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To understand the Basque Conflict , some historic notes.

A nationalist conflict cannot be understood unless it is put into context. In the Basque case this context goes back to ancient times, as a millenarian culture fighting against various invasions and oppressions: the Romans, the Visigoths, the Moors, the Francs until the remaining occupation by the kingdom of Spain and France (currently Republic).

by M. Mantxo

Basque nationalism took shape at the end of the 19th century under the figure of Sabino Arana, who funded the EAJ-PNV, a party reclaiming Basque sovereignty but based on Catholicism. Euskal Herria (the Basque Country) in the gulf of Viscay (one of the provinces) was the first area of Spain to adopt the British industrial revolution after the arrival of British sailors in search of coal and steel. Industries soon developed next to the mines and workers from all over Euskal Herria and Spain emigrated there in search of better prospects.
This was the area of Bilbo (Bilbao), one of the main steel areas of Spain until the steel works were closed by the PSOE (socialist? yeah, right) government in 1993. From this same area came one of the most powerful communist leaders of this era: Dolores Ibarruri, "La Pasionaria" whose name indicated the passion of her speeches.

At the time of the second Spanish Republic in the 1930's, the EAJ-PNV was a force to be reckoned with. Spain was coming to terms with nationalism. The last colony in North America, Cuba, was lost in 1898, but the republic was still involved in a colonialist war in Morocco and controlled other areas of Africa. Here was where the future dictator, Franco, launched his attack against the Republic, and the civil war began. At this time Basque nationalism was timidly taking shape on the French side, with a group known as Aintzina.
Before the military uprising, the Republic granted Catalunya autonomy and the Generalitat was founded. Basque autonomy was under way, but for the military, the division of the country, the new powers that workers were gaining, the attacks against the establishment, etc, were too much and so an uprising was organised. The uprising wasn't supported in all the cities, and as some generals were loyal to the Republic, this didn't succeed and provoked a civil war.

Euskal Herria at this time was already divided as it is now, by the Spanish-French border and as Navarre and Vascongadas on the Spanish side. Navarre was already closer to Spanish conservatism as was the other southern Basque province of Araba. The general of the capital, Iruna-Pamplona, backed the fascists and mobilised conscripts to fight the republicans. In Gasteiz (Vitoria / Araba) a similar thing happened.
On the Basque side the republicans were essentially communists, anarchists and Basque nationalists. However, at the time everyone was fighting the fascists the Basque nationalists were more worried about organising their new government. The republican Basque army "Gudaris" tried to stop the fascist advance from their southern dominion: Nafarroa (Navarre) and Araba.

It was during the civil war while helping the Spanish army that Hitler's Condor Legion (training for World War Two) bombed the cities of Durango and Gernika in Euskal Herria. This was the first time civil populations had been bombed from aeroplanes. The city of Gernika, the ancient sacred place of the Basques where the chieftains of the different tribes gathered, was destroyed. It was this bombing that inspired Picasso to paint one of his most powerful anti-war paintings.
As a result of the war, about 50,000 Basques were killed (21,500 executed by 1939 but the executions continued) and 150,000 fled the country. 70% of the population was tragically affected.
Euskal Herria, like the rest of the republican areas came under control of the fascists, and so began a new era of Spanish fascism, prohibiting any cultural differences within the country. Banning the language, symbols, culture and traditions as well as all the political parties. This dictatorship continued from 1939 until 1975.

For Franco, the concept of Spain was indisputable. The Bull Skin, as Spain is known due to its shape, couldn't be complete without the area of the west Pyrenees. This was a continuation of Spanish Imperialism where the last massive empire (called "the Empire where the sun never sets") was (is) remembered with nostalgia.
Many of those Basques who fought the fascists crossed the French border. Once there their misfortunes continued. By that time the French Basque side had already been invaded by the Germans with little opposition.

French Basques joined the ORA (the French Army's Resistance Organisation). Those who came from Spain immediately ended up in concentration camps sited in Hendaya and Pau. Others continued their anti-fascist resistance, sometimes joining partisan groups but in most of cases conserving their structures and carrying out guerrilla warfare. Others were exiled to the other side of the ocean, Latin America and the States, where many of them were to join the US Secret Services.
However, their dream of liberating Euskal Herria from the fascists' claws was betrayed when the allies‚ struggle ended at the Pyrenees: they didn't bother fighting Franco. It was at this point that some other Basque and Spanish revolutionaries brought guerrilla warfare - namely the Maquis - inside the Spanish border, entering Navarre. There, isolated from the population and without military support, the Maquis were not capable of bringing down the Francoist regime and their struggle was relinquished around 1952. The fascist State tried to hide this resistance by any means, therefore the figures of activity are very vague. However, the best research on the subject estimates a total of 2,500 dead Maquis and 500 fascist deaths across the whole country. About 900 people died after the guerilla activity stopped.

