced some French judges and prosecutors. A number of ETA members have been captured on French soil; some are serving sentences in France and others have been extradited to Spain to stand trial.

Several ETA members were executed during the Franco era. During the post-Franco 1970s and the 1980s, ETA members and its suspected supporters were the target of right-wing violence and violence by government agents such as GAL, whose actions not only ETA and their supporters but such observers as the BBC have characterized as "state terrorism".*

ETA members frequently allege torture at the hands of the Guardia Civil (Civil Guard). While these claims are hard to verify, it should be noted that most convictions are based on confessions obtained while prisoners are held "incommunicado" without access to a private lawyer or other advocate and that these confessions are routinely repudiated during trials as having been extracted under torture. While there have been some successful prosecutions of torturers after long delays, the penalties are usually light and co-conspirators and enablers have rarely been sanctioned. From the US State Department report on Human Rights in Spain 1994, "In December 1993 the Supreme Court overturned the appeals of five former members of the Civil Guard convicted in 1990 of torturing the father of a suspected ETA member in 1981. The perpetrators received 6-month prison terms and 7 years on probation. Others implicated in the crime or its coverup received probation or reprimands".

ETA considers its prisoners political prisoners. Until 2003 ETA pide el tercer grado para sus presos Libertad Digital, 5 October 2003, quoted in La dispersión de los presos de ETA (page 9), a PDF in the Basta Ya site., ETA consequently forbade them to ask penal authorities for progression to tercer grado, a regime allowing day or weekend furloughs, or parole. Before that date, progressing prisoners were expelled from the group.

The second arm of the Spanish Government's campaign against ETA has been to target its social support. This has taken the form of banning Herri Batasuna and its successor parties, imprisoning its leaders for not condeming ETA's armed struggle, closing Herri Batasuna's party pubs that served as a social locus for the Basque left, closing the newspaper Egin and imprisoning the editor of its investigative unit (who, perhaps coincidentally, led the investigation that brought down the head of the Guardia Civil, Enrique Galindo, for corruption). The Spanish Supreme Court and the tribunals in Europe have validated the actions of the government against ETA's support net. The pubs that were closed collected money for ETA and were in some cases used to store weapons. Many imprisoned members of HB or Jarrai had dual membership in ETA and its political branches, sentenced for assisting in ETA attacks or collecting ETA's blackmail.

Structure

ETA is organized into distinct talde ("groups"), whose objective is to conduct operations in a specific geographic zone; collectively, they are coordinated by the cúpula militar ("military cupola"). In addition, they maintain safe houses and zulo (caches of arms or explosives; the Basque word zulo literally means "hole." *)

Among its members, ETA distinguishes between legales/legalak ("lawful ones"), those members who do not have police files, liberados ("liberated"), exiled to France and on ETA's payroll, prisoners, serving time scattered across Spain and France, and quemados ("burned out"), freed after having been imprisoned.

The internal organ of ETA is Zutabe ("Column").

Political support

The political party Batasuna, formerly known as Euskal Herritarrok and "Herri Batasuna", now banned as a terrorist organization, pursues the same political goals as ETA. It has generally received between 10 and 20% of the vote in the Basque areas of Spain.

Batasuna's political status has been a very controversial issue. It is considered by many, including the Spanish courts, to be the political wing of ETA, although the party itself denies that this is the case. The Spanish Cortes (parliament) began the process of declaring the party illegal in August 2002 by issuing a bill entitled the Ley de Partidos. Many strongly disputed this move, which they felt was too draconian or even unlawful: they alleged that any party could be made illegal almost by choice, just for not clearly stating their opposition to crime after a terrorist attack. Judge Baltasar Garzón suspended the activities of Batasuna in a parallel trial, investigating the relationship between Batasuna and ETA, and its headquarters were shut down by police. The Supreme Court of Spain finally declared Batasuna illegal on March 18, 2003. The court considered proven that Batasuna had several links with ETA and that it was, in fact, part of ETA. In line with that decision, Batasuna was listed as a terrorist organization by the United States in May 2003 and by all EU countries in June 2003.

