By Tito Drago
MADRID, Nov 30 2001 (IPS)

The Basque separatist group ETA continues forward, attacking police in the Basque region, while measures taken to isolate and eradicate the group are on the rise both inside and outside of Spain in the context of the international fight against terrorism.

The U.S. State Department includes ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna – Basque Fatherland and Freedom in the Basque language) on its list of international terrorist organisations, and now the European Parliament is taking similar action.

In a vote Thursday, the European Parliament approved a motion presented by delegates from Spain’s centre-right Popular Party and the leftist Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) to include organisations that support ETA in the region’s own anti-terrorism efforts.

In its definition of terrorism, the resolution includes certain acts of street violence, known as “kale borroka” in the Basque language. In practice, this has been perpetrated by smaller groups of hooded youths who destroy public telephones, branch offices of banks, shops and public transportion in Spain’s Basque Country.

The parliamentary decision was taken just hours after a French gendarme in Monein, southern France, was seriously injured in a shooting. He had approached a suspiciously parked car to ask the two occupants for identification.

A description provided by another gendarme, in addition to the ammunition used in the shooting and the fact that the perpetrator spoke Spanish, led the French and Spanish police on the case to identify an ETA member, Ibór Fernández de Iradi, as the presumed author of the 10 shots fired, nine of which hit the victim.

Another French gendarme was injured Nov 17 in similar circumstances, and last Friday two officers from the autonomous Basque police force, a man and a woman, were assassinated as they directed traffic in the town of Besain, in Spain’s Basque Country.

The ETA members in the French Basque region have always been known to carry weapons, but until now they had never used them.

Weapons possession charges were enough – until September – to ensure indictment in France, which prevented ETA guerrillas from being extradited to Spain to face trial there for other crimes. Using this mechanism, the ETA members were released on bail in France and then, when the opportunity arose, they fled.

But this situation changed following the Sep 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

France changed its laws to facilitate extradition of its arrestees, even if there were charges pending against them in that country, if the suspects were being sought for more serious crimes, as is the case of most of the alleged ETA members Spain wants handed over.

ETA’s response to the change in French legislation was to attack the French police and gendarmes.

Meanwhile, in Spain’s Basque Country, where ETA attacks did not generally target the autonomous police force, the two premeditated assassinations last Friday mark a change in strategy for the terrorist group.

The incidents in Besain stand in contrast to what occurred in Monein in that the Basque police did not intercept the ETA members, but instead were attacked by hooded individuals who approached them from behind and then fled.

ETA was formed in the 1960s in opposition to the Francisco Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) and its main objective has been to create an independent Basque state. The separatist organisation is blamed for the deaths of more than 800 people in the last three decades.

This Thursday the European Parliament approved two terrorism- related proposals from the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU).

One establishes the order to arrest and hand over terrorists anywhere in the EU, without the need for an extradition trial. The other defines the crime of terrorism.

However, the list of terrorist groups and the organisations that back them, as determined by the approved terrorism definition, will not include Batasuna, the political party in Spain that backs and is backed by ETA.

The European parliamentarians proposed to the Justice and Interior ministers of the 15 EU member states to prepare a list of terrorist groups and support organisations, a document that is to be updated periodically.

The list would serve as the basis for justice authorities to freeze bank accounts of suspect individuals or groups and to take other actions against such groups.

Batasuna was not included on the list because it is a legally recognised party in Spain, as defined by an EU justice commission.

In this respect, the ruling Popular Party accepted a proposal by the PSOE to prevent Batasuna from receiving funds from the state’s general budget, which will be approved before the end of the year. The funding for each party is usually based on the proportion of support it has from the electorate.

Efforts to ban Batasuna from the political sphere would take time and would have little effect, say legal experts, because ETA would merely follow its practice of changing the name of its civilian organsations that are threatened with a ban.

That is what happened when judge Baltasar Garzón ordered the arrest of the directorate of Herri Batasuna, the ETA-related party that was renamed Euskal Herritarrok for the autonomous regional elections in May, and which changed again afterwards to Batasuna.

Along those lines, ETA member Juan María Olano, a fugitive from Spanish justice, said in an interview published Wednesday by the daily ‘Gara’ (linked to Batasuna), that the organisation ‘Gestoras pro Amnistía’ would change its name to ‘Hacia Casa’.

The name change comes in response to Garzón’s decision last week to arrest the leaders of ‘Gestoras pro Amnistía’, a group that seeks amnesty for ETA prisoners.

Olano pointed out a new development: ‘Hacia Casa’ (which means ‘heading home’) will have international status as a European organisation so that it can take action in both French and Spanish Basque Country, and in the Spanish autonomous community of Navarra.

This way, says Olano, “we take away Garzón’s power to make us illegal.”

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