In the 1960s a new generation of Basques had had enough of the military and cultural oppression and began to organise themselves. At the time, the only active Basque group was EAJ-PNV, but it was in exile and had adopted a comfortable position. ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna / Basque Country & Freedom) was born as both a political and military front at a time when other guerrilla movements were fighting against US imperialism in Latin America, Africa and Vietnam.
ETA's actions weren't as sophisticated and lethal as they are nowadays, but included a wide range of aspects such as murals, graffiti, sabotage by way of flying the ikurrina (the Basque flag) in church towers, organising demonstrations and leafleting. This was all brutally repressed, but in a very clandestine way. Support for ETA quickly grew, as it was the only organisation addressing Basque demands. Soon ETA was the only group fighting the dictatorship - with damaging results.
The organisations first actions were directly focused on men at the top of the military regime. In 1968 the ETA activist Txabi Txebarrieta was killed by the police. A few days after ETA killed the torturer police chief, Melitón Manzanas. In 1973, ETA made one of its best strikes by killing the military official named by Franco as his successor - Almirante Carrero Blanco. The group managed to bomb his car in Madrid, launching it through the air over a block of flats.
The late 60s were heavy with the spirit of revolt taking place around the world. Resistance against the dictatorship increased - and so did the repression. In both 1969 and 1970 curfews were declared. Both the police and fascist gangs terrorised anti-dictatorship activists. In 1969 in Euskal Herria 1,953 people were arrested and 300 had to flee the country. In 1970 there were 1,500 strikes in the Spanish State.

In 1970 the Burgos process, where 17 Basques were accused of belonging to ETA and faced execution, turned into an international case and received great publicity. The 17 finally got amnesty. However in 1975 the agonising Francoist regime carried out the execution by fire-squad of ETA members Txiki and Otegi and three FRAP members. The death penalty was abolished in 1979, as a way of showing "good faith".

At this time of thriving political change, defying all kinds of repression and threats, new social and political challenges were added to the agenda. At this time workers were becoming organised in trade unions. The Co-operative of Mondragon-Arrasate was founded, a world-famous great example of co-operativism (which is now more like another big multinational).

In 1976 workers in Gasteiz (Vitoria) put anarchism into practice from the workplace, taking over other spaces of social and political life, becoming a huge movement in the city. In a demonstration on March 5th 1976, the police killed 5 workers and injured over 70. For the workers the lesson was clear: workers can achieve power but the establishment and government can destroy it with their weapons of the police and army.
At the time of the massacre only ETA (and in the rest of the state FRAP and GRAPO ) were involved in armed struggle, but from 1975 a new group started operating in Euskal Herria: the Autonomous Anti- capitalist Commandos. Strictly autonomous and refusing ETA's hierarchy and militarism, the AAC stood for workers who organised from the factories via "cells". The group was very active during the 70s and 80s, and considered itself a Basque organisation that included independence among its anti-capitalist demands.

In 1975 Franco died, but not before training the exiled son of the Spanish king, Juan Carlos, as his successor. When Juan Carlos took over, there was pressure from the US and other countries to turn Spain into a parliamentarian democracy. In other words, a dictatorship camouflaged by democratic clothes. Still, in 1981 one of Franco's generals and the king's tutor, General Armada, organised a frustrated coup-d'etat led by General Tejero. Despite the king's obvious connections, he was portrayed as saviour of the "democracy" by making a stand against the coup d'etat.

Suddenly all the political parties in exile, from socialists and communists, to Basque and Catalonian nationalists came back to the country to provide the new democracy with the plurality needed to justify its name. Euskal Herria had been the point of highest opposition and struggle against the regime; however, the idea of the new democracy was not to concede anything to Basque demands but merely to offer so-called autonomy as a continuation of the regionalism established by Franco. The Spanish state gained the support of the EAJ-PNV Basque nationalists, who became the major force in the Basque provinces, backing any Spanish government from there on. For ETA this was poor reward for all their struggle and suffering: militants killed, executed, tortured, imprisoned, exiled, etc. So the organisation continued with its campaign and politics. As previously stressed, current issues can't be divorced from history.

