Spain: End of ETA truce
01 November 1999
On 28 November the Basque armed organisation ETA announced the end of the ceasefire which the group had declared unilaterally in September 1998. The ETA communiqué announced that with effect from 3 December it reserved the right to instruct its commando units to resume action at any time.
In the 14 months of truce there had been a number of initiatives aimed at using the political space opened up by the ceasefire. These included the Lizarra-Garazi Accord, which brought together virtually all political forces except the (conservative) PP and the (socialist) PSOE in determining a means for bringing forward the peace process, built around the idea that at a future date the Basque people would be allowed the sovereign right to determine their own destiny. An Assembly of Basque Local Councils (Udalbiltza) had been created bringing together all the Basque municipalities, not just from the Spanish State but from the Basque territory, Iparralde, on the French side of the border. This new group had begun to examine ways of harmonising or conjoining institutions on either side of the present frontier. Moreover, within the autonomous Basque Country itself, the present government relied on a coalition of moderate nationalists and the "patriotic" left.
The Madrid government, however, had failed to take cognisance of the significance of these events. It even declined to consider the formal request put to it by the Basque government for the transfer of Basque political prisoners to prisons in Euskadi, rather than maintaining the policy of dispersal to remote Spanish prisons. As for direct talks between the Spanish authorities and ETA, the one meeting that took place was preceded by the arrest in France of one of the ETA leaders who was to have taken part. Belén González, who represented ETA in the meeting, was herself arrested in France shortly afterwards. The prospect of a return to armed conflict has given rise to a wide variety of reactions in Basque society over recent weeks. There have been mass demonstrations, called both by the "patriotic" left and by the Basque government, and drawing support from every part of the political spectrum. There have been negotiations within and between the nationalist camp and the parties to the Lizarra-Garazi Accord to try to come up with political initiatives capable of forestalling a return to violence. Ten days after the date stipulated in the ETA announcement, the organisation had still given no sign as to whether it intended an early resumption of its campaign.