Basque Separatists

I

Introduction

Basque Separatists, supporters of independence for the homeland of the Basques. Politically divided between Spain and France, the Basque homeland (Euzkadi or Euskal Herria; see Basque Country) is made up of seven provinces: Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa, Álava, Navarra, Basse-Navarre, Soule, and Labourd.

II

Origins

The origins of Basque separatism can be traced to the founder of Basque nationalism, Sabino Arana i Goiri (1865-1903). Born into a family of Basque traditionalists, Arana witnessed the impact of rapid industrialization on his hometown, Bilbao, especially the coming of Spanish migrants. For Arana these migrants (whom he called maketos) were hordes of invaders who were undermining Basque culture, language, tradition, and race. In order to stop what he saw as yet another attempt by the Spanish nation to colonize the Basques, Arana founded in 1895 the Basque Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista Vasco, PNV).

Arana’s own contradictions led to the development within the PNV of two separate currents: one moderate and one radical. After Arana’s death in 1903, each of these currents created its own party—the radicals keeping the PNV as a name—but they later reunited after the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. During the Second Republic (1930-1936) the radicals organized around the political party Acción Nacionalista Vasca (ANV) and the journal Jagi-Jagi. Its most articulate leader was Eli Gallastegi, who had close contacts with separatist leaders in Catalonia and Ireland. In 1936 Madrid’s Popular Front government granted autonomy to the Basques, and José Antonio Aguirre headed a short-lived Basque government. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, the Basques joined the Republicans, but were crushed by the Nationalists in 1937.

III

Basque Separatism Under Franco

During the regime of Francisco Franco, popular Basque opposition coalesced behind the armed group ETA, founded by a group of young middle-class intellectuals from Bilbao and San Sebastián, disgusted at the PNV’s paralysis. Following the teachings of Arana, ETA argued the Basque homeland was under Spanish oppression and needed to break free. The strategies of Third World struggles, particularly the theory of “action-repression-action” (the idea that an act of violence committed against the state would provoke a violent response that would itself provoke further action against the state) were adopted by ETA in order to unfold the repressive nature of the Francoist state and gather support among the Basque masses.

ETA’s ideology was a combination of Basque nationalism and Marxism with influences from Third World revolutionary struggles. The ideological corpus was gradually built up during ETA’s assemblies, gatherings at which ETA adopted tactical, strategic, and ideological positions. In the Fifth Assembly, held between 1966 and 1967, ETA established the socialist character of the group and based its nationalist struggle on four fronts: economic, cultural, political, and military. Among the texts that influenced ETA at the ideological, strategic, and tactical level there were Federico Krutwig’s Vasconia and The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.

IV

Basque Separatism Under Democracy

After the Spanish transition to democracy (1975-1978) Basque separatism expanded from a clandestine armed group, ETA, to a complex network of organizations. ETA had concluded that the Spanish state could not be defeated by military means and decided to exercise pressure on the Spanish government by political means. Hence, in 1974 ETA created the Basque Movement for National Liberation (MLNV; Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional Vasco). The central organizations of the MLNV were the armed group ETA, the political party Herri Batasuna, the trade union LAB, and other political and cultural groups representing feminists, youth, ecologists, prisoners’ relatives, and so on. The coordination of the movement was accomplished by the Koordinadora Abertzale Sozialista (KAS).

The most important characteristics of the MLNV were the subordination of the whole network to ETA, the strategic dependence on the armed struggle, the perception of ETA prisoners as heroes, and the belief that legitimacy was acquired through active (and violent) participation in the national struggle against Spain. In other words, the MLNV widened and developed the aims of ETA in both the social and political spheres while providing ETA with new supporters and sources of legitimacy. For ETA, this group of organizations remains the most important source of new recruits and a complementary means of fighting for independence. The main bastions of the MLNV are urban areas such as Bilbao, San Sebastián, and Pamplona and rural areas such as the Goyerri in Guipuzcoa. Since the early 1990s the MLNV has tried to expand its influence to Navarre and southern France, areas in which Basque nationalism has been traditionally weak.