Under the new democracy, political parties were permitted again, and a new party brought to the political arena the demands that ETA was pursuing through armed struggle: Herri Batasuna (HB). Freedom of information was also established: and Egin, a new daily newspaper, filled the gap for the demands of the national liberation movement and the social and revolutionary demands that magazines such as Punto y Hora featured on a basic level. Trade unions were also permitted, and so new unions were created with an important nationalist component. The Basque language was no longer illegal, and schools began educating children in Basque/ Euskera. It could be listened to on the radio (Herri Irratia, Euskadi Irratia, Egin Irratia) or even on a television channel (ETB). Schools for adults (euskaltegiak) also began enrolling people in Basque courses.
While this happened within the Spanish border, on the side under French control the Basque provinces weren't even considered to be part of a district - the West Pyrenees - and the Basque language, culture and identity was not acknowledged. French Basque schools had to be funded by the people themselves - as well as paying their taxes - because the French government wouldn't include the language in their official education programme. In 1970, the French Prime Minister Pompidou banned the Basque party Embata, which at the time was just about to get legal acknowledgement for the French Basque Country as a department (French regional division).

Since the beginning of this so-called democracy only one method of solving the Basque "problem" was understood by the Spanish government: repression. The remaining Francoist police and military forces continued some of their methods. In 1983 the new PSOE government passed the ZEN Plan (Special Northern Zone Plan) proposing special repression for the Basques. In 1988 an Anti-Terrorist Law was implemented. Like similar laws in the UK and elsewhere, this simply provided the repression forces with more possibilities for arresting, keeping in isolation and torturing whoever they suspected of belonging to ETA - regardless of evidence.

In the 80s a political group formed on the French side, Iparretarrakl (the Northern Ones), and started the armed struggle in that area, too, using ETA's methods against the French state. Iparretarrak is not currently active but it still has members in prison.
Also during the 80s the Spanish government launched a secret and illegal war against Basque refugees in the Basque Countries. The government used public police funding to pay mercenaries who killed more than 30 people in the French state. Its name was GAL (Liberation Anti-Terrorist Group). Basically, the government decided to implement the same methods used by ETA to terrorize and murder Basque activists. Thus the "democracy" found a method of claiming not to use repression whilst shooting people indiscriminately and ignoring the courts. Eventually GAL members were themselves arrested and "exposed" as being mercenaries and policemen taking orders from the director of the Guardia Civil, generals, and even the Minister of the Interior. The president of that time, Felipe González Márquez, avoided the courts by using his exemption right as president of the country.
All of this resistance could not be undertaken without the support of the many ordinary Basque citizens, involved in many aspects of society from community activists to internationalists, drugs activists, feminists, environmentalists, etc. We have to remember that Euskal Herria on the Spanish side went through the hardship of the dictatorship. This means no welfare system as we understand it here in Britain. So many of the social demands that state institutions have taken on (community centres, dole, housing, social workers, detox, etc.) have to be addressed by people themselves and they are also part of the political agenda.
Among the major civil struggles was the campaign to close the power station of Lemoiz, inspired by concerns for the environment in general, but also by a nationalist concern of defending environment and land. The massive demos and people's actions included sabotage, non-payment of electricity bills, as well as workers‚ actions in docks, factories and other electricity plants. These actions were combined with armed struggle from ETA and Comandos Autonomos, blowing up electricity stations and petrol bombing company offices. Recorded actions amount to more than one hundred.