A new party called Aukera Guztiak (All the Options) was formed for the elections to the Basque Parliament of April 2005. Its supporters claimed no heritage from Batasuna, asserting that their aim was to allow Basque citizens to freely express their political ideas, even those of independence, and their rights not to condemn some kind of violence more than other if they did not see it fit. Nevertheless, most of their members and certainly most of their leadership were former Batasuna supporters or affiliates, and the Spanish Supreme Court unanimously considered the party to be a sequel to Batasuna and declared a ban on it.

After Aukera Guztiak had been banned, and less than two weeks before the election, another political group born as a schism from Herri Batasuna, the Communist Party of the Basque Lands (EHAK/PCTV, Euskal Herrialdeetako Alderdi Komunista / Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas) made the announcement that they would offer the votes they obtained to the now banned Aukera Guztiak platform. They obtained 9 seats (12,44% of votes) at the Basque Parliament *. As of September 2005, EHAK/PCTV is under investigation to discover whether or not their situation is legal.

During many years, Spanish politicians not related to Basque nationalism felt obliged to carry an escort with them to avoid ETA attacks. The last fatal ETA attack was in 2003; in 2005 ETA announced that it would no longer target Spanish politicians, but the Spanish government criticized this move, and continued to demand that ETA renounce violence entirely. In March 2006, ETA declared a "permanent ceasefire".

History

During Franco's dictatorship

ETA was founded by young nationalists, who were for a time affiliated with the PNV. Started in 1953 as a student discussion group at the University of Deusto in Bilbao, an offshoot of the PNV's youth group EGI, it was originally called EKIN, from the Basque-language verb meaning "to act"; the name had the meaning "get busy". [http://www.contrast.org/mirrors/ehj/navarre/na_history_birtheta.html On July 31, 1959 it reconstituted itself as ETA. Their split from the PNV was apparently because they considered the PNV too moderate in its opposition to Franco's dictatorship. They disagreed with the PNV's rejection of violent tactics and advocated a Basque resistance movement utilizing direct action. This was an era of wars of national liberation such as the anti-colonial war in Algeria.

In their platform, formed at their first assembly in Bayonne, France in 1962, ETA called for "historical regenerationism", considering Basque history as a process of construction of a nation. They declared that Basque nationality is defined by the Basque language, Euskara; this was in contrast to the PNV's definition of Basque nationality in terms of ethnicity. In contrast with the explicit Catholicism of the PNV, ETA defined itself as "aconfessional"--meaning ETA does not recognize a special state religion--although using Catholic doctrine to elaborate its social program. They called for socialism and for "independence for Euskadi, compatible with European federalism".

In 1965, ETA adopted a Marxist-Leninist position; its precise political line has varied with time, although they have always advocated some type of socialism.

In its early years, ETA's activity seems to have consisted mostly of theorizing and of protesting by destroying infrastructure and Spanish symbols and by hanging forbidden Basque flags.

It is not possible to say when ETA first began a policy of assassination, nor is it clear who committed the first assassinations identified with ETA. There are sources that say the first was the June 27, 1960 death of a 22-month-old child, Begoña Urroz Ibarrola, who died in a bombing in San Sebastián; other sources single out a failed 1961 attempt to derail a train carrying war veterans; others point to the unpremeditated June 7, 1968 killing of a guardia civil, José Pardines Arcay by ETA member Txabi Etxebarrieta: the policeman had halted Etxebarrieta's car for a road check. Etxebarrieta was soon killed by the Spanish police, leading to retaliation in the form of the first ETA assassination with major repercussions, was that of Melitón Manzanas, chief of the secret police in San Sebastián and a suspected torturer. In 1970, several members of ETA were condemned to death in the Proceso de Burgos ("Trial of Burgos"), but international pressure resulted in commutation of the sentences, which, however, had by that time already been applied to some other members of ETA. The most consequential assassination performed by ETA during Franco's dictatorship was the December 1973 assassination by bomb in Madrid of admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, Franco's chosen successor and president of the government (a position roughly equivalent to being a prime minister). This killing, committed as a reprisal for the execution of Basque independentistas, was widely applauded by the Spanish opposition in exile and was seen by many as instrumental in the establishment of democracy: by denying Franco his chosen successor, it forced him to hand the reins of power back to the monarchy, which in turn established the current democratic state.

