WorldNews Zapatero says Eta statement insufficient

THE IRISH TIMES 9
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
WorldNews
“
Zapatero
says Eta
statement
insufficient
It being Heineken Cup week, we know the Irish provinces will pick up
their intensity and that last week’s form is a less than reliable yardstick
GERRY
THORNLEY
Sports Tuesday
Group offers verification of
‘permanent’ ceasefire
PADDY WOODWORTH
The Spanish prime minister, José
Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, said last
night that yesterday’s declaration
by the Basque terrorist group Eta
that its ceasefire, initially declared
last September, is “permanent,
general, and internationally verifiable”, was “insufficient”.
He told Antena 3 TV that “there
will be no dialogue with Eta. The
only thing for Eta to do is to give
up its weapons.”
Inevitably, Eta’s former allies in
the banned Basque party Batasuna
took the opposite view, proclaiming that the statement was
“an historic advance”.
Batasuna is now wedded to an
unarmed pursuit of Basque independence, and has been calling for
a clear-cut commitment from ETA
to a complete end to violence since
late last September.
There were very different
responses to yesterday’s statement. Some claim it represents
the end of Eta’s 50-year armed
campaign for Basque independence. Others dismiss it as yet
another tactical move to enable
the greatly weakened group to
regroup and rearm.
The Spanish deputy prime minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba,
called a news conference immediately after the statement was
issued on videotape yesterday.
He said that “this is not bad
news but it is not the news for
which Spanish society has been
waiting. The only statement that
we want to read from Eta is one
that declares an irreversible and
definitive end to violence.”
The current scenario in the
Basque Country certainly differs
from all previous peace processes
there. These have always involved
negotiations between Madrid, Eta
and the group’s political wing,
Batasuna, which is now banned.
Referring to the 2006 process,
which was collapsed by an Eta
bombing, Mr Rubalcaba restated
yesterday that there would be no
return to such discussions.
The other new departure in the
Basque conflict is that Batasuna,
formerly a submissive mouthpiece
for Eta, has found its own voice
and appears irrevocably committed to a non-violent strategy in
pursuit of independence.
Mr Rubalcaba, who is also interior minister, “roundly rejected”
Eta’s proposed international
inspection, modelled on the
process of IRA decommissioning.
“In a democratic state, verification
is done by the State security
forces,” he said. He added that
Eta’s statement had included conditions for peace that were not
acceptable to the government.
However, South African peace
process facilitator Brian Currin
welcomed the statement as “a very
important step forward”. Mr
Currin has worked very hard over
the last two years to bring about
this ceasefire, enlisting the support of the so-called ‘Brussels
group’ of international figures,
including Mary Robinson, John
Hume, Desmond Tutu and Frederick de Klerk.
Sinn Féin has also offered
advice to Batasuna for many years.
Gerry Adams yesterday called on
the Spanish government to “seize
this opportunity for a lasting
peace”.
A referendum on self-determination in the region would be
anathema not only to the current
Socialist Party (PSOE) government, but much more so to the
opposition Partido Popular (PP).
Spokespersons for outlawed pro-Basque independence party Batasuna (from left) Miren Legorburu, Txelui Moreno, Marian Beitialarrangoitia and Rufi Etxeberria speak to the media following the
declaration of a permanent ceasefire by Basque separatists Eta in San Sebastian, Spain, yesterday. The government rejected the ceasefire, saying it did not go far enough. Photograph: Vincent West/Reuters
Clearest sign radicals have embraced peace over irrelevance
The worst fears of both
Eta members and their
potential terror targets
may be over, writes
Paddy Woodworth
EUGENIO ETXEBESTE, a leader
of Eta during its bloodiest years in
the 1980s and a participant in
failed peace talks with the Spanish
government at the end of that
decade, used to talk about having
a recurrent political nightmare.
His greatest fear, he said, was
that the group would continue
fighting until long after most
Basques had ceased to support it.
In those circumstances, it would
finally fade away ignominiously,
due to public indifference and
successful police operations.
In recent years, his nightmare
has become daylight reality.
Backing for Eta drained away in
the Basque nationalist heartlands,
and leader after leader has been
captured by the police. The group
had become virtually incapable of
carrying out a single successful
operation more than a year before
it declared its current ceasefire on
September 5th last.