For the first time in the Basque people's struggle it was clear that due to the persistence of Basque people inspired by national awareness, the Spanish government would behave in an even more draconian way in a bid to enforce its agenda. This has been repeated in other struggles such as the ongoing one of the Itoitz dam and the struggle of the Leizaran motorway. The struggle against Lemoitz power station escalated in such a way that ETA even killed three people related to the electricity company and nuclear industry. The result was the closure of the power station forever.
Lemoitz means many things in Euskal Herria. Firstly, it was a test of people's power against the system - not only against the Spanish government but also the multinationals (Iberduero, now Iberdrola - check out their mega-destruction plans in Chile: Bio Bio dams) and U$ American capital. Secondly, it created a political awareness of environmental issues from a nationalist perspective. Lemoitz represented Spanish oppression of all areas of Basque life.
The fact that mega-projects are imposed everywhere regardless of the damage they cause and how they affect people, it was now evident that in Euskal Herria the Spanish government faced opposition with a particular stubbornness. It saw environmental opposition not just as "political awareness" but as another problem caused by those rebel Basques. Consequently the environmental arguments could be ignored as they had been happened for more than ten years with the Itoitz dam project, until a European institution came along saying that the project was fucking crazy and a huge environmental and human hazard. Until that happened, the State confronted environmental activists with the same hardship and repression as it had separatist activists.
In 1986 another political campaign linked the national feeling with issues such as imperialism and militarism: the anti-NATO campaign. In this year the PSOE government organised a referendum (very democratic!) to decide on Spain's entry in NATO. Once again in Euskal Herria the opposition was massive: 830,596 against versus 435,056 for (Nafarroa-Navarre: 133,563 against versus 99,273 for). Once again, via this referendum, Basques objected to their lack of independence in the face of the imposition of an issue they were very much opposed to.
In the late 80s another movement linked with militarism achieved massive support: Insumisioa (Non- submision). Young Basques forced into conscription to the Spanish army refuse to do so, many going to prison (this happened in the French side but not on such a great level). While the main aim was anti-militarism, obviously nationalism (at least because of the political sensitivity resulting from the conflict) had some influence.
In 198? there was an attempt at negotiations, which were to take place in Algeria. However, ETA's spokesperson, Txomin Iturbe, died in suspicious circumstances, and the negotiations were aborted by the Spanish government. ETA continued with its military campaign, with many people killed and the Spanish government and repressive forces playing the parliamentary democracy card: tough but sophisticated and well hidden.
Repression with tear gas and rubber bullets (and sometimes real bullets) were used against demonstrators. Undetermined detentions, imprisonment and torture were common practices. After the scandal of the paramilitary groups (GAL) the number of people killed by the security forces was reduced, the government abandoned these tactics in order to achieve a better public image. Thereafter the state played the role of victim, where they were the ones being targeted. Utter bollocks: even if those of us with different political views don't support it, the armed struggle, as shown in this text, is a continuation of a series of situations, problems and patterns that have never been addressed and never solved, despite the supposed moderation used.
In 1997 the Spanish government imprisoned the whole HB leadership - 23 MPs, imprisoned without sentence. This was known as the 18/98 case, the same case which covered the closure of Egin newspaper in 1998; the same case where the Spanish government launched its repression of the Basque social movements over the last three years.

And so to 1998. This was the period of the Northern Ireland peace process, the peace process in Palestine, and the end of the fascist regime of apartheid in South Africa - time of hope for Basques and their conflict. They were wrong. The Spanish president stated: "I admire what Tony Blair has done in Northern Ireland but the Basque conflict is something different". During this year things turned around in Basque politics - but not enough. PP took over the government after all the PSOE's corruption cases and the GAL scandal. Before now, the Spanish political parties (conservative PP and social-democrats PSOE - like Tories and Labour), especially PP, haven't been popular in Euskal Herria, but now they've started to grow in numbers. The other parties refer to this as the "spanification" of Euskal Herria. The Basque parliamentarian party, PNV, which is always behind the other Spanish main parties, decided to change its politics and follow the path already taken by its trade-union (ELA) with the Basque radical union (LAB), and get together with the Basque radicals and other Basque centre and left parties. ETA, too, decided to leave the political initiative in the people's hands and announced a cease-fire that lasted fourteen months, from November 1998 to December 1999.
This period of cease-fire was never acknowledged by the Spanish government who wanted ETA's surrender without conditions. Meanwhile it carried on the same repression as before. These fourteen months represent the most thriving and inspiring period in Basque politics, with people really up for change, for building together and for putting the political project into material terms.
But the Spanish government ignored all the demands. The massive demonstrations demanding the return of the more than 500 Basque prisoners to Euskal Herria, and even independence, were backed unanimously by parties who had the majority of the Basque votes. The same happened with new unofficial institutions such as Udalbintza or the network of Basque councils formed in 1999. Demands such as the logical and humane one of regrouping Basque prisoners in Euskal Herria and the end of dispersion were also ignored, whilst more activists and supporters were imprisoned, tortured or killed. The so-called cease-fire was never a real one as the Spanish state never agreed to it. Instead, they made it clear that in Euskal Herria things would not change any more than they have done during this fake democracy.
The Spanish government destroyed the hopes of many Basques who never supported the armed struggle but who saw for the first time a possibility of peacefully solving the conflict. The Spanish government destroyed the hopes of many who had supported the armed struggle as the only method of combating state repression, but who were tired of suffering the consequences and now looked to a peace process to solve the situation. The Spanish government destroyed the hopes of those who thought the problem in the Basque Country was ETA. The Spanish government also destroyed the hope of many who still believed and held faith in the institutions and political parties (bless).
And where were all the newspapers, who were so worried about the Basque conflict, as apparently the only problem Basques have is ETA's killings? Being docile lambs who just follow the word of the Spanish government, they ignored the repression too. It's very easy to make headlines of killings and funerals but not so easy to discuss people's political process against the powers of political parties and multinationals. The media plays the same game ETA does - for ETA the war is the only means they have to demonstrate in Spain and world wide that they're still up for the fight and that they're still strong. It is their only way of showing that there is still a conflict to be solved.