The former ETA member turned anti-Nationalist author Jon Juaristi contends that ETA's goal was not democratization but a spiral of violence.

During the transition

After Franco's death, during the Spanish transition to democracy ETA split into two separate organizations: one faction became ETA political-military or ETA(pm), and another ETA military or ETA(m). The difference between the two factions was that one favored a double political and military strategy, while the other favored a purely military approach to the conflict, ignoring (for some time) the political scene and also focusing exclusively on military targets: policemen and members of the army.

During Spain's transition to democracy, both ETA(m) and ETA(pm) refused offers of amnesty, instead continuing and intensifying its violent struggle. The years 1978–80 were to prove ETA's most deadly, with 68, 76, and 91 fatalities, respectively. 2002

During the Francoist dictatorship, ETA was able to take advantage of toleration by the French government, which allowed its members to move freely through French territory, believing that in this manner they were contributing to the end of Franco's regime. There is much controversy over the degree to which this policy of "sanctuary" continued even after the transition to democracy, but it is generally agreed that currently the French authorities collaborate closely with the Spanish government against ETA.

Already in the 80s, ETA(pm) accepted the Spanish government's offer of individual pardons to all ETA prisoners, even those who had committed violent crimes, who publicily abandoned the policy of violence. This caused a new division in ETA(pm) between the VI and VII assemblies. ETA VII accepted this pseudo-amnesty and integrated into the political party Euskadiko Ezkerra ("Left of the Basque Country").

ETA VI, after a brief period of independent activity, eventually integrated in ETA(m), possibly influencing ETA(m) into adopting even more radical and violent positions. With no factions existing anymore, ETA(m) revamped the original name of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna.

Under democracy

ETA performed their first car bomb assassination in Madrid in September 1985, resulting in one death and sixteen injuries; another bomb in July 1986 killed twelve members of the Guardia Civil and injured 50; on July 19, 1987 the Hipercor bombing was an attack in a shopping center in Barcelona, killing twenty one and injuring forty five; in the last case, several entire families were killed. ETA claimed in a communique that they had given advance warning of the Hipercor bomb, but that the police had declined to evacuate the area. The police claim that the warning came only few minutes before the bomb exploded.

In a "dirty war" against ETA, Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL, "Antiterrorist Liberation Groups"), a government-sponsored and supposedly counter-terrorist organization active 1983–87 committed assassinations, kidnappings and torture, not only of ETA members but of civilians, some of whom turned out to have nothing to do with ETA. In 1997 a Spanish court convicted and imprisoned several individuals involved in GAL, not only mercenaries and low-level police officials but politicians up to the highest levels of the PSOE government of prime minister Felipe Gonzalez, including a minister of the interior. Although González had been quoted as saying that the government would defend itself in the "sewers of the state" (las cloacas del estado), his role in GAL was never proven. No major cases of foul play on the part of the Spanish government after 1987 have been proven in court, although ETA supporters routinely claim human rights violations and torture by security forces; international human rights organizations like Amnesty International have backed very few of these claims. ETA's manuals had been found telling its members and supporters to claim routinely that they had been tortured while detained.

In 1986 Gesto por la Paz (known in English as Association for Peace in the Basque Country) was founded; they began to convene silent demonstrations in communities throughout the Basque Country the day after any violent killing, whether by ETA or by GAL. These were the first systematic demonstrations in the Basque Country against terrorist violence. Also in 1986, in Ordizia, ETA assassinated María Dolores Katarain, known as "Yoyes", the former director of ETA who had abandoned the armed struggle and rejoined civil society: they accused her of "desertion".

January 12, 1988 all Basque political parties except ETA-affiliated Herri Batasuna signed the Ajuria-Enea pact with the intent of ending ETA's violence. Weeks later on January 28, ETA announced a 60-day "ceasefire", later prolonged several times. Negotiations known as the Mesa de Argel ("Algiers Table") took place between the ETA representative Eugenio Etxebeste, ("Antxon") and the then PSOE government of Spain but no successful conclusion was reached, and ETA eventually resumed the use of violence.