Etxebeste must wonder
whether his nightmare has ended
with Eta’s long-awaited statement
yesterday, which clarifies that this
ceasefire is “permanent, general,
and verifiable by the international
community”. Many other
Spaniards and Basques must also
be wondering whether their
infinitely worse nightmare, the
experience of being targeted for
serving in the security forces, or
simply speaking out against
terrorism, is also finally at an end.
Etxebeste has been an
influential if shadowy figure
behind an unprecedented shift in
the thinking of radical
pro-independence leaders in the
Batasuna party in recent years.
Batasuna has long been
regarded as Eta’s political puppet,
and it was finally made illegal for
playing this role in 2002.
After that, Batasuna leaders
like Arnaldo Otegi began to assert
themselves as autonomous voices,
especially during the group’s last
ceasefire in 2006.
That proved to be a bitter
experience for Otegi and his
colleagues, as Eta imposed its own
ultra-radical agenda during
negotiations with the Spanish
government. The group then
brutally ended any hope of a
resolution of the Basque conflict
at that time by bombing a Madrid
airport terminal, killing two
people.
Batasuna found itself in the
wilderness, excluded from all
political institutions and any
possibility of engagement with the
government.
Meanwhile, disarmament by
the IRA and the advent of Islamist
terrorism on the scale of the 2004
Madrid bombings, had made Eta
seem increasingly anachronistic.
Otegi and his colleagues also
found themselves the object of a
devastating offensive by the
Spanish judiciary, which has kept
many of them in prison for most
of the last four years.
The charges against them often
appear politically motivated and
are sometimes dismissed when
they come to court, but few in
Spain had any sympathy for
people regarded as cheerleaders
for terrorists.
In the past, gross human rights
abuses by the Spanish state,
CAMPAIGN FOR A BASQUE HOMELAND
50 YEARS OF BOMBINGS, KILLINGS AND ARRESTS
Here is a timeline of some major
events since the founding of Eta,
whose initials stand for Euskadi
ta Askatasuna (Basque
Homeland and Freedom).
1959 – Eta is formed during
dictatorship of General Franco
to fight for Basque
self-determination.
1968 – Eta carries out first killing:
the victim is Meliton Manzanas,
police chief in the Basque city of
San Sebastian.
1973 – Franco's prime minister
Luís Carrero Blanco is killed when
his car drives over explosives
planted by Eta in Madrid.
1980 – In its bloodiest year, ETA
kills nearly 100 people despite
Spain's return to democracy.
Sept 1985 – First Eta car bomb
explodes in Madrid. A US tourist is
killed and 16 civil guards
wounded.
July 1986 – Twelve civil guards
are killed in Madrid and 50
wounded. Juan Manuel Soares, a
repentant Basque separatist, is
sentenced to 1,401 years in jail in
April 2000 for the killings.
June 1987 – Twenty-one
shoppers are killed by a bomb at a
Barcelona supermarket. Eta
apologises.
July 1997 – Eta kidnaps and kills
Popular Party member and Ermua
town councillor Miguel Angel
Blanco.
Sept 1998 – Eta announces a
truce, which ends in December
1999.
Nov 21st, 2000 – Socialist
former health minister Ernest
Lluch shot dead in Barcelona.
Oct 10th, 2004 – New Socialist
prime minister José Luis
Rodríguez Zapatero appeals to Eta
to give up the fight after the arrest
of a suspected leader.
March 22nd, 2006 – Eta
declares a permanent ceasefire,
which comes into force two days
later.
Dec 30th, 2006 – Car bomb
explodes at Madrid airport killing
two Ecuadorians. Zapatero breaks
off peace process.
Dec 1st, 2007 – Eta suspects kill
two Guardia Civil policemen
working undercover in France.
Jan 14th, 2008 – Zapatero rules
out any chance of peace talks with
Eta and says its only option is
unilateral surrender.
March 7th – Isaias Carrasco,
former councillor for the Socialist
Party, is killed in Mondragon. Eta
later claims responsibility.
