papeles62 ingles.indd

18/01/08
Nº62
NATIONAL
STOPPING TERRORISTS,
BEATING ETA
Zapatero’s stubborn arrogance in disguising
deception as a mistake
FOTO: EFE
Javier Zarzalejos, Director of the Constitution and Institutions Unit at FAES
The T-4 terminal at Barajas following the attack by ETA (30 December 2006)
At his end of year press conference, President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero admitted
having made a “remarkable mistake” in predicting that twelve months later “we
would be in a better situation” regarding ETA. Rodríguez Zapatero’s forecasts are
well-known by now for having a devastating effect on the events they target. In this
case, however, acknowledging a mistake, otherwise cruelly borne out at T-4 of Barajas
Airport and at Capbreton, turns out to be just a ploy with a purely tactical aim:
that the seemingly virtuous appearance of the gesture enables the government
to avoid giving the explanations which it still owes to the citizens about its
performance in the non-existent and deceitful “peace process”.
The issue is not so much whether Rodríguez Zapatero made a mistake, but
what exactly his mistake was. The President says nothing about the matter in
the lengthy interview he gave to the El Mundo newspaper (13/14 January). Such an enquiry, as the handling of affairs by any Government in all aspects of its
policies ought to be a part of public debate under democracy, becomes all the
more important, if this is possible, regarding the policy pursued by the Socialist
government on ETA. The issue here is not really Rodríguez Zapatero trying to
gradually release himself free of this burden, perhaps seeking to evade unpleasant surprises during the election campaign. Confessing that negotiation talks
had continued with ETA once the President had declared them to be ended and
Home Secretary broken and over has a name; you cannot call deception a mistake. Hidden facts must be disclosed and the mistake explained. Because the
so-called “peace process”, turned by the socialists into a synonym of political
negotiation with ETA-Batasuna, was based precisely on the fact that Rodríguez
Zapatero was privy to more information, had better research, and indeed knew
more and better than anybody else.
“Confessing that negotiation talks had continued
with ETA once the President had declared them
to be ended and Home Secretary broken and over
has a name; you cannot call deception
a mistake”
This argument was used to demand blind faith in the government’s
strategies, excluding the Partido Popular from any important information
which the government claimed it had. Rodríguez Zapatero’s appearance of
having inside information convinced many people that they had to turn a blind
eye when the Home Secretary confirmed the cease-fire but terrorism hit the
streets in the Basque Country and Navarre. Meanwhile ETA kept the cogs of
crime greased as businessmen and professionals fell victim to fresh waves
of extortion to which the government responded with grotesque digressions
about whether the postmarks on blackmail letters were made before or after
ETA’s “cease-fire” communiqué.
The display made by people in hoods firing assault rifles (later to be identified
as the T-4 killers) was dismissed as mere posing for the internal consumption
of the radical gallery. The lying by those who kept holding meetings with Batasuna in order to give substance to the political negotiation table demanded by
ETA was overlooked. Trusting was a requirement because “Zapatero is the man
with the information”.
It is due to this superior knowledge of the “peace process” that on a date
and in a place as important as 12 October 2006 in the Royal Palace the President dared to state that he was prepared to neutralise the Political Parties
Act [ley de partidos políticos1] and to look for “solutions” for the leaders of
ETA’s political arm if their political party was declared illegal.
1
This Act was agreed on by the Partido Popular and the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) in order to avoid political
action by ETA and its related parties
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2
To what cause should one attribute initiatives as ludicrous as involving Parliament, without prior agreement, in the negotiation with ETA, and taking such
folly to the European Parliament, other than the irreplaceable judgement of
Rodríguez Zapatero?
Trial and Error
The fact is that behind Rodríguez Zapatero’s fake humility there is not even a
glimpse of critical examination of what has happened concerning ETA. It is a also a fact that, though he still has not identified the motive for his obstinate and
arrogant concealment dressed as mistake, Rodríguez Zapatero has again asked
the Spanish people to trust him, when such faith is not deserved by such flawed
judgment as he has displayed in affairs which are crucial to Spanish society.
Shortly after the breakdown of the so-called “cease-fire”, a well-known
socialist drew strength from frailty and, in a memorable article, counted as
a positive consequence of the “process” the fact that Rodríguez Zapatero
had learned what ETA was really about and so he would not make the same
mistakes again.
