Talk:ETA (separatist group)/redundanciesmustgo

I'm about halfway through, I think...maybe less. I'm trying to re-organize the information, without losing any or changing it. There's a hell of a lot here! If anything pertinent is missing here, let me know at the top of this page. The vast majority of what I have cut from these beginning segments will be kept and used in later sections where it may fit better.

Once again, please leave your suggestions up here at the top. As I go along in the article I'll post what I'm doing here in line at the bottom. If anything here is seriously altered in content let me know. I know this is a touchy page, but the article is such a mass of misplaced and redundant information that it is hard to understand. I've become interested in the subject (and related articles) just from copyediting it, and it would be really really nice if other people could use and access this information in a smoother, more encyclopediac form. Thanks for being patient with me, let me know what you think.

PS-I'm not interested in any disputes here-just readability.

Resonanteye 15:31, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

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File:ETA.jpg

ETA symbol

IPA pronunciation: [ˈɛːta])

Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA means "Basque Homeland and Freedom" in the Basque language, Euskara. It is a paramilitary Basque nationalist organization that was founded in 1959. Its goal is to force a negotiation with the Spanish government to assert self-determination as a country. It evolved rapidly from a group advocating traditional cultural ways, to an armed group using violence.

ETA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, European Union and the United States.

On March 22, 2006, the organization declared a "permanent ceasefire" that has been troubled only by minor incidents. As of 2006, ETA was responsible for approximately 900 killings and dozens of kidnappings. More than 500 ETA militants are held in prison in Spain and France.

In its 1995 "Democratic Alternative", ETA demanded the right to self-determination and territoriality for the southernBasque Country, amnesty for all militants, whether prisoners or exiles, respect for the results of the Basque democratic process, and a total ceasefire. They also asked that Basque country be the only subject of its own destiny.

The ETA motto is [Bietan jarrai] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("Keep up on both"). This refers to the two figures in their symbol, a snake (representing politics) wrapped around an axe (representing armed fight).

ETA is a fringe of the Basque National Liberation Movement. This movement's groups tend toward left, and are inclusive of immigrants who assimilate, considering language and self-identification as the primary elements of identity.Basque nationalism is often referred to by the term Ezker Abertzalea (Nationalist Left). Some of the groups belonging to this are: Batasuna, the nationalist youth organization Segi, the labour union Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak (LAB), and Askatasuna amongst others.

Some of these may agree politically with ETA, but openly reject their means: EAJ-PNV, Eusko Alkartasuna, Aralar and, in the Northern Basque Country, Abertzaleen Batasuna. Additionally a number of left-wing parties such as Ezker Batua and Batzarre also support self-determination but are not so markedly in favor of independence.

During Franco's era, ETA had public support beyond the Basque populace which reached its peak after the 'Burgos Trials' of 1970.

History and context

Origins

After the Spanish civil war in the late 1930s, Francisco Franco came to power in Spain, after defeating the Republican government. Since some Basque nationalists had sided with the Republicans, Franco restricted expressions of Basque culture. He banned public display of the nationalist flag, public celebration of national holidays, speaking Euskara in public and teaching it in schools, and baptizing children with non-Spanish names.

Territories like Biscay and Guipuscoa had sided with Republican Spain during the Civil War and therefore saw their fueros abrogated by the Francoist regime.Other territories such as Álava and Navarre, which had supported Franco's uprising, were allowed to maintain a limited self-government. These territtories contained Carlists who believed he would end anticlericalism and end violence against the Catholic church.

After the war, Basque industry recovered quickly and was fueled by a massive rural exodus, especially from Castile and Galicia, which helped lead to dilution of the Basque identity.

ETA was founded by young nationalists who participated in a student discussion group in 1953 at the University of Deusto in Bilbao. An offshoot of the PNV's youth group EGI, it was originally called EKIN, from the Basque-language verb meaning "to act"; idiomized as "get busy".

On July 31, 1959 it became known as ETA. Their split from the PNV was apparently because they considered the PNV too moderate in its opposition to Franco's dictatorship. They disagreed with the PNV's rejection of violent tactics and advocated a Basque resistance movement that used direct action.. In its early years, ETA's activity seems to have consisted mostly of protesting by destroying infrastructure and Spanish symbols and by hanging forbidden Basque flags.

This era also saw other wars of national liberation, such as the anti-colonial war in Algeria.

At their first assembly in Bayonne, France in 1962, ETA called for "historical regenerationism", considering Basque history as the construction of a nation. They declared that Basque nationality is defined by the use of Euskara; this was in contrast to the PNV's definition of nationality in terms of ethnicity. In contrast with the explicit Catholicism of the PNV, ETA defined itself as "aconfessional"--meaning ETA does not recognize a special state religion, although it has used Catholic doctrine to elaborate its social program. They called for socialism and for "independence for Euskadi, compatible with European federalism".

In 1965, ETA adopted a Marxist-Leninist position; its precise political line has varied with time, although they have always advocated some type of socialism.

Direct action and violence

It is not clear when exactly ETA first began a policy of assassination, nor is it clear who committed the first assassinations identified with ETA.

There are sources that say the first was the June 27, 1960 death of a 22-month-old child, Begoña Urroz Ibarrola, who died in a bombing in San Sebastián; other sources single out a failed 1961 attempt to derail a train carrying war veterans.

Other sources point to the unpremeditated June 7, 1968 killing of a guardia civil, José Pardines Arcay by ETA member Txabi Etxebarrieta. The policeman had halted Etxebarrieta's car for a road check. Etxebarrieta was killed by the police, leading to retaliation in the form of the first official ETA assassination, that of Melitón Manzanas, chief of the secret police in San Sebastián and an alleged torturer.

