THE ANNOUNCEMENT yesterday of another ceasefire by the Basque terrorist group ETA presents major challenges: to its own supporters, to the Spanish government and to Spanish democracy. But it would be a cruel service to those who have suffered on all sides in the Basque conflict, and especially to those who may suffer if it is prolonged, if this opportunity for a lasting peace was squandered once again.
There has been no justification for ETA’s armed campaign since Spain wrested the classic democratic liberties — freedom of speech, freedom of association, the rule of law — from the inheritors of General Franco’s squalid and repressive dictatorship in the late 1970s.
There are strong arguments that this transition to democracy was flawed. No one has ever been brought to book for the crimes of the dictatorship. The national aspirations of the Basques, Catalans and Galicians, upheld by many Spanish democrats before the transition, were sacrificed in an obscure accommodation, under military tutelage, with deeply conservative forces. And there have been occasions since then when Spain has abandoned democratic principles. Notoriously, government ministers and security officers sanctioned the use of death squads and torture in the ‘dirty war’ against ETA in the mid 1980s.
But these flaws do not explain, let alone excuse, ETA’s use of the gun and the car bomb, often against civilians and even against children. There was always another route open to those who aspired to Basque independence, and it is both criminal and tragic that it has taken the group’s supporters so long to recognise this. Nevertheless, the Spanish conservative view that ETA is nothing more than a criminal mafia is clearly a misreading of the situation. When generations of young men and women are willing to kill — and suffer imprisonment and death themselves — for a political cause, and when they are supported by a significant sector of the electorate, a conflict exists which cannot be resolved by police methods alone.
So we must welcome the fact that the political leadership of the Basque radical pro-independence movement has persuaded its military activists — apparently against very stubborn resistance — to move towards a farewell to arms. Credit is due to those international figures, some from this country, who have encouraged this process, which deserves carefully calibrated support.
In the first place, it is essential that the ambiguities in ETA’s statement be firmed up into a permanent renunciation of violence. However these things take time and if a peace process is to bed down, it is also essential that issues like early prisoner release should be considered calmly.
Finally, the nettle of self-determination will have to be grasped one day. It is very likely that a large majority of Basques, given the choice, would wish to continue in a very close association with the Spanish state. But there is no reason why, in a democracy and in the absence of violence, they should not make up their own minds on this issue.