“Truth is another victim of the failed process. The truth
that was lacking in the denial of the links between the
socialists and Batasuna set up while Zapatero signed the
Pact for Freedom”
It is highly debatable whether propitiating and negotiating with ETA in the
way that Rodríguez Zapatero has, should be part of the learning curve for a
President. It is even more doubtful that he will not make the same mistakes
again, if he has the chance to do so after the elections of course. Rodríguez Zapatero has against himself his arrogance, his unstoppable presumptuousness,
whether this involves reinventing Spain or negotiating with ETA. For the socialist
candidate to presidency, his mistakes are really wise moves with a postponed
timing. It is reality that makes mistakes, not him.
In all fairness, a broad survey published by the daily newspaper El Mundo
on 6 January revealed that 65% of citizens believe that Rodríguez Zapatero
will return to the negotiating table should he gain another term in office. When
asked why such a high percentage of Spaniards do not seem believe him when
he excludes the possibility of a new negotiation, Rodríguez Zapatero replied:
“Because a lot of opinion makers have said this and because they know that I
have put a lot of effort into ending the violence”2. It appears that it has not occurred to the President that his lack of credibility boils down to the simple fact
that the Spaniards have had the suspicion, which was later confirmed, that they
have not been told the truth throughout his entire term of office.
Another victim of the failed process is truth. The truth that was lacking in
the denial of the links between the socialists and Batasuna set up while Za2
El Mundo, 14 January 2008.
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patero signed the Pact for Freedom. The truth that was concealed in negotiations where, quite apart from whether or not agreements were finally reached,
the issues dealt with meant that the government accepted as valid political
interlocutors terrorists and their representatives. The truth that was ignored in
this trick-riddled game of solitaire into which the successive verifications of a
non-existent “cease-fire” had turned into, such as the government persisted
in describing it. The same game of self-deception and concealment which became evident with the failure to comply with the terms established under the
parliamentary resolution of May 2005 backing talks with ETA, which the government yet again demanded be read as a blank cheque. We later learned that
at the same time as Rodríguez Zapatero was announcing the opening of talks
with ETA and presuming that the conditions in the parliamentary resolution were being met, ETA’s leaders were ordering the preparation of the terrorist attack
on the airport’s T-43.
“Behind Rodríguez Zapatero’s fake humility there is
not even a glimpse of critical examination of what
has happened concerning ETA. Though he still has not
identified the motive for his obstinate and arrogant
concealment, Rodríguez Zapatero has again asked the
Spanish people to trust him, when such faith is not
deserved”
It is precisely because of Rodríguez Zapatero’s stubborn arrogance in sticking
to a strategy whose failure was taking its toll, that the government, forced by the
circumstances, reluctantly issued a partial and late rectification.
To understand the approach which has been adopted by the government
concerning ETA since last June, that is after the breakdown of the cease-fire
and the PSOE’s defeat in the local elections, and to get a true idea of the
extent of the government’s U-turn in this sphere, one has to distinguish between the struggle against terrorism, played out by the security forces, and antiterrorist policy, in the sense drawn under the Pact for Freedom, in other words,
as a strategy involving the operational, political and social defeat of ETA and its
whole structure. The two are not synonymous.
The counter-terrorism struggle has experienced a revival in the last few months with significant results. Several situations have come together to render
this possible. The essential ones are the effectiveness maintained by the security forces, the ground gained in the struggle against ETA and the political
boost given to French cooperation by president Sarkozy, after the confusion
generated by the negotiation strategy of the Spanish government.
Late in 2004 French counter-terrorist leaders viewed ETA as having “one
knee on the ground and the other one shaking”, according to Gilles Leclair,
3
El País, 10 January 2008.
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head of the Coordination Unit of the counter-terrorist struggle. The discrepancies between those in charge at the French Ministry of Home Affairs and the official evaluation made by their Spanish colleagues came to the fore in November 2006 with the testimony of Fréderic Veaux, coordinator of the CID [criminal
investigation department] during the Paris trial against members of ETA4.