Squatters make their point
within sight of Élysée Palace
RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC
in Paris
“IT’S A great view,” says Simon
Cottin-Marx, a 23-year-old with
dark-rimmed glasses and an incipient beard, as he looks out over the
rooftops of central Paris and picks
out the French tricolour in the
foreground. “That’s the Élysée
Palace, just there.”
With evident pride, Mr CottinMarx and his friends are giving a
tour of their new lodgings – an
eight-storey office building on
avenue Matignon, in a chic corner
of the eighth arrondissement. The
group are among 30 young people
who quietly occupied the site on
December 27th, established their
right not to be expelled and then,
in recent days, announced that
they had set up the most prestigious squat in Paris.
The activists belong to Jeudi
Noir (Black Thursday), a collective
that campaigns for more social
housing and a tax on vacant buildings to address what it sees as a
crisis facing students and young
people in the city. Their speciality
is occupying empty buildings:
many of the squatters here spent
most of last year living in an empty
17th-century mansion on the exclusive Place des Vosges.
At the entrance to 22 avenue
Matignon, five police vans and
dozens of officers stand guard, preventing anyone other than “residents”, politicians and journalists
from entering. The security
reflects the squat’s sensitive location – close enough to the Élysée
that President Nicolas Sarkozy
“can see us when he shaves in the
morning”, as one activist puts it,
and just a short distance from the
interior ministry. “It’s a highly symbolic building at the heart of state
power,” says Mr Cottin-Marx.
The block belongs to the insurance company Axa but has been
vacant for the past four years. The
activists say the door was unlocked
and they managed to get the electricity and water supply running
within hours. Mattresses have
been laid out on each of the floors
and the reception area has become
a makeshift kitchen, with coffee
and biscuits on offer for visitors.
In a city where 10 per cent of
apartments lie empty and rents
are prohibitively high, says activist
Lila Gasmi (29), young people face
“a real battle” to navigate an
expensive, bureaucratic system
and secure a place to live.
“I didn’t have someone to vouch
for me – my Dad is dead and my
mother couldn’t act as guarantor,”
says Ms Gasmi, who works in theatre and has been a member of
Jeudi Noir (the name refers to the
day on which Paris’s main classified ads title appears) since 2006.
“There was a sense of solidarity
about it, and you felt less alone.”
Ms Gasmi spent almost a year in
the Place des Vosges squat, from
where she and 13 others were eventually expelled and ordered to pay
¤90,000. “We can’t pay it.”
The squatters at avenue Matignon cannot be expelled until a
legal process initiated by the local
prefecture and Axa comes to an
end. In the meantime, prominent
left-wing politicians have been
quick to show their support for a
popular cause. Yesterday it was
Socialist Party spokesman Benoît
Hamon’s turn to drop by.
“Here you have a fine building
that belongs to a large French company, which is speculating and
making money from it,” Mr
Hamon said. “That’s what is unacceptable – that you can make
money on the back of the fact that
people have nowhere to live.”
Nov 5th – Eta claims
responsibility for 10 bombings and
says it will press its campaign for
Basque rights.
Nov 1st – Eta’s suspected military
leader, Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina,
known by aliases “Txeroki” or
“Cherokee”, is arrested in France's
Pyrenean region, near the Spanish
border.
Dec 3rd – Ignacio Uria, owner of
the construction company Altuna
y Uria, is shot dead in Azpeitia. Eta
later claims responsibility for the
killing.
Dec 8th – French police announce
the arrest of a man identified as
Balak, presumed successor to
Txeroki.
April 18th, 2009 – Jurdan
Martitegi, Eta’s new military
leader known as “the giant”, is
arrested in southern France.
Aug 9th – Eta claims
responsibility for bombs in
the previous two months which
killed three policemen and injured
46.
Nov 14th – Batasuna calls for
talks between Eta and Spain
based on principles used in
Northern Ireland’s peace process.
Spain rejects the overtures the
next day.
Feb 28th, 2010 – Ibon
Gogeascoechea, Eta’s latest top
leader and on the run since 1997,
is arrested in Normandy.
March 17th – A French police
officer is shot and killed near Paris
after suspected Eta rebels fire on
his patrol while leaving a car
robbery scene.
Sept 5th – Eta decides to stop
carrying out armed attacks,
according to a statement
published by Basque-language
newspaper Gara on its website.