In 1970, several members of ETA were condemned to death in the Proceso de Burgos ("Trial of Burgos"). This drew international attention to the ETA and also some public support, which resulted in commutation of the sentences. By that time some members of ETA had already been put to death.

The most consequential assassination performed by ETA during Franco's dictatorship was the December 1973 assassination by bomb in Madrid of admiral Luis Carrero Blanco. He was Franco's chosen successor and president of the government (a position roughly equivalent to being a prime minister). The assassination had been planned for months and was executed by placing a bomb in the sewer below the street where Blanco's car passed every day. The explosion threw the politician and his car three floors into the air and over the top of a nearby building; the car landing on a balcony in a courtyard the other side from the road.

This killing, committed as a reprisal for the execution of Basque independentistas, met with limited approval from the Spanish opposition in exile. It was seen by many as instrumental in the establishment of democracy by denying Franco his chosen successor. This brought power back to the monarchy, which in turn established the current democratic state.

Franco was enraged and decided that the criminals should be executed in one of the worst manners available at the time. They were executed with the garrote vil, or garrote, which exerts an slowly increasing pressure on the victim until their neck is crushed. As a consequence for the execution, many countries put their international relations with Spain on hold or downgraded them as a means of pressure. After Franco's death and the subsequent establishment of a democratic regime in Spain, a complete abolition of the death penalty out of wartime was approved in 1978.

Former ETA member Jon Juaristi, who is now an anti-Nationalist author, contends that the goal of this particular killing was not democratization but a spiral of violence that would fully destabilize Spain This would have increased Franco's repression of the Basque and put the average Basque citizen in a situation where they would have had to accept the lesser evil in the form of ETA's terrorism.

Current activities

Spain's transition to democracy from 1975 on and ETA's progressive radicalization have resulted in a steady loss of support, which became especially apparent at the time of their 1997 kidnapping and countdown assassination of Miguel Ángel Blanco. Their loss of sympathizers has been reflected in an erosion of support for the political parties identified with the MLNV.

In recent years, ETA supporters represent a minority in the Basque region. A Euskobarómetropoll (conducted by the Universidad del País Vasco) in the Basque Country in May 2004, found that a significant number of Basques supported some or all of ETA's goals. (33% favored Basque independence, 31% federalism, 32% autonomy, 2% centralism.) However, few supported their violent methods (87% agreed that "today in Euskadi it is possible to defend all political aspirations and objectives without the necessity of resorting to violence".) The poll did not cover Navarre, where Basque nationalism is weaker (around 25% of population) and the Basque areas of France where it is weaker still (around 15% of population are regionalist, not necessarily independentist).

ETA members continue to allege frequent torture at the hands of the Guardia Civil (Civil Guard). While these claims are hard to verify, some convictions are based on confessions obtained while prisoners are held incommunicado, without access to a lawyer. These confessions are then routinely repudiated by the defendants during trials as having been extracted under torture.

While there have been some successful prosecutions (all after an interval of years) of proven tortures—mostly of torture during the "dirty war" period in the 1980s—the penalties have been light and co-conspirators and enablers were rarely sanctioned.

According to Amnesty International:

A recent tactic of the Spanish Government's campaign against ETA has been to target its social support network. After the Ley de Partidos Políticos was passed (a law barring political parties which may have a hatred ideology or may support political violence), this has taken the form of banning Herri Batasuna and its successor parties unless they condemn explicitly political violence (which Batasuna fails to do as of October 2006) and, at times, imprisoning some leaders who have been indicted for cooperation with ETA. Batasuna, formerly known as Euskal Herritarrok and "Herri Batasuna", now banned as a terrorist organization, pursues the same political goals as ETA. It has generally received between 10 and 20% of the vote in the Basque areas of Spain. A related developement is the judicial procedure 18/98, initiated by controversial judge Baltasar Garzon, that expands enormously the scope of what is membership or association with ETA.

French attitude toward ETA

Members of ETA have often taken refuge in southwestern France, especially the French Basque Country and Aquitaine. ETA leaders normally choose to live in France for security reasons, as police pressure may be lower in the French side of the border. This was formerly tolerated by the French government, especially during the Franco dictatorship when legal rights of ETA members were not respected and death penalty still existed in Spain.

Some ETA members were executed during the Franco era. During the post-Franco 1970s and the 1980s, ETA members and its suspected supporters were the target of right-wing violence and, especially, violence by government agents such as GAL, whose actions such observers as the BBC deemed as "state terrorism".. ETA members in France were informally treated as political asylees

When GAL disappeared in 1987, and law enforcement which supported the indictment and imprisonment of officials responsible for GAL arose in the 1990s, the"dirty war" period ended. After this some minor attacks under the names of GANE or other acronyms occurred. With the new situation, the French government started considering detainees' rights to be assured, and began cooperating with the Spanish government.

Some ETA refugees were deported to remote cooperating countries like Cape Verde or Venezuela, so that they were out of Spanish reach and could not be active in Europe.

More recently, the French have become active against ETA, including fast-track transfers of detainees to Spanish tribunals that are now regarded internationally as fully compliant with European legislation in human rights and legal representation of detainees.

As a result of this, ETA carried out actions against French policemen and menaced some French judges and prosecutors. This changed its former low-profile activity within the French Basque Country, from where they had been discreetly managing their activities on the Spanish side of the border. A number of ETA members have been captured on French soil; some are serving sentences in France and others have been extradited to Spain to stand trial for crimes committed in Spain.

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