POLITICS-SPAIN: Legal Moves to Ban Basque Party’s Operations

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Aug 26 2002 (IPS) - Spain’s investigative judge Baltasar Garzón ordered a halt to activities of the Batasuna party, considered the political arm of the illegal separatist organisation ETA, while Parliament’s lower house, voted overwhelmingly to begin Supreme Court proceedings to make the party illegal.

The prosecuting attorney for the case, Jesús Santos, described Batasuna as “an instrument of ETA” (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, ‘Basque Fatherland and Freedom’ in the Basque language), and urged Garzón to take the decision to halt the party’s operations as an “essential move to stop the supply of funds that facilitate the perpetration of new terrorist attacks.”

The Congress of Deputies, meanwhile, voted 295 to 10, with 29 abstentions, to petition the government of centre-right Prime Minister José María Aznar to begin the legal process towards banning Batasuna.

Garzón, applying the anti-terrorism articles of Spain’s Penal Code that were approved by Parliament in June, ordered the suspension of Batasuna activities for five years, the maximum allowed by law, and intervention in party bank accounts, closure of its offices and even a ban on its use of the Internet.

Earlier Monday, the judge questioned police inspectors who had signed the reports that link Batasuna to ETA in order to confirm data and to expand on other evidence.

Batasuna’s legal team objected to the suspension, saying Garzón does not have the authority to issue such an order.

Meanwhile, Batasuna spokesman Arnaldo Otegui said that he and other party activists will remain at the party offices, located in Basque Country and Navarra, and have no intention of leaving.

An official of the Ertzainza police, which answers to the Basque autonomous government, assured that the force would comply with the judge’s orders. Almost at the same time, in the Basque city of San Sebastián, near the French border, four hooded individuals set a bus on fire after forcing the passengers to disembark.

Garzón’s order does not affect the parliamentarians, city councillors or individuals in other elected posts belonging to Batasuna. They will be able to serve out their terms, but may not act in name of the party, which is now banned from organising political rallies or other public events.

The Congress of Deputies, meeting in Madrid for a special session called in the middle of summer break, engaged in heated debate before voting on the bill presented by the governing Popular Party (PP) and the leading opposition force, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE).

Of the 350 members of the lower house, 334 were in attendance, and the only ones to vote against the initiative were the representatives of the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and its offshoot, Eusko Alkartasuna, the Republican Left of Catalonia and the Catalonian Left.

Abstaining were 15 lawmakers from Convergencia I Unió, the governing coalition of Catalonia, eight from the communist-led United Left, three from the Galician Nationalist Bloc and one from the Aragon Junta.

Batasuna did not win enough votes in the last elections to obtain a seat in the national Congress of Deputies.

However, it does have a presence in the parliament of the Basque autonomous region, and can be a determining factor when a majority is needed, either allowing or preventing approval of laws proposed by the region’s ruling coalition, an alliance of the PNV, Eusko Alkartasuna and the United Left.

The PNV and Eusko Alkartasuna, which consistently condemn ETA and its attacks on the civilian population, voted against banning the party, saying the move is a violation of democratic freedoms, considering that more than 140,000 people, or 10 percent of the electorate, voted for Batasuna in the last elections.

But the PP and the PSOE consider it “proven” that Batasuna is “the political arm” of ETA, a group that emerged in the final decade of the Francisco Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) and continues to perpetrate attacks, gunning down politicians and detonating car-bombs.

The PP-PSOE stance has the support of Mario Onaindía, a former member of ETA condemned to death under the Franco regime but later pardoned due to international pressure. He is now president of the PSOE in the Basque province of Alava.

Onaindía says “ETA is the armed vanguard and Batasuna, along with other social and political organisations, is the civilian rearguard that serves as a cover for the terrorists and which carry out the necessary tasks to ensure that ETA continues existing.”

Among the activities Onaindía mentions, in an article published Monday by the Madrid daily El Mundo, these groups collect the so- called “revolutionary tax” from local businesses and provide information on potential targets.

The revolutionary tax is a form of extortion, paid by companies and wealthy families on a monthly basis as “insurance” to prevent ETA attacks against them or their property.

The potential ban on the Batasuna party is based on a law passed in June which establishes that a political organisation may be made illegal if its actions run counter to democratic principles.

These include: systematically endangering citizens’ basic rights; fomenting, encouraging or legitimising violence as a means for achieving political objectives; and complementing and supporting the actions of terrorist organisations.

Judge Garzón’s order takes immediate effect, though Batasuna’s lawyers may launch an appeal through the courts.