Editorial: Choice before ETA
The announcement by the Basque terrorist organization ETA that it will no longer carry out armed attacks is potentially of immense importance for Spain.
This could be the Basque equivalent of the IRA’s decision in 2005 to abandon the armed struggle and work for its political aims in Northern Ireland by peaceful means. There are still occasional attacks from dissident republicans but the province is a changed place — socially, economically and politically. The IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, is now part of the political establishment there.
It is still unclear in ETA’s case, however, whether what has been announced is merely a cease-fire designed as a precursor to negotiations or that the organization is finally abandoning its campaign of violence. That has to be made clear. ETA has announced “permanent” cease-fires before only to abandon them later. It could easily do it again. Madrid is right to insist that there can be no dialogue until ETA says that the violence is over forever. Otherwise ETA would be holding a gun at whatever negotiations might take place, threatening to return to violence if it does not get what it wants.
Whatever the objectives of the ETA’s announcement, it is a stark admission that it has lost its war against Spain. Joint operations by Spanish and French police have dealt it a series of body blows in the past two years. In the past six months alone it has twice lost its military leader, the first in March and his successor, along with his second-in-command, in May.
Crippled it may be but it would be wrong of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to imagine that the war against Basque nationalism is won. ETA and Basque nationalism are not the same. Basque nationalism is far bigger and is supported by a large proportion of Basques. ETA is at the militant firebrand end of that nationalism. At the other end is the conservative Basque Nationalist Party that between 1978 and 2009 ran the Basque region. It wants independence too.
Given its previous backtracking and its present refusal to condemn violence, ETA can hardly complain if no one in Spain fully believes that it is now wholly committed to the ballot rather than the bullet. Only when it says it intends to destroy its weapons will that change. That has to happen — and has to be seen to happen. For that an independent third party is needed. ETA is hardly likely to hand in its weapons to the Spanish police. Given ETA’s communist ideology, former US Sen. George Mitchell, who was so instrumental in bridging the divide between the IRA and the unionists in Northern Ireland probably has to be ruled out. However, others can surely be found.
The ball is in ETA’s court. It has to make it crystal clear that the armed struggle is over for good. But will it do it? In Northern Ireland, the IRA’s political wing had sufficient support among the nationalist community to make it a partner in the province’s government. But ETA is backed by around just 10 percent of the Basque electorate — not enough to get it into the Basque government. So where do ETA’s members go from here if they did abandon their military struggle?
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