During this period, the Spanish government had a policy referred to as "reinsertion", under which imprisoned ETA members whom the government believed had genuinely abandoned the armed struggle could be freed and allowed to rejoin society. Claiming a need to prevent ETA from coercively impeding this reinsertion, the PSOE government decided that imprisoned ETA members, who previously had all been imprisoned within the Basque Country, would instead be dispersed to prisons throughout Spain, some as far from their families as in the Salto del Negro prison in the Canary Islands. France has taken a similar approach. In the event, the only clear effect of this policy was to incite social protest, especially from nationalists and families of the prisoners, claiming cruelty of separating family members from the terrorists. Much of the protest against this policy runs under the slogan "Euskal presoak - Euskal Herrira" (Basque prisoners to the Basque Country, by "Basque prisoners" only ETA members are meant). It has to be noted that almost in any Spanish jail there's a group of ETA prisoners, such difficult it is to have they splitted due to their number. The terrorists families are given some money by the gang.

During the ETA ceasefire of the late 1990s, the PSOE government brought back to the mainland the prisoners in the islands and Africa. Since the end of the ceasefire, ETA prisoners have still not been sent to overseas prisons. Some Basque authorities have established grants for the expenses of visiting families.

Another Spanish counter-terrorist law puts suspected terrorists cases under the central tribunal Audiencia Nacional in Madrid, due to the pressions by the group over the basque tribunals. Under Article 509 suspected terrorists are subject to being held "incommunicado" for up to thirteen days, during which they have no contact with the outside world, including informing their family of their arrest, consultation with private lawyers or examination by a physician other than the coroners.

In 1992, ETA's three top leaders — military leader Francisco Mujika Garmendia ("Pakito"), political leader José Luis Alvarez Santacristina ("Txelis") and logistical leader José María Arregi Erostarbe ("Fiti"), often referred to collectively as the "cupola" of ETA or as the Artapalo collective * — were arrested in the French Basque town of Bidart, which led to changes in ETA's leadership and direction. After a two-month truce, ETA adopted even more radical positions. The principal consequence of the change appears to have been the creation of the "Y Groups", young people (generally minors) dedicated to so-called "kale borroka" — street struggle — and whose activities included burning buses, street lamps, benches, ATMs, garbage containers, etc. and throwing Molotov cocktails. The appearance of these groups was attributed by many to supposed weakness of ETA, which obliged them to resort to minors to maintain or augment their impact on society after arrests of leading militants, including the "cupola". ETA also began to menace leaders of other parties besides rival Basque nationalist parties. The existence of the "Y Groups" as an organized phenomenon has been contested by some supporters of Basque national liberation, who claim that this construction is merely a trumped-up excuse to give longer prison sentences to those convicted of street violence.

In 1995, the armed organization again launched a peace proposal. The so-called Democratic Alternative replaced the earlier KAS Alternative as a minimum proposal for the establishment of Euskal Herria. The Democratic Alternative offered the cessation of all armed ETA activity if the Spanish-government would recognize the Basque people as having sovereignty over Basque territory, the right to self-determination and that it freed all ETA members in prison. The Spanish government ultimately rejected this peace offer.

Also in 1995 came a failed ETA car bombing attempt directed against José María Aznar, a conservative politician who was leader of the then-opposition Partido Popular (PP) and was shortly after elected to the presidency of the government; there was also an abortive attempt in Majorca on the life of King Juan Carlos I. Still, the act with the largest social impact came the following year. July 10, 1997 PP council member Miguel Ángel Blanco was kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua and his death threatened unless the Spanish government would meet ETA's demands. More than six million people demonstrated to demand his liberation, with demonstrations occurring as much in the Basque regions as elsewhere in Spain. After three days, ETA carried through their threat, killing him and unleashing massive demonstrations reflecting the ETA action with the cries of "Assassins" and "Basques yes, ETA no". This response came to be known as the "Spirit of Ermua".

