Between the clampdown on liberties and the search for political solutions
01 August 2002
The political situation in the Basque Country is going through a particularly delicate moment. The illegalisation of Batasuna (which is considered the political wing of the armed Basque organisation ETA), the Basque government’s proposal to modify the position occupied by the Basque Country within the Spanish State through a free association formula, and the threat by ETA to make the offices and public meetings of the PP (Partido Popular) and PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) targets for its attacks are the latest expressions of a political situation that is blocked and without apparent medium-term prospects for solution.
It may be useful for Statewatch readers to cover the immediate antecedents of the current situation.
Exactly four years ago, in September of 1998, the latest serious initiative to channel the Basque conflict towards a democratic solution was born. It was the date when the bulk of nationalist forces (including those that formed the Basque government) and some others that are not nationalist, like Izquierda Unida (United Left), signed the Lizarra Agreement which was followed by a truce on the part of ETA, and the support of several trade unions and social organisations. This agreement, which expressly cited the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement as its source of inspiration, recognised the political nature of the Basque conflict and the need to resolve it through an open process of dialogue and negotiation between all the parties involved, which would result in the deepening of democracy in Euskadi (Basque Country), and on whose proposals of a resolution the Basque population should be consulted. This proposal and the dynamics of the truce that followed it gave rise in the Basque society to expectations for a resolution of the conflict that had not been seen for a long time. However, this proposal received an outright rejection from the Spanish majority parties, the Partido Popular and the Socialist Party which, based on an unprecedented media campaign, not only refused to participate in such a process, but also sabotaged any possible progress down the path that was opened by the Lizarra Agreement. These expectations finally ended when a year later ETA decided to consider the truce to be at an end and to return to armed activity.
A little over a year ago, in May 2001, the result of the autonomous regional government elections was a majority for those parties that, at the time, promoted the Lizarra Agreement. From that platform the current Basque government was formed, based on the nationalist Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV) and Eusko Alkartasuna (EA) parties and one left-wing non-nationalist party, Izquierda Unida. This is the government that has just made the current proposal that will be commented on later. Currently, we are seeing the illegalisation of Batasuna, instigated by the Spanish parliament (which is currently in the process of being approved) and decreed, in a parallel way, by judge Garzón. This is the latest in a series of illegalisations which have been undertaken by the same judge over a number of years: in February of this year he applied it to the organisation supporting Basque political prisoners, Askatasuna (Freedom), and the youth organisation Segi, and he had previously done the same to Ekin, Haika, Xaki, Jarrai and Gestoras pro amnistía, actions that also resulted in the closing of Egin newspaper and even to the arrest, for months, of the entire Mesa Nacional (National Direction) of Herri Batasuna. This was despite the fact that many of his decisions were questioned, when they were not overturned, by other rulings and by other members of the Spanish judicial apparatus, who cannot be suspected of connivance with the nationalist left. Criticism has been repeatedly directed at the weakness of his institution of proceedings, but also at his particular manner of understanding justice: on one side, as being very submissive to the reigning opinions in the dominant political circles