Sept 26th – Eta lays out
conditions for an end to its violent
campaign, warning that it reserves
the right to defend itself during a
so-called “ceasefire”.
Oct 28th – Batasuna says it will
reject violence in its drive to be
legalised but the government says
it must go further to be able to
participate in elections.
Jan 10th, 2011 – “Eta has
decided to declare a permanent
and general ceasefire, which may
be verified by the international
community,” says a statement
published on the website of
Basque regional newspaper Gara.
“This is Eta’s firm commitment
to the process to find a definitive
solution and an end to armed
confrontation,” it says. – (Reuters)
Pesticide blamed as dioxin food
scare reaches France, Denmark
DEREK SCALLY
in Berlin
GERMANY’S DIOXIN food scare
has spread to Denmark and
France as the cause of the outbreak was reportedly identified
yesterday as pesticides mixed into
animal feed fat.
The discovery of dangerous
levels of cancer-causing dioxins in
eggs, poultry, pork and feed is “no
cause for panic”, Germany’s agriculture minister insisted yesterday, but has caused “immense”
problems for farmers and the reputation of German food exports.
Slaughter bans were lifted yesterday on about three-quarters of
4,700 farms shut down as a safety
precaution after weekend tests
revealed their feed to be dioxinfree. More farms are likely to
reopen this week.
“The damage that has resulted
from this is immense, not only
from its impact on producers but
also on the trust among consumers,” said Ilse Aigner, federal
agriculture minister, after a
meeting in Berlin of farmers, feed
producers and consumer groups
yesterday.
She accused the feed producers
Ilse Aigner: says that feed
producers acted “irresponsibly
and unscrupulously”
of “acting irresponsibly and
unscrupulously” and warned that
the scare would have “serious consequences”.
However, Ms Aigner failed to
announce any new measures,
insisting instead that the industry
itself come up with “tough new regulations”.
The contaminated fat from the
German feed company Harles and
Jentzsch has found its way into
feed in France as well as a batch of
feed given to breeder hens in Denmark, which are not intended for
human consumption.
“In the case of France, in the lot
exported, apparently the concentration of dioxin was lower than
the maximum authorised concentration allowed in EU law for
animal feed,” said Frederic Vincent, spokesman for consumer
commissioner John Dalli.
German lobby groups accused
the minister of being soft on the
industry and have demanded new
widespread feed tests with an obligation to lodge the test results
with the authorities.
The opposition Green Party
attacked the minister for “declarations of intent rather than firm
measures”.
Despite the widespread lifting
of the ban yesterday, the European Commission insisted that all
animals that test positive for
dioxin will be culled.
Mr Vincent said the commission
would legislate unless the industry
presented their own proposals.
He described as “overblown”
import bans in Slovakia, South
Korea and other countries on
German poultry and eggs.
including the use of death squads,
have provided Eta and Batasuna
with invaluable propaganda tools
in their own communities.
And such practices have not
been entirely extinguished, as the
conviction of four civil guards on
serious torture charges against
Eta suspects earlier this month
clearly revealed.
Today, however, such cases
elicit only shadows of past
protests. A completely new
political strategy was clearly
needed if Batasuna was to survive
politically.
So the party has gone for broke
on the concept of a “new
scenario” – the peaceful but
vigorous pursuit for
self-determination.
The long delays in Eta’s
responses to this strategy,
however, show that a hard core
remains resistant to dumping its
weapons. But yesterday’s
statement goes much further
towards doing so than the group
has ever done before, despite little
prospect of early prisoner releases
in return.
There is undoubtedly still a big
reservoir of support in the Basque
Country for Batasuna’s new
departure. But even if Eta does
finally quit the scene, the radicals
still face the huge challenge of
Spanish public opinion.
Not only most Spaniards, but
also many Basques, are deeply
hostile to renegotiating the status
of the Basque Country under any
circumstances.
Nevertheless, the dream of a
new, democratic and peaceful
scenario is infinitely preferable to
the nightmare engendered by the
bitter conflict of the last 50 years.
Paddy Woodworth is author of
Dirty War, Clean Hands: Eta, the
GAL and Spanish Democracy
(Yale 2003) and The Basque
Country (Oxford 2008)