Issue 224 of SOCIALIST REVIEW Published November 1998 Copyright © Socialist Review

On 16 September ETA, the Basque liberation army, announced a ceasefire. The conservative prime minister of the Spanish state, José María Aznar, was clearly surprised, but he and the ex prime minister and leader of PSOE, Spain's Socialist Party, Felipe González, agreed that it was a sign of defeat and announced they would accept nothing other than total surrender. A few weeks later, as the Basque elections of 25 October approached, government spokespeople were more cautious. While they still insisted that nothing less than a complete renunciation of the armed struggle would do, it was very noticeable that there was no mention of decommissioning. Given the influence of the Irish peace process, that was a significant omission.

One key turning point had occurred in mid-July. In an extraordinary move, the government (through Judge Baltasar Garzon) closed down the left Basque nationalist newspaper Egin. It claimed that the newspaper was channelling funds to ETA, and arrested all but one of its 14 person editorial board. It had already moved against Herri Batasuna (HB is a revolutionary nationalist organisation closely linked to ETA) and arrested its entire executive committee. It was clear that the government's decision to move against the Basques arose from a belief that ETA had become marginalised from any broader movement. And they were not entirely wrong.

In recent years it has become clear that ETA, which had genuine mass support through the 1960s and 70s, had evolved into an entirely military organisation. While its politics grew increasingly abstract, its organisation and discipline grew harder. Divided into cells which did not communicate with one another directly, ETA's command structure was hierarchical and extremely rigid. As it became more efficient, it progressively lost its ideological clarity. Three years ago a bomb exploded in a supermarket in a working class district of Barcelona; a year or so later a lorry bomb exploded in an area of Madrid, injuring and killing passing, largely working class, pedestrians. This kind of action has been interspersed with individual kidnappings of businessmen on the one hand and local councillors of Aznar's Partido Popular on the other.

The killing of one young PP local councillor last year produced a highly orchestrated response in which the PP and the PSOE, together with the United Left (Communist Party), some Basque organisations and most of the trade union leaders, joined in a series of massive demonstrations against ETA. The confidence they gained from the success of the mobilisation convinced Aznar to strike a final blow against the Basque national movement, and in passing to reassert the determination of Madrid to retain overall control of the Basque Country.

ETA had lost much of the support it had enjoyed 20 years ago. Many of its own leaders, particularly those in Spanish jails, were arguing for a return to politics and condemning the militarism of ETA's new leadership. Most of them were expelled and condemned. And, while the broader movement was declining, the call continued to fall on deaf ears.

Today the situation is significantly changed; the September ceasefire was agreed at a series of meetings called, collectively and significantly, the 'Irish Forum'. It was supported by the spectrum of Basque organisations, from the conservative PNV to HB; many of the right wing Basque organisations had been involved in discussions with the government just a few months before. What had changed their attitude to ETA and the Basque left?

It was the closure of Egin, and its associated radio stations, that turned the tide. Some 48 hours after the closure 70,000 people demonstrated in San Sebastian. The composition of the demonstration was very significant. It embraced every age range--workers and students, men and women; whole families marched together.

I heard one middle aged woman in a twinset asking her similarly dressed companion whether she had been unwise to wear high heels, since 'I might have to run'! Aznar, with the active support of González and the Socialists, had single-handedly reconstituted the Basque national movement. The Socialists, of course, had no alternative but to support Aznar, after all, he was only continuing their repressive policies. And two days after the closure González's ex interior minister, Barrionuevo, was jailed for 11 years for his involvement in the organisation of a shadowy counter-terrorist organisation, the GAL, whose kidnappings and murders were government financed. It is still the generally held belief that González was directly and personally involved but there is no smoking gun in his hand yet.

In the new climate the initiative passed to politics, and ETA agreed to the ceasefire and issued a communique signed by all the Basque organisations. A further declaration has announced an agreement between them all that neither the PP nor the PSOE should participate in any future Basque government. In recent days hooded youths have launched a few firebomb attacks at local town halls, but it seems likely that the ceasefire will hold until and beyond the October elections. The result will be to strengthen the hand of the 'politicals' within ETA, though there are still fragments that might form some 'Real ETA' somewhere. For the moment, though, and despite all its fighting talk Madrid has lost the initiative in Euskadi, though ETA's insistence on a seven county Basque Country embracing the three French Basque provinces remains an illusion.

Some kind of 'peace process' therefore has been imposed on Aznar; the Irish model is much talked about, but the direction is not yet clear. It seems unlikely that the united front of Basques will last much beyond the elections, but it does provide an opportunity to reintegrate national and social questions in a developing political struggle against repression, for decentralisation and for urgent social advances--purposes that will be served by the growth of a strong workers' movement not a network of secret military units.
Mike González