After the Good Friday Accord marked the beginning of the end of violent hostilities in Northern Ireland, and given that the Ajuria-Enea pact had failed to bring peace to the Basque Country, the Lizarra/Estella Pact brought together political parties, unions, and other Basque groups in hopes again of changing the political situation. Shortly after, September 18, 1998, ETA declared a unilateral truce or ceasefire, and began a process of dialogue with Spain's PP government. The dialogue continued for some time, but ETA resumed assassinations in 2000, accusing the government of being "inflexible" and of "not wanting dialogue". The communique that declared the end of the truce cited the failure of the process initiated in the Lizarra/Estella Pact to achieve political change as the reason for the return to violence. The Spanish government, from the highest levels, accused ETA of having declared a false truce in order to rearm. Some of that was demonstrated by the appropiation of part of ETA's internal communications at the time of the truce. Later came acts of violence such as the November 6, 2001 car bomb in Madrid, which injured sixty five, and attacks on football stadiums and tourist destinations.

The September 11, 2001 attacks appeared to have dealt a hard blow to ETA, owing to the toughening of antiterrorist measures (such as the freezing of bank accounts), the increase in international police coordination, and the end of the toleration some countries had, up until then, extended to ETA. In addition, in n 2002 the Basque nationalist youth movement Jarrai was outlawed and the law of parties was changed outlawing Herri Batasuna, the "political arm" of ETA (although even before the change in law, Batasuna had been largely paralyzed and under judicial investigation by judge Baltasar Garzón).

With ever-increasing frequency, attempted ETA actions have been frustrated by Spanish security forces.

On Christmas Eve 2003, in San Sebastián and in Hernani, National Police arrested two ETA members who had left dynamite in a railroad car prepared explode in Chamartín Station in Madrid. On March 1, 2004, in a place between Alcalá de Henares and Madrid, a light truck with 536 kg of explosives was left to cause a massacre, but was prevented by the action of the Guardia Civil.

