This week in Madrid airport car park, two Ecuadoreans laid down their lives for a cause thousands of miles away from their homeland in which they probably had not the slightest interest. That at least would seem to be the warped logic of Basque ETA terrorists who ended their “permanent cease-fire” with this murderous attack. It is the lunatic logic of terrorists the world over, who have fallen so far from civilized standards and decent human responses that they imagine the slaughter of entirely innocent people in some perverse way advances their campaign.
ETA’s political wing, Batasuna absurdly insisted after the bombing that the peace process was not “broken”. Clearly in the terrorists’ distorted view, the dismemberment of two unfortunate Ecuadorians was a peaceable act. Batasuna then seemed to contradict itself by blaming the deaths on the Spanish government, as if they and not ETA had planted the deadly bomb.
The Spanish government has declared the peace talks with the ETA at an end. Premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was reportedly at first reluctant to make the announcement. He probably reasoned that one day the violence that has disfigured Spanish life since the ETA operations began in 1961 would end almost certainly through negotiations. The fact that Batasuna chose to believe that the peace process was continuing was certainly designed to tempt the Spanish government to stay at the negotiating table.
It is likely however that some in the Spanish security forces encouraged ministers to abandon the talks. Before it declared its “permanent” cease-fire last March, ETA had suffered a series of important reverses with senior commanders being arrested in both Spain and France. Security analysts suspected the terrorists were on the back foot. No doubt the organization has used the last nine months to rebuild and recover. It is equally certain Spain’s intelligence services will have seized the opportunity to boost their efforts to monitor and infiltrate the terrorist cells. As a result, in the coming weeks ETA may again find their structures being attacked, weapons caches seized and key members of the new leadership rounded up. Such a further setback could produce a new “permanent” cease-fire and a return to talks.
However, in the final analysis, there is a fundamental negotiating issue that separates the government and the ETA. The ETA wants an independent Basque state. Madrid will never countenance the break-up of Spain. It has already granted a large degree of autonomy to the Basques, as also to the Catalans. All regional cultures including that of the Basques are recognized and celebrated in Spain. Politically, Madrid can do no more. Besides this, as the European Union drifts toward ever-greater political union, the relevance of national boundaries is set to dissolve. An independent Basque land within the EU would be a political nonsense. The only victory the ETA can win from talks is an amnesty for their crimes in return for complete and final disarmament. ETA’s friends, the Provisional IRA, have achieved this in Northern Ireland. It is high time the ETA embraced the same reality.
