ANALYSIS: Hardliners and conciliators will be battling for the ear of the Spanish prime minister, writes PADDY WOODWORTH
THE PUBLIC response from mainstream Spanish and Basque political parties to Eta’s ceasefire announcement has been almost unanimously downbeat, and often dismissive and even hostile.
But behind the scenes the lines have already been drawn for two opposed strategies to deal with the new political scenario that an end to Basque terrorism – whether temporary or permanent no one can yet say – opens up.
A lot hangs on which set of strategists finally wins the ear of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
At present he seems strongly inclined towards those who argue that Eta is already effectively defeated. They say that any new political initiative about the status of the Basque Country would only encourage the militants to regroup and rearm for a reinvigorated violent campaign under the cover of ceasefire discussions.
Therefore, the government should simply stay firm on its existing course, using the police to mop up the remains of a chronically weakened Eta, whether active or not, and encouraging the courts to continue their controversial practice of prosecuting anyone remotely connected with radical Basque activism.
“Eta has stopped [killing] because it can’t [kill] any more,” said Zapatero’s interior minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba yesterday. “And it has stopped in order to rebuild itself.”
But there are others – especially in the Basque section of the PSOE, including its president, Jesús Eguiguren, who was deeply involved in the failed 2006 peace process – who think very differently.
Last June, Eguiguren wrote to the Basque first minister, the PSOE’s Patxi López, asking him to consider a policy of “pacification and reconciliation” in the Basque Country, which could include the legalisation of Batasuna, the banned party alleged to be Eta’s political wing, and prisoner releases.
In a remarkably robust radio debate with his colleague Rubalcaba shortly afterwards, he asserted that the change in Batasuna’s attitude to violence was convincing, and that “events would overtake the PSOE” if they did not prepare themselves for a new departure in the Basque Country.
There has been greater flexibility with prisoner releases over the summer, which suggests that Eguiguren’s line may have more support in private in Madrid than government statements over the last 24 hours suggest.
The initial dismissal of the ceasefire in Madrid is not surprising, and does not necessarily mean that Rubalcaba’s approach will remain in the ascendant.
Eta’s rather peculiar statement certainly raises more questions than it answers, and falls well short of what its own supporters, and the international figures who have been advising the group, had hoped for, let alone what Madrid requires.
Its language is remarkably vague, and not just in its failure to specify the time scale and scope of the new truce. It does not promise the “total absence of violence” that Batasuna called for last February.
Nor does it constitute the “permanent, fully verified ceasefire” that Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, Nuala O’Loan and other luminaries clearly expected in their Brussels declaration last March.
Instead, it is full of vague rhetoric about a “democratic solution” through “dialogue and negotiation” in which the Basque people “can decide their own future”. No specific proposals are made either to the Spanish government or to Basque political parties. There is not even a mention of Eta’s 700 prisoners.
This vagueness may well have been the price of gaining the reluctant acquiescence of Eta’s newest generation of young recruits, who are reported to be deeply opposed to the new political line coming from Batasuna. If so, it indicates that this ceasefire may be dangerously unstable, but it also means that Batasuna leaders have a blank sheet on which they can write their own interpretation of the new scenario.
And they began to do so yesterday afternoon, with a statement describing the ceasefire as “unconditional” and “indefinite”, and as making “a new political phase in the Basque Country irreversible”.
Over the summer, Rufi Etxeberria, a veteran Batasuna leader once regarded as a hardliner, has made it clear that the pro-independence movement would not remain in Eta’s shadow any longer. An associate of his confirmed to me that the armed group must now either let the political figures lead the way, or face isolation in its own heartland.
This is the reverse of the situation over the last 30 years, and it offers a real opportunity to bring political violence in the Basque Country to an end.
The isolation of the remaining militarists will require, however, a more courageous and flexible response from Zapatero’s government, at least in the medium term, than has been forthcoming so far.
At the very least, it will require the legalisation of Batasuna in time for crucial local elections in May 2011, and an end to the criminalisation of its leadership.
Such moves will be very difficult for Zapatero, because the major opposition party, the right-wing Partido Popular, is bitterly opposed to the slightest accommodation with radical Basque nationalism. Moreover, many PSOE voters share this hostility.
Ironically, the fact that the prime minister is already bogged down with poor opinion poll results on other issues may help him run that gauntlet.
If he can be persuaded that Batasuna wants peace for real this time round, he may decide that he has little left to lose, and a lot to gain, by going down in history as the man who took the gun out of Basque politics.