Recent events

For recent ETA attacks see List of ETA attacks

  • October 8, 1999: ETA is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTA) by the U.S. government for the first time.
  • 25 May 2001: Thousands of Spaniards participate in a silent march through San Sebastian, a northern city, to protest the killing of journalist Santiago Oleaga Elejabarrieta. Banners are held that read "No To ETA – Peace And Freedom." Spanish reporters give a statement saying, "However much they kill and try to impose their cause through terror we, as media professionals, will defend the expression which took so long to achieve in this country."
  • 11 July 2001 Hundreds of people gather in Madrid to commemorate the life of slain policeman Luis Ortiz de la Rosa, who was killed the preceding day. The rally protests ETA's actions.
  • 15 July 2001: CNN reports that hundreds of Spaniards have gathered in city and town halls around Spain to silently protest two killings blamed on the "Basque terrorist group ETA". The cities include Pamplona, Vitoria, and Zaragoza.
  • 24 August 2001: The Spanish police arrest six suspected ETA members in the Barcelona suburb of Terrasa, seizing over 550 pounds of what CNN reports as "explosives, firearms, forged license plates and electronic detonator components."
  • 26 February 2002: U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill announces that the U.S. has frozen assets of twenty one people associated with ETA.
  • 22 December 2002: Ibon Fernandez Iradi, who is suspected of teaching ETA members how to make bombs, escapes from custody in a police station in Bayonne, France.
  • 8 October 2003: thirty four suspected ETA members are arrested in the early morning. Twenty-nine are apprehended in northern Spain and five in France.
  • 9 December 2003: Police in southwestern France arrest Gorka Palacios, twenty nine, the alleged military commander of ETA. Three people who the police said were collaborators were also arrested in the 6:00 AM raid on a house in the village of Lons, near the town of Pau. At a news conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, Spanish interior minister Ángel Acebes characterized the arrests as of "great significance" and of "first magnitude."
  • February 18, 2004: ETA publicly stated that a ceasefire only in Catalonia had been in effect since January 1, based on "a desire to unite the ties between the Basque and Catalan peoples." Some claimed that this ceasefire was based on a secret pact with Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira, leader of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, "Republican Left of Catalonia"). Carod-Rovira, despite admitting to having met with ETA in France in December denied having reached any accord, saying that the meeting was an attempt to drive ETA away from violence, and ended with no results. This, during an electoral campaign, became a scandal, and endangered the recent tripartite Catalan government, formed by ERC (ERC), Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds-Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (ICV-EUiA) and the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC). The opposition then accused Aznar of being behind the leak to the media of the intelligence report detailing the meeting and Aznar refused to clarify whether he knew about this meeting before the leaking. Aznar was also questioned as to why the ETA members who attended that meeting were not detained.
  • Also in 2004, ETA was initially suspected of being the authors of a series of ten bombings only a few days before the national elections, which targeted three locations along Madrid's suburban train lines on the morning of March 11 2004, killing 192 civilians (see 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks). This theory was officially endorsed by José María Aznar's government, despite the police quickly gathering evidence pointing towards Islamic terrorism. Many Spanish citizens took this rush to judgment as an offence towards the victims of the attacks and towards the Spanish people; this was generally seen as a decisive factor in the electoral result which overturned Aznar's government (see Spanish legislative election, 2004). The authorship of this attack, the largest European terrorist incident in terms of lives lost since the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 flight bombing, has been finally ascribed to Islamist militants by the Spanish police.
  • 20 February 2004: Nine men and a woman are arrested, making the number of ETA suspects detained this week thirty three. They worked on a Basque-language newspaper, Euskaldunon Egunkaria, published statements from ETA. They've been released and their torture claims dismissed without being investigated or even calling them to testify*.
  • 21 March 2004: A spokesman for the newly elected PSOE government of Spain rejects a proposal from ETA for negotiations because ETA was not prepared to surrender its weapons.
  • September 27, 2004: ETA militants sent a videotape to Gara, a Basque newspaper based in Gipuzkoa, in which the militants stated that ETA would continue to fight for Basque self-determination and that ETA would "respond with arms at the ready to those who deny us through the force of arms." This videotape represented ETA's first major public statement since the 11 March attacks. During the weekend preceding the videotape release, the group claimed responsibility for a series of bombings that hampered electricity transmission between France and Spain.
  • October 3, 2004: French police launched an operation against ETA's logistical apparatus, making 21 arrests, among them the couple who functioned as top ETA leaders, Mikel Albizu Iriarte ("Mikel Antza") and Soledad Iparragirre ("Anboto"). They found four zulos (caches) with a vast quantity of armaments, much greater than had been estimated to be at ETA's disposal; they also managed to turn up information about ETA's printing an internal newsletter, but nothing leading to any major bank account or other hoard of money. The operation was considered one of the most successful since Bidart in 1992. As of October 2004, it appears that these measures will result in ETA leadership moving into different hands; it is too soon to evaluate the consequences. Spain has solicited the extradition of Mikel Antza y Amboto via a Euroorden.
  • December 12 2004: The Real Madrid Santiago Bernabéu stadium football Stadium was evacuated due to a phoned-in bomb threat in name of ETA. The bomb—expected to blow up at 9:00 p.m.—did not explode, and the 69,000 spectators of the match under way at the time of the call were safely evacuated by the Spanish Police at 8:45 p.m.
  • May 17 2005: The Spanish Government offered to hold talks with ETA if it renounced violence. The Opposition Popular Party condemned the overture as premature.
  • March 5 2006: Following the February 2006 deaths of ETA members Igor Miguel Angulo Iturrate, 32, (due to an apparent suicide by hanging) and Ricardo Sainz Olmos, 41, (by a heart attack), Batasuna together with the union Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak convoked a day of protest and general strike on March 9.* On the morning of the strike, ETA detonated several bombs near highways, with no injuries.
  • March 22 2006: ETA have declared a ceasefire after nearly 40 years fighting for independence from Spanish and French authorities. Euskadi Ta Askatasuna has decided to declare a permanent ceasefire as from 0000 (2300GMT) on 24 March 2006.

