SPAIN: ETA Personifies Neo-Fascist Sentiments in Basque Country

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Sep 8 1997 (IPS) - The first president of the autonomous government of the Basque Country (1980-82), Carlos Garaikoetxea, denounced a neo-fascist tendency in the region, which he said was personified by the radical separatist organisation ETA.

“They have only stopped short of organising crematory ovens, like Hitler,” said the Basque leader, referring to the followers of ETA.

Garaikoetxea’s remarks came after 50 hooded individuals set alight the headquarters of his party, Eusko Alkartasuna (EA), and the Nationalist Basque Party (PNV), which heads the region’s autonomous government.

At the time Garaikoetxea was president of the region he was a member of the PNV, a moderate nationalist party which belongs to the Christian Democrat International. He later headed a faction that split from the party and founded the Social Democratic EA, which like the PNV advocates the region’s right to self- determination.

This weekend the Basque town of Zizurkil held its traditional mid-summer festival. But the dancing and carnival processions were marred by attacks late Saturday night on the PNV and EA offices.

Some 50 hooded individuals blocked the road on which the EA headquarters is located. They set alight several garbage containers, forced the cleaning staff to leave, and then threw in a number of incendiary devices. The upper floors of the building are inhabited.

PNV sources reported that the town councillors of that party and EA in Zizurkil, a town of some 2,700, had been receiving threatening telephone calls.

PNV spokesman Joseba Egibar said “the only thing the movement that calls itself a movement for Basque national liberation (ETA and its political arm Herri Batasuna) is doing is destroying its own people.” Some 500 inhabitants of Zizurkil took to the streets to hold five minutes of silence and gather signatures against the violence.

Nearly half of the 60,000 inhabitants of the Basque town of Basauri poured into the streets Saturday, two days after a national police officer was killed when his car was blown up by ETA.

The general secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party in the Basque province of Viscaya, Nicolas Redondo, admitted that the leaders of the region’s political parties had doubted that many people would turn out, given that the victim of the bombing was a member of the Spanish national police.

But “Basque society has always been ahead of the parties when it comes to the problem of violence,” said Javier Madrazo, regional coordinator of the Communist Party-based United Left coalition.

The citizens’ jump on the parties led the secretary general of the centre-right People’s Party (PP) in the region, Carmelo Barrio, to call on the parties to engage in serious reflection and self-criticism, and “to continue listening to the messages sent by society.”

Although all Basque parties and institutions – with the exception of HB – have condemned ETA’s violent activities, the attacks have not stopped.

On Monday the mayor and a town councillor of Rincon de la Victoria, in the southern Spanish province of Andalucia, escaped unharmed after bombs were defused in their cars. Police sources blamed the thwarted bombing attempts against the two men – both members of the PP – on ETA.

The EA and PNV issued a joint communique calling on the members of HB – “whose ranks include many decent people” – to condemn the attacks and the acts of vandalism, and “to distance themselves from that rabble which is destroying the country.”

The communique declares that Basque country citizens should not allow “a gang of fascist troublemakers from coming to town, occupying it and doing whatever they please, sowing terror and destroying.”

SPAIN: ETA Personifies Neo-Fascist Sentiments in Basque Country

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Sep 8 1997 (IPS) - The first president of the autonomous government of the Basque Country (1980-82), Carlos Garaikoetxea, denounced a neo-fascist tendency in the region, which he said was personified by the radical separatist organisation ETA.
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