A deadly campaign of murder and violence by the Basque separatist organisation, ETA, has claimed nine lives in recent weeks - dangerously raising the security and political temperature throughout Spain. It follows the collapse of their 14-month ceasefire last December, after talks with the Spanish government broke down. The selection of targets for assassination, including an army officer, a leading businessman and a former governor of one of the Basque provinces, has been calculated to provoke the maximum response from the Spanish authorities, while the geographical spread of the campaign reveals all too clearly that ETA has not lost its ability to operate throughout Spain.
ETA is therefore far from the spent force assumed by many when the ceasefire was declared in 1998. That followed an important political development, which saw the Basque Nationalist Party sign a pact with ETA's political wing repudiating the Spanish constitution and its Statute of Autonomy - which set up representative institutions throughout Spain - in favour of Basque self-determination. Influenced directly by the Northern Ireland peace process, the Basque nationalists called for negotiations with the Spanish government, in the hope that a commitment to recognise the right to sovereignty would be conceded, based on the principle of consent. In the event, only one session of talks was held during which the nationalists insisted on the right to independence and the government demanded prior ETA disarmament.
These latest events have further polarised all concerned. There have been particularly vitriolic exchanges between the ruling Partido Popular led by the Spanish prime minister, Mr Jose Maria Aznar, and the Basque nationalists over their refusal to condemn ETA violence and repudiate their political alliance to demand self-determination. Mr Aznar regards the demand as a threat to Spain's basic political and territorial integrity, a position largely shared by the Spanish socialists. The refusal to concede any real basis for negotiations, underlies the political impasse. Mr Aznar believes he cannot afford to move beyond denouncing the violence and hopes it will convince sufficient Basques to vote for his party, which might be able to govern the Basque country in alliance with the socialists - thus putting the nationalists into opposition.
But that would play into ETA's hands, since their strategy is to force such a polarisation by drawing the moderate nationalists decisively to their side. The conflict cannot be resolved by such intransigent means, nor by security action alone, however deplorable ETA's terrorist provocation. Political dialogue will be necessary to address the underlying issue of sovereignty, based on the demonstrable popular support which the nationalists and ETA receive in the Basque country. Prolonged refusal to recognise that reality is more likely to escalate the conflict than resolve it. It is extremely difficult to get a hearing for such an approach while the violence continues and popular demonstrations are mounted daily against it. But political leadership will at some stage have to come to terms with this reality.