Declaration of permanent ceasefire

The last fatal attack by ETA occurred in 2003. ETA was initially accused in the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings, but it soon became clear that the attack had been the work of Islamists. For the next two years, there was much conjecture whether ETA was refraining from their previous level of violence out of weakness, out of a change of heart or of tactics, or because the 11 March attacks had so undercut support for violent political tactics.

On 22 March 2006 ETA sent a DVD message to the Basque Network Euskal Irrati-Telebista EITB article in English and the journals GaraGara article in Spanish with Basque, Spanish and French text of the announce. and Berria with and a communiqué from the organisation announcing what it called a "permanent ceasefire" that was broadcast over Spanish TV. According to the spokeswoman for the organisation, the ceasefire would begin on Friday 24 March. In their communiqué, they stated that the French and Spanish governments should cooperate and respond positively to this new situation. On 23 March, Gara published an extended version of the communiqué.

Official Reactions

PSOE: The socialist government has called for "prudence" although they, among most other parties, have reacted positively to this announcement.

PP: The People's Party (Mariano Rajoy) has shown pessimism with regards to this announcement and claims this is only a pause. He calls on the government to continue "fighting terrorism".

Basque Government: Juan José Ibarretxe has called for the establishment of a negotiation table "without exclusions" after summer.

Other armed movements

Other armed organizations that operated in the Basque Country

International links

ETA is known to have had contacts with the Provisional Irish Republican Army; the two groups have both, at times, characterized their struggles as parallel. It has also had links with other militant left-wing movements in Europe and in other places throughout the world. Because of its allegiance to Marxist ideas, ETA has in the past been sponsored by communist regimes such as Cuba, as well as by Libya and Lebanon. The support provided by Palestinian Arab militias to ETA was one of the reasons for the González government to recognize Israel in 1986.

Some ex-militants live in Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Venezuela where they have received political asylum. The Colombian government has accused Irish and Basque citizens in Colombia of being IRA and ETA members teaching terrorist techniques to FARC guerrillas.

ETA commandos have teamed with the Breton Revolutionary Army to steal explosives from magazines in Brittany.

References

Documentary films

Non-fictional films about ETA
  • , about the families of Basque politician Fernando Buesa and his bodyguard, both killed by ETA.
  • The Basque Ball: The Skin Against the Stone, (La Pelota Vasca, 2003) about the Basque conflict by filmmaker Julio Medem: interviews about Basque nationalism and politics. Includes testimonials of ETA victims and relatives of ETA prisoners.
  • , the testimony of some of ETA's victims in the last 30 years by filmmaker Iñaki Arteta.

Other films

Other fact-based films about ETA:
  • Comando Txikia (José Luis Madrid, 1977)
  • , about the murder of Luis Carrero Blanco.
  • El proceso de Burgos ("The Burgos Trial", Imanol Uribe, 1979)
  • , ETA prisoners escape from the Segovia prison.
  • El caso Almería ("The Almería Case", Pedro Costa, 1983)
  • La muerte de Mikel ("The Death of Mikel", Imanol Uribe, 1983)
  • Goma 2 (José Antonio de la Loma, 1984)
  • Ander y Yul ("Ander and Yul", Ana Díez, 1988)
  • Proceso a ETA ("The Trial of ETA", Manuel Macià, 1988)
  • Días de humo ("Days of Smoke", Antton Eceiza, 1989)
  • Sombras en una batalla ("Shadows in a Battle", Mario Camus, 1993)
  • Días contados ("Storied Days", Imanol Uribe, 1994)
  • A ciegas ("Blindly", Daniel Calparsoro, 1997)
  • , María Dolores Katarain, also known as Yoyes, tries to abandon ETA and is murdered by her former fellows.
  • El viaje de Arián ("Arián's Voyage", Eduard Bosch, 2001)
  • La voz de su amo ("His Master's Voice", Emilio Martínez Lázaro, 2001)
  • , based on the life of Mikel Lejarza, who, prompted by the Spanish police, entered ETA to be a double agent.
  • Esos cielos ("Those skies", Aitzpea Goenaga, 2006)

External links

Irregular military | terrorism | Basque politics | Francoist Spain | National liberation movements | Politics of Spain | Rebellion | Secessionist organizations | History of the Basque Country

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "ETA".

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