Working in our favour we can count on the history of professionalism and
dedication shown by the State Security Forces, which have again proved to
be a reliable guarantee to limit the damage caused by groundless and reckless policies in the struggle against ETA.
Legal engineering
There are blemishes in the counter-terrorist struggle which are traceable to the
experiments made in this term of office by Rodríguez Zapatero’s government.
These include the disconcerting turns in decisions regarding the scope of the
illegalisation of ETA’s political structure, the behaviour exhibited by the public
prosecutor’s office, whose inexplicable actions have been reproached by the
adjudicating courts themselves, or the surreal legal and procedural engineering
engaged in to annul half of the ANV’s list of candidates, thereby consciously
preventing the application of the Political Parties Act.
“The ruling by the Supreme Court on proceedings
No.18/98 has confirmed that the struggle against
ETA is a struggle against a criminal enterprise with many
ramifications”
Fortunately, the courts have paid no heed to those who have asked, more or
less obscurely, for application of the law with all that this entails, to be muted.
The ruling by the Supreme Court in proceedings No. 18/98 has served to confirm that the struggle against ETA is a struggle against a criminal enterprise
with many ramifications operating through political, social, economic, international and financial action. All these are united under one same aim, one same
discipline, carrying out ETA’s strategy of violence under different guises.
What the ruling established has nothing to do with the dim statement made
by the secretary-general of the Basque socialists, Patxi López, who, upon being
asked in the Gara newspaper whether he believed that those tried in case No.
18/98 belonged to ETA, replied: “I personally do not think so, but we spent a
term of office under Aznar where practically the whole of the Basque Country
was under suspicion”5.
The statements made by López do not need any comment to gauge the
political and moral delirium arrived at by those who thought that by slandering
Aznar, questioning the Supreme Court, or boasting about their nationalism
they would win the indulgence of murderers for their strategy.
4
El Correo, 12 April 2007.
5
Gara, 13 November 2005..
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Police struggle, yes; defeat policy, no
While the counter-terrorist struggle is reactivated – what other alternative is
there? – the government remains with its counter-terrorist policies firmly anchored to the same elements which have defined it throughout this term in office:
breach of consensus, keeping alive hopes of negotiations with ETA, and ETA’s
restoring of the institutional presence lost through the outlawing of Batasuna
by means of their vehicle parties (PCTV and ANV).
If we begin by examining the state of consensus we only have to remember
Rodríguez Zapatero’s declarations at his last press conference in 2007 to confirm that the socialists’ current strategy leaves the future of a state agreement
on counter-terrorist policy doomed as unnecessary and dispensable, should he
become President again.
Once accepted that the leading party among the opposition is dispensable
when it comes to defining counter-terrorist policy, the latter is not only subject
to the government’s interests of the moment. It is also mortgaged to the demands of the parties comprising the majority which keeps it in power. The net
result is clear: to endorse its failed negotiation with ETA-Batasuna, since May
2005 the government has replaced the backing of at least 312 Members of
Parliament with 202.
“Zapatero says that if he were to speak with ETA again,
‘there would have to be absolute, irrefutable, credible
and total proof over a long time that violence had been
abandoned’. Why does he then refuse to withdraw the
parliamentary resolution enabling negotiation without
these conditions?”
This explains the fact that the government has repeatedly refused to repeal
the parliamentary resolution of 17 May 2005 which approved the negotiation
with ETA, granted that it described very inconclusive conditions couched in
deliberately ambiguous terms. The President’s most recent statements leave
the arguments, already banal in themselves, used by socialist spokespersons
to refuse to withdraw the resolution devoid of any consistency whatsoever.
Moreover, in the interview mentioned Rodríguez Zapatero says that if he were
to speak with ETA again, ‘there would have to be absolute, irrefutable, credible
and total proof over a long time that there had been such an abandonment of violence”. Very well, if that is Rodríguez Zapatero’s position, why has he refused
to withdraw the parliamentary resolution enabling negotiation without these
conditions? The pretended emphasis adds little, because ETA’s cease-fire was
absolute, irrefutable, credible, total and long-lasting in the eyes of the government, indeed it believed it so as to have no doubt that precisely because such
conditions were in place, we were in a “peace process”.
