At
last an end to
ETA's violence in Spain
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
Comments to JonatPower@aol.com
March 5, 2006
LONDON - A thousand days has passed
without a killing by ETA, the Basque terrorist movement-
the only homegrown one active on European soil now that
the IRA continues to turn its back on violence. Setting
ETA an example it cannot ignore, the IRA and its
political wing Sinn Fein has never been so politically
potent. How long do we have to wait for ETA to declare
the truce that could take it in the same
direction?
The Spanish prime minister,
José Luis Rodríquez Zapatero, told
parliament on February 15th that " I am convinced we have
never been so close to the end of violence…we may be
at the start of the beginning of the end of ETA". But the
opposition, the Popular Party - whose former prime
minister José Maria Aznar is still smarting at
losing the last election and refuses to acknowledge his
below-the-belt attempt on election eve to blame the
massive bombing in the Madrid railway station on ETA
rather than Al Qaeda- maintains its total refusal to
countenance a deal with ETA.
The anti-ETA sentiment is much
stronger in Spain than anti-IRA feelings ever were in
Britain. The PP and its friends can still mobilize vast
demonstrations against dealing with ETA as they did two
weeks' ago under the guise of supporting the victims of
ETA. Whereas the British prime minister Tony Blair always
had the support of the opposition Conservatives on the
substance of his Irish negotiations (and before Labour
had supported Conservative prime minister John Major in
the same way) the raw division between left and right in
the Spanish parliament has now become so bitter that some
observers talk of Spain's political temperature as
returning to levels not seen since the civil war.
Following Zapatero's remarks ETA
released a communiqué to a Basque radio station
calling for "dialogue and negotiation". It said
suggestively this was the "only solution". It laid down
three conditions to make this possible: Giving Basques in
Spain and France the right to decide their own future; a
change in the current political status of the region; and
the involvement of all political forces in
negotiations.
No wonder the government is
optimistic. None of these demands is
insuperable.
The government's trump card in any
negotiation is that it knows from previous electoral and
referenda results in the Basque region that a majority
never votes for platforms that demand a break away from
Spain. Thus on point one it can always call ETA's bluff,
just as Blair did with the IRA. Once Blair had conceded
that the Northern Irish could have self-determination,
the IRA had no leg to stand on but it could boast to its
constituency that it had won a sweet victory. The fact
that it could never win a Northern Ireland referendum on
the matter is beside the point.
Point two is also easily solved.
Although Aznar has always argued that the Basque country
has more autonomy than any other region in Europe this is
probably not so. Scotland, for example, has long had its
own educational system and judiciary. When the Pan Am
jetliner was blown up by Libyan terrorists over Lockerbie
a special Scottish court was agreed to on Dutch soil to
try the Libyans. No Basque court today could wield this
degree of independence. Moreover, more recently Scotland
has been given its own parliament and has opened its own
diplomatic missions overseas.
The latter provision, if given to
the Basques, would make the PP's hair stand on end. But
'why not?' must be the answer given to the Basques. None
of such concessions would mean the end of Spain. One of
the advantages of membership of the European Union is
that soft borders not just between states but also within
states become so much easier both to digest politically
and to implement administratively.
It is the third demand of ETA that
is perhaps the most difficult to achieve. As long as the
PP stands aloof and it becomes increasingly militant on
the issues it only adds an unnecessary element of tension
to the negotiations. Its rhetoric is over the top. "You
have betrayed the dead," said PP leader Mariano Rajoy,
speaking of Zapatero's conciliatory policies.
Someone has to start talking to the
PP. Both Blair and President George W. Bush are ex
comrades in arms of Aznar. Both know that the PP's claim
that Al Qaeda did the Madrid bombing is so much nonsense.
Both know that a Europe without a civil war in its midst
is a political bonus in the age when the West is
determined to win the worldwide battle for democracy. I
think if the PP calms its opposition ETA will take the
fateful final step towards peace.
Copyright © 2006 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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