6 minute Politik

Basque separatist group, ETA, recently announced a ‘Disarmament Day’, something that confuses matters for the Basque region and Spain.

ETA was founded in 1959 in the hope of creating a new sovereign nation that would straddle northern Spain and southern France. It is infamous for engaging in a violent campaign of bombings, assassinations and kidnappings through which it aimed to gain independence for the Basque country.

Following a return to democracy after Franco’s death in 1975, leaders in Madrid attempted to placate ETA by devolving powers to the Basque region and pardoning arrested leaders. However, this only increased attacks from the group and prominent public figures such as judges, politicians and military officials often targeted.

In recent times, after a bomb in a carpark in Madrid Airport in 2006 and the shooting of a French Policeman in Paris in 2010, police in both France and Spain have put ETA under severe pressure, arresting hundreds of militants and seizing many of the group’s weapons to stop, or at least prevent, further violence.

Following this, in 2011 ETA declared a permanent ceasefire but refused to give up its weapons. It also continued to insist on amnesty talks for some of its 360 jailed members. However, France and Spain both refuse to negotiate with ETA, which is on the EU blacklist of terrorist organisations.

And on Saturday 8th April, in the southern French city of Bayonne, ETA revealed locations of eight stores of weapons containing three tonnes of explosives, 120 firearms and several thousand rounds of ammunition.

French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl earlier described the move to hand over remaining arms as a “major step” and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said the move signalled the “definitive defeat” of ETA.

Indeed, a historic moment and for many a conclusion to some 40 years of violence. So, what’s next? What does that mean for Spain and France? And perhaps more importantly, for ETA?

Principally, ETA asserted that the process for independence was not complete — presumably, ETA seek the impunity, or at least the transfer, of its remaining imprisoned members. However, in his statement, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy reiterated the group could expect no government favours.

Moreover, Spanish newspaper, El Pais, quoted Basque government sources who said that they would like ETA to formally dissolve itself (rather than wait for the group to fall apart gradually). They argued that by doing so, it would be easier to persuade the Spanish authorities to transfer jailed ETA militants to prisons closer to their Basque families.

Whilst the disarmament paves the way to ETA’s eventual disbanding, formally or not, it is perhaps vital to understand that this disarmament does not automatically mean peace — even leaders of ETA declared that it will be up to ‘civil society’ to achieve ‘peace and freedom for our country’.

What is interesting is the extent to which such hopes of independence for the Basque region will be used as a reconciliation in social and political spheres in future.

Socially, ETA needs to publicly, and frankly, confirm its future plan, it needs to aid in the resolution of unsolved 300 murders and above all, ask for forgiveness from Spain for 40 years of terror. There will no acceptance or acknowledgement of the group without such.

Politically, Herri Batasuna, ETA’s political wing, will need serious reform to appeal to the Spanish government, which has banned the political group on the basis the two groups, ETA and Herri Batasuna, were inextricably linked.

Conclusively, ETA’s Disarmament Day is an extremely significant day for Spain. For many, it will bring up painful memories, but hopefully the promise of a peaceful, unthreatened future will bring comfort. Certainly, the move is not only an opportunity to politically progress past regional issues, but a call to analyse Spain’s taboo past, of ETA, of Franco, of the Civil War.

Is a happily united Spain a future reality? Will the Basque government call for more devolution of power? Will it mimic the Catalonian government?