By Tito Drago
MADRID, Mar 22 2001 (IPS)

Civil conflict in Spain’s Basque region – sparked by the terrorist group ETA and its sympathisers – is a real danger, affirm socialist and moderate Basque nationalist leaders alike, as social tensions escalate with each ETA attack.

Juan María Atutxa, the moderate nationalist president of the autonomous Basque parliament, said Thursday that this is a true risk and that its prevention lies in the hands of politicians.

Atutxa, who served as the Basque autonomous government’s Interior minister from 1996 to 2000, thus agrees with leaders of the leading opposition force in the region, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), who believe the Basque people “are on the verge of a civil confrontation.”

The politicians do not define “confrontation” as civil war, because Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, ‘Basque Fatherland and Freedom’ in the Basque language) lacks a military-like structure or organisation and has not launched combative actions.

The radical separatist group perpetrates its attacks without directly engaging the military or security forces. The ETA modus operandi is to detonate car-bombs or other explosive devices by remote control, or assassinate unarmed civilians, shooting them in the back of the head.

The most recent of these attacks occurred Tuesday. ETA is blamed for the assassination of Froilán Elespe, a socialist city councillor from the Basque municipality of Lasarte. Elespe was in a bar near his home when an assailant shot him twice in the head, then fled immediately.

A street protest in condemnation of the murder drew almost the entire population of Lasarte, where socialists govern with an absolute majority. Participants in the demonstration shouted “No to ETA! No to accomplices!”

Political leaders largely agreed that the assassination would have been impossible without someone in the town itself to study the schedule and movements of the victim.

“If those who informed (ETA on Elespe’s) whereabouts are listening, know that you will always have us to contend with,” stated Lasarte’s mayor, Ana Urchueguía, in a ceremony following the victim’s funeral.

Two town councillors belonging to the pro-ETA political coalition Euskal Herritarrok (EH) maintained silence and did not join the representatives of all other parties – including the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) – when they approved a declaration officially condemning the attack.

But the president of the PNV in Guipúzcoa province, where Lasarte is located, criticised the slogan “No to ETA, no to accomplices,” saying it runs counter to the unity expressed in previous demonstrations and because, in his judgement, it is unclear who the protesters accuse of being accomplices.

There are people living in Lasarte “who have informed the (ETA) command that it had to assassinate our colleague,” responded Urchueguía. “It is probably someone we know, who we speak with on a daily basis, and who is as guilty as the one who pulled the trigger.”

When the turn came for the two EH representatives to have the word, the public and many of the other councillors recriminated them with shouts, preventing them from speaking. Mayor Urchueguía intervened, however, calming the crowd in order to let the two have their say.

She shouted at the crowd – an image broadcast several times throughout Spain – that the EH politicians should be allowed to speak in order to show them that the democratic struggle is also one of freedom of expression.

Another socialist councillor, Carlos García Velasco, affirmed that ETA and its accomplices will never scare him into leaving politics, but he added, “my wife suffers from depression and nerves. This is a crazy situation, it is like going to war, heading to the frontline and not knowing if you will return home.”

ETA, born in the 1960s during the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco (1939-1975), with the objective of creating a Basque homeland, remained active following Spain’s return to democracy and in spite of suffering several internal rifts.

Since 1975, the radical separatist organisation has engaged in three ceasefires. The latest was implemented unilaterally in 1998, and ended nearly a year and a half later, in December 1999. During that period, a delegation of the Spanish government met with ETA leaders to talk peace, but negotiations proved unsuccessful.

Since the last ceasefire ended, ETA has assassinated 30 people, not just politicians, and not only in the Basque Country, but also in Madrid and elsewhere.

After officiating Elespe’s funeral, Juan María Uriarte, bishop of San Sebastián (capital of Guipúzcoa), wondered in his homily “how long will the people resist the temptation of a frightful social rupture?”

On the streets of Lasarte, meanwhile, walls have been painted with bull’s-eyes with the name “Otegui” in the centre, a clear reference to Arnaldo Otegui, the former ETA militant who now serves as the EH spokesman – and an indication that citizens are growing impatient with ETA impunity.

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