arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)
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ETA's truce in Catalunya by Cristina Alvarez Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004 at 4:48 PM |
| crisalmer@hotmail.com |
eta22.jpg, image/jpeg, 194x134
ETA has announced the truce of the attacks exclusively in Catalunya. In
an official new in the Basque public broadcast television, the band has
informed about the suspension of its campaign of actions in this
community. The announcement has supposed a political convulsion before
the Spanish elections on 14 March.
The Basque radio and the television - EiTB- has offered the complete
official new, "Catalunya, Euskadi, solidarity and respect". The video,
shows two terrorists with an independentista Catalan flag. It is
the first truce declared by ETA that affects only a part of Spain.
The official notice indicates that ETA has interrupted all their
"actions armed in Catalunya" from 1 of January of 2004 with "desire to
unite the bows between the Basque Country and the Catalan, on the basis
of the respect principles, noninterference and solidarity".
The ETA spokesman has finished with "Gora Euskadi Askatuta and Visca
Catalunya Lliure".
One of the arguments adduced by the band to justify its truce is the
political change that has taken place in Catalonia and Euskadi, with
"an important force of the independentism" and a high conscience on the
necessity to recognize the right of self-determination between them.
In its analysis, the terrorist band also emphasizes the "deep crisis"
that, in its opinion, is living the Spanish state and emphasizes
"honest solidarity, activates and generous" of Catalunya in "the
process of liberation of the Basque Country".
Some weeks ago, one of the main politic man at the Government of
Catalunya, Carod Rovira (of ERC party), had a secret meeting in France
with ETA to negociate and to talk about this truce and the actual
situation of both communities.
When this was known by the media, a national debate was opened again
about the position of "negociate with ETA if they continue
killing or not".
The president of the Government, Jose Maria Aznar, has considered
incompatible with the Antiterrorist Pact, signed between all the
democratic Spanish parties, unless this political formation rejects it
and dismisses "immediately" its leader, Carod Rovira.
The Secretary General of the PP and candidate to
the presidency of the Government, Mariano Rajoy, has insisted on that
PSOE "has to break immediately the agreements that maintains with
ERC" because "It is evident that it is breaking the Antiterrorist Pact
in a clamorous way". "That is unquestionable, not even is an
interpretable subject", has sentenced.
The leader of PSOE, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has demanded who
purify political responsibilities in ERC or that are changes in the
Catalan government.
Lehendakari of Vasque Country, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, have described as
"nauseous and immoral" the truce of ETA in Catalunya and have
criticized to the terrorist band "to favor the electoral interest of
the PP".
About E.T.A
Bilbao, 31 July of 1959. A group of dissident radical students
of group EKIN, founds Euskadi Ta Askatasuna: ETA (Euskadi And Freedom).
It is the ETA birth, an ideological alternative to the postulates of
the PNV (Nationalist Vasque Party) with four basic pillars: the defense
of euskera, the etnicism, the antiSpanishness and the independence of
the territories that, according to they vindicate, they belong to
Euskadi: Álava, Biscay, Guipúzcoa (in Spain), Lapurdi,
the Low Navarre and Zuberoa (in France).
Its first mortal victim takes
place the 7 of June of 1968.
The police repression after these first attacks is able to neutralize
the terrorist activities during 1969.
In December of 1970, with Franco's dictatorship yet, the Juicio de Burgos (Burgo's Judgment)
was celebrated against 16 members of the band, between strikes and
manifestations of solidarity with the defendant around Spain and around
the world.
At the same time, ETA kidnapped to German consul Eugen Beihl.
Six of the processings were condemned to death and the punishments
imposed to the rest added a total of 519 years of prison. But with the
Internation pressure, Franco changes the sentences from death to life
imprisonment.
The terrorist band obtains its "greatest blow of effect" with the murder of admiral Carrero Blanco,
the 20 of December of 1973, in a spectacular attack in the street
Claudio Coello of Madrid.
The first massive attack took place the 13 of September of 1974, when
12 civilians died and other 80 were wounded in the explosion of a
device in the Rolando cafeteria, in the street Correo of Madrid,
located next to the Main directorate of Security.
In the decade of the 80, ETA breaks out again their offensive to force
the negotiations with the Government and the massive and indiscriminate
attacks whip to the Spanish society as it had not done it until then.
19.06.1987 | Car pump in parking of the commercial center Hipercor of
Barcelona. 21 died and 45 wounded ones.
15.07.1986 | Car pump in Plaza de la Republica Dominicana of Madrid, to
the passage of a convoy of the Civil Guard. 12 agents die.
13.09.1974 | Explosion in a cafeteria of Madrid. 12 civilians die.
11.12.1987 | Car pump with 250 k. of explosives against the House
Quarter of Zaragoza. 11 died and 40 wounded ones.
29.05.1991 | Car pump in the quarter of the Civil Guard in Vic
(Barcelona). 10 people die.
29.07.1979 | ETA places individual devices in two stations of trains of
Madrid. Five civilians die, a Civil Guard and a member of the National
police. 11.12.1995 | Car pump to the passage of a military van in
Vallecas (Madrid). Six civilians die who worked for the Navy.
21.06.1993 | Explosion of a car-pump to the passage of a military van
in Madrid. Seven died (the six military and a civi) and 36 wounded ones.
The machinery of ETA requires important amounts of money to pay for the
necessary material for its activities. For them, it needs 15 daily
million of pesetas and more than 5,400 annual ones, according to a
confidential report of the Ertzaintza (Vasque Country Police) known in
1996.
In its beginnings, the terrorist band was able to finance by means of
holdups to banks, but they changed it for kidnappings and the extorsion to
industralists in Vasque Country through the collection of the "revolutionary tax", its two main
sources of financing.
ETA has kidnapped to 77 people, method used like via of financing and
measurement of pressure with the Government.
The longest kidnapping has been of the civil employee of prisons Jose
Antonio Ortega Lara, released the 1 of July of 1997 by the Civil Guard
after 532 days of captivity.
The 12 of July, Miguel Angel Blanco, deputy of the PP in the locality
of Ermua, appeared seriously wounded in a countryside of Lasarte, once
fulfilled the ultimatum of 48 hours given by the terrorist band to the
Government.
Blanco died in the hospital, few hours after.
The "revolutionary tax" is one of the methods of ETA extorsion with
letters to Basque industralists, in whom the payment of a certain
amount of money is demanded in exchange for which their patrimony,
their physical integrity or their family integrity is not even in
danger.
GAL (Antiterrorist Groups of
Liberation), that acted from 1984 to 1986 committing 23 murders,
attempted against militants and resident supporters of ETA in the south
of France.
The kidnapping and later murder of Lasa and Zabala at the end of the
1983 and the kidnapping of Segundo Marey in 1984, mark the beginning of
this group of mercenarios financed and protected by the Department of
the Interior' Spanish Government.
During that years, Spanish Government was paying to a Antiterrorist
Band to killed in secret activists from the Terrorist Band, so, it was
acting like them.
It was one of the biggest crisis in the Spanish political life because
all this "dirty war" was discovered by the media and some important
Spanish politics were to judge. It supposed the "end" of the PSOE
period at the Spanish Government with Felipe Gonzalez as President of
Spain.