Saying that there are no prospects of negotiation with ETA is not expressing
a political opinion. At most it conveys an analysis. Prospects are created and
ended. If the significant factor is whether there are any prospects or there are
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none any longer, we are going down the wrong path bearing in mind the ease
with which ETA builds up hopes and how quickly their falseness is forgotten.
ETA’s electoral symbols
In this context one can get a good idea of how the government is tackling
the illegalisation of ETA’s electoral symbols. This is another point where the
government’s view of ETA’s weakening fails, as this term of office is ending
with ETA having a major institutional presence via its vehicle parties; the
Communist Party of the Basque Homelands in the Basque Parliament and
Basque Nationalist Action in the municipal and territorial spheres.
It seems to be taken for granted that the government will promote the illegalisation of Basque Nationalist Action (ANV) by resorting to the procedure which
executed the sentence for the illegalisation of Batasuna, due to ANV being a
mere deceitful succession of an already dissolved party. Irrespective of the legal engineering which the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the State Legal Service
may come up with, certain observations can be made in this regard.
“It is hard to maintain that only now evidence of a
connection between ETA and ANV is emerging, when half
of the candidacies from this party – all of those which
were challenged – were annulled for being tainted by ETA”
Firstly the illegalisation or, as the case may be, the suspension of the activities of these parties under criminal process, were it to happen, will not reestablish the previous situation. This is not a “nothing has happened here”
situation. It has happened. The Communist Party of the Basque Homelands
(PCTV-EHAK) will hold onto its nine seats in the Basque Parliament until the
end of the regional government’s term in office, Basque Nationalist Action
(ANV) will have 442 people in local office in the Basque Country and Navarre,
even if they are illegalised or suspended as successors of Batasuna. This is
a situation which substantially differs, and is obviously much worse, than that
of four years ago.
Secondly, proposing the dissolution of a party a few weeks away from the
elections when that same party was able to stand for municipal and regional
parliamentary elections only a few months ago, requires an in-depth explanation of the new elements of evidence which seem to have surfaced to enable
now something which the government said was impossible to do seven months
ago. It is hard to maintain that only now is evidence emerging of a connection
between ETA and ANV, when half of the candidacies from this party – all those
which were challenged – were annulled for being tainted by ETA. In the case of
PCTV-EHAK, we only have to remember the existence of a report presented by
the Guardia Civil in 2005 with more than evidential value of the links between
this party and ETA-Batasuna; likewise, the lawsuit submitted by the Association
for Victims of Terrorism in May of that same year which was given leave to appeal by the Audiencia Nacional Magistrate Grande-Marlaska and was rejected
by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
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Bearing in mind the proceedings, the guarantees that have to be satisfied
and the appeals available to ANV, it cannot be assured that a res judicata judgement will be passed on its illegalisation within any useful time-frame. The
government cannot pass the urgency over to the Special Court of the Supreme
Court of Justice when it displayed no urgency itself and moreover consider its
responsibilities as ended.
The introduction of opportunity calculation into the government’s actions to
illegalise or suspend these parties undermines the credibility of the rule of law
both within and outwardly. It is particularly serious that the performance of the
Public Prosecutor’s Office is persistently shrouded in shadiness. In this situation accusing others of “employing devious electoralist methods” is cynical
sarcasm.
“Beating ETA does not just consist of rounding up its
gunmen. Anti-terrorist policy must combat terror in all of
its expressions”
We have been aware for some time that beating ETA does not just consist of
rounding up its gunmen. What is more, a misguided policy can cast overboard
the most brilliant of counter-crime efforts. The crux of the matter is standing
up to a criminal reality which clings to the social and political fabric using an
array of instruments with which terror aspires to survive and subject citizens to.
Counter-terrorist policy as a shared and stable State strategy must rise to the
need to combat terror in all of its forms and to eradicate its hopes of obtaining a political value, to strengthen democratic and constitutional debate, and
to make the law work as a guarantee of the freedom of everyone. The course
taken and events have to change a great deal to restore this goal, which can be
none other than victory without conditions or reservations by democracy and
the rule of law over its enemies.
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FAES Fundación para el Análisis y los Estudios Sociales (Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies) does not necessarily share
the opinions expressed in the texts it publishes. © FAES Fundación para el Análisis and los Estudios Sociales and the authors.
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