SPAIN: ETA on the Brink

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jul 22 2008 (IPS) - Police in Spain brought the Basque separatist group ETA to the brink of total collapse Tuesday after dismantling what was described as its most active cell, and perhaps the only one left after a string of major blows dealt to the group in the past few years.

Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba announced the arrests in a news briefing, saying that although he could not state that it was the only ETA cell still active, he could affirm that “it was the most active, dynamic and sought-after since the breakdown of the ceasefire.”

The minister added that 306 people accused of belonging to ETA have been arrested since January 2007.

But according to Basque sources consulted by IPS, the group did not actually have anywhere near that many active members, which means that many of those arrested were involved in ETA’s political arm.

Rubalcaba also said the nine-member cell that was dismantled was responsible for 80 to 90 percent of the attacks carried out by ETA since June 2007, when the group broke the ceasefire it had declared in March 2006.

Four people were killed in the bombings staged by the group since June 2007: three members of the Guardia Civil militarised police and one local Basque politician, which brought the total number of victims of ETA to 823 since its creation 40 years ago.

The significance of the latest arrests was reflected by remarks by opposition leader Mariano Rajoy of the centre-right Popular Party, who did not hesitate to describe the police operation as an “indisputable success,” and who said he believed that “this is the right way: defeating ETA with the law, the police, the Guardia Civil and international cooperation.”

His words indicate that in the meeting slated for Wednesday between socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Rajoy, the question of ETA will not give rise to discrepancies, as it has on previous occasions.

The meeting is expected to focus on Spain’s economic situation, which Zapatero sees as a “slowdown” and Rajoy refers to as a “crisis.”

Judicial sources told IPS that the operation was based on solid police investigative work, but especially on the investigation carried out by internationally renowned Judge Baltasar Garzón, who even oversaw the arrests in the city of Bilbao in the northern Basque Country, one of the 17 provinces into which Spain is divided.

The head of the dismantled cell was Arkaitz Goikoetxea. Suspected of being ETA’s top leader, he was known for organising acts of street violence before he became a paid militant.

When Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Fatherland and Freedom in the Basque language) emerged 40 years ago during General Francisco Franco’s 1939-1975 dictatorship, it did not enjoy wide public support, although it was not universally condemned by those fighting for freedom and democracy.

For that reason, at the start of the transition to democracy after Franco’s death in 1975, Batasuna, the political party founded by ETA, was legalised, and members were elected to both the Spanish and Basque Country parliaments.

ETA split at that time, with one faction embracing democracy and joining politics while swearing off violence, and the other rejecting the government’s offer and continuing to set off bombs to demand independence for the Basque Country.

Today Batasuna is banned from running in elections. But by registering parties under other names, ETA’s political arm has managed to have its own parliamentary bloc in the provincial legislature.

Leire Pajín, the young woman who recently became secretary of organisation in Spain’s governing Socialist Party (PSOE), told IPS that unity among the country’s democratic forces has strengthened the fight against ETA, as shown by the blow received by the group Tuesday.

She also added that if there is something that should be said “loudly and emphatically,” it is that “the only fate for terrorists is to end up in jail, with the full weight of the law brought to bear upon them.”

Shortly after the early Tuesday arrest of the ETA cell, the government of the Basque Country, headed by the moderate Nationalist Basque Party (PNV), issued a statement congratulating the Interior Ministry and the security forces, and underlining that the operation “gave a harsh blow to the terrorist network, thus preventing future attacks.”

PNV lawmaker José Ramón Beloki demanded that ETA stop killing and causing suffering, which he said leads nowhere.

The eight alleged ETA members who were arrested were planning further attacks, said Rubalcaba, who pointed out that they had forged Guardia Civil identity cards, five maps of cities in Spain and Portugal, explosives and firearms.

According to the minister, Goikoetxea led the attacks perpetrated over the past year, including the bombing of three Guardia Civil posts and a National Police station.

The ETA cell was tracked down after one of the cars used in the bombing of a Guardia Civil barracks in the Basque town of Legutiano failed to explode, leaving fingerprints for the police.

ETA typically sets fire to the stolen cars it uses in its bomb attacks, to cover up its trail.