BIETERBLOG.COM: The end of ETA? Continued

BIETER BLOG

The end of ETA? Continued

eta

A couple weeks ago the Basque separatist group ETA declared a permanent end to its 50-year armed campaign. I explained here why I was especially glad to hear the news. Still, it has been a long time since I lived in the Basque Country, and I don't think I fully grasped the sense of relief it brought to Basques, the families of ETA's victims and prisoners suspected of ETA ties, and others who have lived with ETA's consequences all these years.

Jaime Otamendi is a well-known Basque journalist who has hosted radio and television shows for more than 20 years. You might say he's a Basque Anderson Cooper. He has interviewed scores of Basque and Spanish politicians and covered every aspect of ETA. He also witnessed the group's violence firsthand. One morning in July 2000, ETA members shot and killed his friend while the two were sitting together in a bar having coffee. I wanted to ask him about that and about ETA's announcement.

Q. Why did ETA choose to do this right now? Was it because of weakness, or something else?

Jaime Otamendi: I think the biggest reason is they no longer had Basque popular support. Little by little, first in the broader Basque society and then among the far left nationalists, ETA lost popular support. The question then becomes why did they lose it? There are a lot of answers, and probably each one is at least partially right. We might know the ingredients but we can't be sure how important each was. But these are the ones I see:

• ETA is the last active armed group in Europe
• The high quality of life in the Basque Country
• The work of Basque nationalist political entities (the Basque Nationalist Party and [former Basque President Juan Jose] Ibarretxe; [Basque nationalist parties] EA, ARALAR; influential Basque nationalists who were against violence like [Arnaldo] Otegi and Rafa Diez)
• Disillusionment when ETA's previous ceasefires were abandoned
• Police work (including the French police)
• Tough political measures (marginalizing any political support ETA might have had)
• Pressure within Spain
• Strong results from Basque nationalist parties in the last elections

Q. How will it change the Basque Country?

It will bring enormous relief. Those who lived with bodyguards and in fear of ETA will breathe easier now, and a lot less money will be spent on security. It will be possible for people to support political ideas (Basque independence, for instance) without being tagged as ETA sympathizers.

It may be that the economy will improve, it will be easier to promote tourism, and so on. We'll see what happens, but it's certain that Basque nationalist parties will get a big jump in support in the next election, and we're going to see political alliances like we've never seen before.

However, there is still a lot of work to be done to help the loved ones of ETA's victims over the years. And to return prisoners [those held by the Spanish Government on suspicion of ties to ETA] to their homes or at least closer to their homes.

Q. ETA has been active your whole life. What has everyday life been like with ETA like for you and other Basques?

In the end you get used to it. It’s part of your life. I didn’t suffer that much, but some of my friends and acquaintances did because they were threatened, or received letters asking for money, or because they had to use bodyguards. They couldn’t lead a normal life, walk around through the old part of [the Basque coastal city] Donosti, because they were afraid.

On the other hand, among my friends and family I’ve also known people involved with ETA, and those families have suffered a great deal as well. One of our neighbors has a daughter in prision in Huelva. Her mother can't make the long trip to visit her because of health problems. That family has suffered a lot too.

It was always controversial to talk about politics in our everyday life, and we were often called terrorists for speaking Basque at work, or protecting the Basque language, or defending the Basque Country’s right to decide its future.

Q. Do you think this is ETA's definitive end or is it possible they'll use violence again?

Nobody can say, but I think ETA is done forever. Now it’s time for far-left nationalists to work for Basque independence through the political process. It seems to me that young far-left nationalists will have the chance to use non-violent means to advance their goals.

Q. You had your own bad experience with ETA. What was that like? How did it change your opinion about them?

I’ve had more than one bad experience with ETA. And maybe I wasn’t as critical when I was younger, but I changed later. Those experiences taught me that violence is useless. There is no use in killing people and besides, it was counter-productive.

They killed my friend Juan Mari Jauregi in front of me. I was having coffee with him. He was a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and had been Civil Governor of Gipuzkoa (the representative from the Spanish Government in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa) and that’s why he was killed. It was very hard. We were just talking about bringing about peace when they killed him. I can still hear him saying how [Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez] Zapatero would work towards reaching peace when he was elected prime minister. They shot him twice and left him in the Café Fronton in [the Basque town] Tolosa. A few days later another of my acquaintances was killed, businessman Josemari Korta.

In any case, I don't like to talk about these things very much. Sometimes it sounds like a contest. "I've suffered a lot, I've suffered ten." And then another says, "I have suffered more, fifteen." It doesn't matter. We've all suffered one way or another. That kind of experience really changes you: You see the people, the sons and daughters of the deceased. It's very difficult to explain to a boy or girl why their dad was killed. It's impossible.

Q. ETA has been around for more than 50 years. Have they achieved anything?

I don’t know. That’s a very difficult question. During Franco’s time ETA was at the forefront, but then it became a hindrance. There have been many killings and a lof of suffering. For what? It might be possible to say that without ETA some things would be forgotten, that it put the pressure on. I don’t know … We will leave the answer to that question for the historians.

Now it’s our time to look forward. An open Basque Country. It’s time to create a Basque Country open to everybody and to all ideas, without leaving anybody marginalized. Anybody at all. A country that respects everybody’s rights. This week I had an argument with a police woman from the Erzainza [the Basque police]: When I asked her if the Basque language should be taught, she answered that very few spoke Basque and that it wasn't worth learning. And she's a Basque public servant!

(Thanks to Chico Translations for help with the Basque. Photo above from soerenkern.com.)