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Eta now ready to give up the gun

Alfonso Daniels

Hopes are rising for an end to four decades of guerrilla war, but Basque militants still want a separate state.

A FUNERAL procession makes its way across the cemetery in the rain, saluted by hundreds of mourners with raised fists. Igor, Igor, herriak ez du barkatuko (the people won't forgive), they yell in Basque to the coffin.

The graveyard in a grey, working-class suburb of Santurtzi, in the Bizkaia province of Spain's Basque region, is surrounded by riot police. The suicide of Igor Angulo, one of two members of the separatist group Eta to die recently in Spanish prisons, has ignited a wave of unrest not seen for years, which culminated in last week's general strike called by Batasuna, the outlawed political wing of Eta.

Last month, Eta issued a communiqué calling for dialogue and negotiation with the Government in Madrid, saying this was the only way forward. Now Eta — responsible for more than 800 deaths in a four-decade struggle to create an independent Basque state — is ready to announce a historic "cessation of hostilities" before the summer, paving the way for a peace process that some believe could lead to the independence of the Basque region and the break-up of Spain.

Eta has not carried out any killings for more than 1,000 days, and it appears to be waiting for Madrid's clarification of the political process that would follow a ceasefire announcement.

Sources say progress is well advanced towards setting up a forum in which regional parties, including Batasuna, would thrash out a new political framework for the Basque region, which already enjoys substantial autonomy.

Yet the window of opportunity is small. Batasuna needs to take part legally in next year's municipal elections to maximise its leverage in future peace talks. By then the Spanish Government would have to have verified that the violence really has ended. Also, the entire process could be derailed following a recent spate of Eta bombings designed, according to most observers, to demonstrate its strength ahead of talks.

A key figure in the attempts to prevent the peace process from collapsing is an Irish Catholic priest, Alec Reid, who played a crucial role in the negotiations ahead of the IRA ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement about Northern Ireland. "We're witnessing the equivalent of plane turbulence, almost inevitable when you're moving towards a resolution," said Mr. Reid, sipping coffee in a Bilbao hotel near the Guggenheim Museum. "We cannot miss this historic opportunity to achieve peace, but Eta won't buy a pig in a poke. It needs to know how the political negotiating table will look, who'll participate, how will voting take place, will the Spanish Government accept the outcome — then they need to know when it will happen. Once all this is made public, Eta will stop."

Critics are unconvinced that Eta-Batasuna will reach a compromise, despite Batasuna's commitment in November 2004 to "exclusively use political and democratic means to search for a democratic solution," which was backed by Eta.

Nowhere are the difficulties more obvious than in the town of Etxarri-Aranatz, population 2,500, a haven for Eta members in the mountainous Navarre region bordering the Basque country. An ikurrina (Basque flag) dominates the main street. A middle-aged man, who did not wish to be named, explained how, a few years ago, 200 townspeople decided to demonstrate against Eta killings. Intimidation soon cut their number to less than a dozen.

One house bears a large symbol of Eta. It belonged to the former mayor, killed by Eta in 1977. One of his murderers was later named an honorary citizen, a moment recalled joyfully by the present mayor, Juan Bautista, 32, whose brother was jailed for killing a Socialist politician and is one of five local Eta members still in prison. "He, like us, would appear like idiots if Eta gave up the struggle without achieving our objectives. Why then would we have suffered so much?"

In a bar covered with Eta posters the owner, Benito Carasatorre, 37, says: "We're hopeful that there'll be a ceasefire. We're tired of saying we want to talk even as the Civil Guards pressure us and the government jails our relatives and friends hundreds of kilometres away."

One young customer says: "We'll never give up our struggle in return for becoming another province in a federal Spain. Otherwise the war will continue." —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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