ETA

ETA, the acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Country and Freedom), a separatist armed group seeking an independent socialist state for the Basque homeland (see Basque Country). ETA mainly operates in Spain where it has been responsible for almost a thousand deaths.

ETA was formed in July 1959 by a group of young middle-class nationalists dissatisfied at the passivity of the historical party of Basque nationalism, the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV), against the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975). Initially devised as a study group, the members of ETA (etarras) soon came to the conclusion that an authoritarian regime such as that of Franco had to be fought “on its own terms”. The organization came to prominence during the Burgos Trials (1970) when 16 ETA members, among them 2 women and 2 priests, were brought before a military tribunal. Their trial sparked an avalanche of national and international protest that included pleas from European governments and the Vatican. In 1973 ETA assassinated the president of the Spanish government and political heir of Franco, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco. At the ideological level, ETA combined traditional Basque nationalism, revolutionary socialism, and anti-colonialism. At the strategic level, ETA adopted the theory of “action-repression-action” in 1964. The tactic would start a cycle in which every action was followed by state repression that, in turn, would encourage a larger revolutionary action starting the cycle all over again.

When the Spanish transition to democracy got under way after the death of General Franco in 1975, most observers hoped ETA would renounce violence. On the contrary, ETA became fiercely opposed to the democratization process and killed 284 people between the years 1975 and 1980. ETA leaders argued that Spanish democracy was nothing but a cosmetic change to the authoritarian nature of Spain and gradually increased the use of terrorist tactics. At the same time, authoritarian practices within Spain gave ETA’s legitimacy a boost when judicial investigations confirmed that the Spanish state had funded a paramilitary organization called GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación; Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups). Between 1983 and 1987 the “dirty war” against ETA claimed a total of 27 lives, including 10 people with unclear connections to ETA. Most of the incidents occurred in the cities of the French Pays Basque.

In 1992 the arrest of top ETA commanders in southern France started the military decline of ETA and marked a turning point in the bilateral relationships between France and Spain. ETA reacted by launching a new strategy based on the “socialization of suffering”. The “socialization of suffering” would be particularly targeted against those who opposed the nationalist project, and was to be carried out in “new spaces of struggle”, for example, through street violence (kale borroka). One of the victims of this socialization was the town councillor Miguel Angel Blanco, killed in July 1997. His kidnapping and execution caused popular outrage. Since then, ETA has been trying to establish alliances with other nationalist parties and unions through its own political front organizations, particularly the political party Batasuna and trade union LAB. However, the strategy was frustrated when Batasuna was banned by the Spanish Supreme Court in 2003.

Official peace negotiations have been held between the Spanish government and ETA on at least four occasions. The first round of negotiations took place during the Spanish transition in the late 1970s; the second round occurred in Algiers between 1986 and 1989; and the third round in Zurich in May 1999. The Zurich negotiations collapsed after the parties failed to find any common ground. Whereas the Spanish government was willing to discuss security issues (prisoners, refugees, and so on) ETA wanted to enlarge the scope of the negotiations to discuss political issues such as the right to self-determination. In March 2006 ETA declared a permanent ceasefire, though it did not announce any plans to disarm. In May, the Spanish prime minister, José Zapatero, stated that the government was ready to begin direct talks with ETA. Two days before the end of the year, however, ETA attacked Barajas airport in Madrid, killing two people. Although ETA claimed responsibility for the attack, it also stated that it regarded the truce as still in place. The Spanish government ended discussions with the organization, and in June 2007 ETA announced that it was ending its ceasefire.

See also Basque Separatists.