The Basque Country after the cease-fire
By G. Buster
On January 21, 53 days after the armed, pro-independence Basque group ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasura — Basque Homeland and Freedom) announced it was ending its unilateral cease-fire, a bomb was detonated in the centre of Madrid. Army lieutenant-colonel Pedro Antonio Blanco died in the blast. The Spanish government immediately blamed ETA for the attack.
In a few hours, the Basque people's hopes for peace and a democratic solution to the Basque national struggle were shattered. The violent end of the cease-fire has opened a mass debate about the objectives and methods of the Basque struggle for self-determination.
ETA, a revolutionary nationalist organisation, has carried on an armed struggle for an independent, socialist Basque Country (Euskadi) against the Spanish state for 30 years, until it announced a unilateral cease-fire in September 1998.
The cease-fire followed a sustained campaign of repression by the right-wing Popular Party (PP) central government — which rules Spain with the support of conservative and moderate Catalan, Basque and Canary Island nationalist parties — against ETA and radical Basque nationalists.
This repression included the jailing of the entire leadership of the legal Basque radical nationalist party, Herri Batasuna, in 1997 and the closure of the Basque newspaper Egin. It was part of a policy of political and social isolation of the Basque movement by an "anti-terrorist front" that integrated all Spanish and moderate Basque political parties.
For the first time in its history, ETA did not react to repression with further acts of terrorism. In a statement, ETA recognised that it was time for the Basque people to become the main protagonist of the struggle for self-determination through their political parties and the building of national Basque institutions through which they could express their democratic will. It demanded that the Spanish state respect this will. As a sign of trust in the Basque people, ETA declared its unilateral cease-fire.
ETA's shift of strategy from "armed vanguardism" to mass political mobilisation paralleled political changes taking place in Basque society.
The policy of isolating the radical nationalists began to break down in the workplace. An alliance of the main nationalist trade union ELA (associated with the bourgeois Basque Nationalist Party — PNV, the ruling party of Basque Autonomous Region government) and the smaller LAB (close to Herri Batasuna) was able to obtain salary increases and launched a campaign for the 35-hour week with a 65% vote in the factory committees.
The ELA leadership was the main supporter of the "sovereignty way", a strategy of mass democratic mobilisation for self-determination proposed by a group of Basque intellectuals (former members of ETA and LKI — the Basque Revolutionary Communist League), trade unionist and activists of the peace group Elkarri.
At first, Herri Batasuna rejected the "sovereignty way". However, as it gained popular support, especially inside the PNV, a new era of dialogue between the different nationalist parties began.
The "Lizarra Declaration" was signed on September 12, 1998. It united in a democratic front the three main nationalist parties (the PNV, the social-democratic Eusko Alkartasuna and Herri Batasuna), the ELA and LAB, peace groups, social movements of all kinds, the democratic socialist left organised in Ezker Batua (the Basque branch of the Communist Party-led United Left) and Zutik.
The agreement called for a democratic solution to the Basque national question to be decided freely by all Basque citizens, the end to violence, the transfer of Basque prisoners scattered throughout Spain to Euskadi, and the opening of negotiations without conditions between the Spanish state and ETA to end the armed conflict.
The results of the cease-fire
Patxi Zabaleta, a well-known member of Herri Batasuna, described the gains that flowed from ETA's cease-fire in the Gara newspaper: "What changed in this 18 months for the nationalist left? The cease-fire has made possible the nationalist united front, the agreement of Lizarra, the end of the anti-nationalist pact, the ideological defeat of the diehards: the [conservative] PP, the [social-democratic Spanish Socialist Party] PSOE and the press.
"As a result, we are in a new political situation. There has been a change in the balance of power, the defeat of the policies of isolation, the ideological and social victory of dialogue as an alternative."
The campaign for the return of Basque prisoners to Euskadi has become a main objective of the whole Basque population and proclaimed as such by the Basque autonomous parliament. Mass meetings and marches in support of this demand are held daily.
Every progressive movement in the Basque Country has experienced an upsurge in popular political activism. There has been a general strike in support of the 35-hour week called by ELA and LAB with the support of the two main non-nationalist trade unions. The movement for the Social Rights Act — a radical initiative first launched by Zutik — has dozens of chapters.
An assembly of municipal councillors from throughout Euskadi — Spain and France — met for the first time on February 6, 1999. The Basque autonomous government is a coalition of PNV and Eusko Alkartasuna. It governs with parliamentary support from Euskal Herritarrok (EH), a new electoral front of the nationalist left which unites Herri Batasuna, Zutik and some smaller forces. EH won almost 18% of the vote in the October 1998 Basque elections.
What went wrong?
Ignoring the overtures by the Basque nationalist movement, the Spanish government refused to negotiate. The ruling PP in Madrid seems to have decided that it could not negotiate without the support of the conservative Catalan nationalist party, CiU, its main partner in government, or the opposition PSOE.
The PP, which won the last general election by only 300,000 votes, feared that a positive result in the negotiations with ETA could result in it losing the votes of unyielding Spanish chauvinists. It also was worried that failed talks could push moderate voters to the PSOE.
The PP began a campaign of selective repression against ETA, with the help of the French government. ETA members were detained in France and extradited to Spain, including one of the two public representatives that had been selected to engage in the proposed negotiations.
Ignoring the Basque people's clamour for the return of prisoners to Euskadi (a demand supported by the United Left in the Spanish state), Madrid transferred only a small group, keeping the rest as hostages. The central government also began a campaign to discredit the PNV, the Lizarra Declaration and the new political situation in the Basque Country as "undemocratic" and "unconstitutional". Madrid's catchcry of "ETA will kill again, the cease-fire will not last" became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sections of the Basque mass movement, especially Herri Batasuna's youth wing, Jarrai, and the families of the Basque political prisoners, became increasingly frustrated. Jarrai's semi-autonomous, underground, self-defence structures committed a series of Molotov cocktail bombings against the offices of PP and PSOE municipal councillors, who fled the Basque Country. A low-intensity cycle of "violence-repression-violence" had begun. Within ETA, pressure increased for the organisation to respond to Madrid's continued failure to begin negotiations.
Consequences
With the end of the cease-fire, the nationalist unity achieved with the Lizarra Declaration was also killed. For the first time, Herri Batasuna has criticised ETA for the bombings, while accusing the PP, PSOE and other political forces of being indirectly responsible, due to their refusal to search for a negotiated solution during the cease-fire. However, for the majority of the Basque people, and the people of the rest of the Spanish state, it was ETA that killed their hopes for peace and a democratic solution to the Basque national question. This explains why more than 1 million people protested in Madrid on January 23.
Herri Batasuna has tried to regroup. The day after the attack in Madrid, 10,000 supporters of Herri Batasuna marched in Pamplona to demand the return of Basque political prisoners. LAB has called a 24-hour general strike on January 27 on the issue. Without the support of the other trade unions, this represents a break in the unity that has been achieved at the factory level during the cease-fire.
Activists is Zutik and Ekaitza (the left tendency inside Ezker Batua) are trying their best to avoid a split between "terrorists and democrats", as the PP and PSOE want. The activists are attempting to defend the logic of the "sovereignty way" and the positive gains of the period of cease-fire. Zutik and Ekaitza have called on Herri Batasuna to openly condemn ETA's attack and to join forces to campaign for a new cease-fire.
In the rest of the Spanish state, Espacio Alternativo (the left tendency inside United Left) have the difficult task of pointing out the right-wing central government's responsibility for the return to violence. It is campaigning for the United Left to take a clear, democratic position of support for the Basque people's right to national self-determination, irrespective of the electoral consequences.