Spain and Basque terrorism. Ceasefire ahead?

A weakened ETA considers its future

ARNALDO OTEGI, leader of Batasuna, the banned political wing of the Basque terrorist group ETA, pledged at a rally in San Sebastin last weekend that he would “take the conflict off the streets and bring it to the negotiating table”. Expectations had not been high, but his declaration was still greeted with derision in Madrid. The justice minister, Juan Fernando Lpez Aguilar, said “we neither heard a clear and resolute condemnation of violence, nor the definitive renunciation of continuing to threaten individual freedoms.” The opposition People's Party asked why Batasuna had been allowed to hold a rally at all. Many observers saw a cynical bid by the party to regain legal status before the Basque regional elections next May.

Nobody in Madrid is ready to negotiate with a party whose ban in March 2003 is seen as a success, still less talk to ETA. Last month French police arrested the organisation's suspected top leader, Mikel “Antza” Albizu Iriarte, along with 20 others, prompting speculation that the group was close to extinction. The Spanish claim (as they have before) that ETA has been brought to its knees in the past two years, after police operations netted over 200 suspects in Spain and south-west France. Over a dozen were arrested in the run-up to the Batasuna rally, and this week the Spanish police arrested a further 17.

ETA's operational capability appears to be hamstrung. It has not carried out a fatal attack since a car bomb in May 2003 that killed two policemen in Navarre. On the eve of the Batasuna rally two bombs exploded at a remote army post in the Pyrenees, but caused no injuries. The al-Qaeda train bombings in Madrid in March have made it harder for ETA to resume its terror campaign - though this week it insisted it would not renounce violence.

Speculation over a ceasefire had risen after ETA issued a communique calling for negotiations. It also lent full support to the Batasuna leadership, normally seen as politically subservient to ETA. Then came a letter from six jailed senior Basque terrorists urging ETA to abandon its 36-year campaign of violence. The authors advised it to back “institutional and mass struggle” for an independent Basque homeland. “Our political-military strategy has been overcome by our enemy's repression against us,” wrote the jailed terrorists. One signatory was Francisco Mgica Garmendia, ETA's leader in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Mr Garmendia presided over one of ETA's most violent periods: between 1985 and 1990 it killed almost 200 people. He was arrested in 1992 and is now one of nearly 700 ETA members in jail.

Mr Lpez Aguilar welcomed the news that some in ETA were rejecting violence, but added that he would not let his guard down. Spanish security sources suggest that Batasuna's peace plan could yet presage an ETA ceasefire, possibly before Christmas, which might give the party time to present itself for May's elections. Electioneering has already begun. The Basque premier, Juan José Ibarretxe, who still plans to hold a referendum on Basque independence, has said that his dream is for Batasuna to take part in the democratic process. Three Basque Socialists, including the mayor of San Sebastin, have said that Madrid should reconsider the ban if Batasuna “chooses the path of peace”.

In 1998 ETA called a ceasefire, which it used to rearm and which ended after 14 months. Spain is not in the mood to acclaim another ceasefire; it wants ETA to give up the armed struggle. Josu Jon Imaz, president of the Basque Nationalist Party, says anyway that, if ETA returns to killing, it could be the last straw for its support base, leading to its definitive extinction.