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From New Interventions, Vol. 8 No. 1, Summer 1997.
Transcribed by Paul Flewers.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The massive demonstrations against ETA’s killing of a municipal councillor, Miguel Angel Blanco, on 12 July were publicised throughout the world, but little is known about the background to the tragedy. Basque nationalism arose in the 1890s as a reaction to the arrival of immigrants from other parts of Spain, following the development of iron mining and industrialisation. Basque nationalism was explicitly racist, Catholic and reactionary. Its founder, Sabino Arana, saw southerners as atheist, immoral and racially inferior. His solution to the danger he thought this presented to the Basque people was to insulate them from the evil influence of the maketos by encouraging the use of the Basque language, Euskera. Arana’s racism has been attenuated, but has not completely disappeared from the Basque nationalist party (the PNV) which he founded. ETA was established by the PNV’s youth group in 1959, less due to political disagreements than to impatience at the PNV’s lack of resistance to Francoism. ETA has abandoned Arana’s racism, and defines a Basque as someone who identifies with Basque culture and aspirations. In other words, one becomes Basque by becoming nationalist. Thirty-eight years later, many hundreds have died, and nearly 500 ETA members are in prison in Spain, and dozens more in France.
The Spanish government took full advantage of the revulsion against Blanco’s murder, which brought a million people out on demonstrations, a quarter of a million of them in the Basque country (Euskadi). ETA and its political wing, Herri Batasuna, claimed that this was due to political manipulation of the media, and that the demonstrations were merely updated versions of the massive shows of support to Franco organised up to the mid-1970s. Certainly, the media assault was relentless, with normal TV programmes being pushed aside to show endless condemnations of ETA, and the King and Prime Minister rushing to the dead man’s village to get in on the act. However, that analysis was clearly wrong as Egin, the daily newspaper which supports Herri Batasuna, recognised in its issue of 18 July. The government’s success in mobilising demonstrators who were neither Spanish nationalists nor conservatives, showed a rejection of ETA’s action by some of its traditional supporters.
Blanco was neither the first hostage nor political opponent ETA has killed, so why should the event strike such a chord? Almost every young person asked to comment mentioned Blanco’s youth. He was the son of working class immigrants from Galicia in North-western Spain and had a degree from the state university in Bilbao, not from the Jesuit university in Deusto, where the local élite are trained. That background would have suited a Herri Batasuna councillor, although not a moderate nationalist (PNV) one. ETA is explicitly anti-racist, and is proud of its many members who are not ethnically Basque. The killing followed on the police success in freeing a prison warder, Ortega Lara, at the beginning of the month after he had been held captive since January 1996. The press photographs showed an emaciated figure in a deplorable physical and mental state. His cell was compared to Auschwitz, ironically by people whose political forebears were keen on the perpetrators of Auschwitz. On the same day, ETA released another prisoner, the businessman Cosme Delclaux, after payment of a ransom of about £4 million. Delclaux was in excellent physical condition, showing that even in extremity the class system operates.
Ortega Lara had been kidnapped in order to pressure the government into bringing ETA’s prisoners back to serve their sentences in local jails. That is an indication both of how the organisation’s formal demands (independence for the Basque country) are now downplayed, and of a breath-taking political naiveté. ETA could have kept Ortega Lara captive until his beard reached his knees without making any impression on Spain’s rulers. Kidnapping Blanco was a desperate and suicidal reaction to the defeat inflicted by Ortega Lara’s release and the arrest of his kidnappers. ETA gave only two days for the state to begin moving the Basque prisoners nearer home, and there was never any possibility of that happening. Even as people demonstrated, they felt utter despair at the possibility of averting the tragedy. In a final horrific twist, the ETA commando botched Blanco’s killing by shooting him twice, and announcing he was dead. Some hunters heard the shots, and the wounded man was taken to hospital. As both bullets were lodged in his head, little could be done, and he died early the next day.
The main purpose of the government and media campaign was to isolate Herri Batasuna politically, as a prelude to taking legal measures against it. That presents problems for moderate nationalists, who until now have seen that party as a wayward member of the nationalist family. Specifically, there was a media campaign against Herri Batasuna’s elected representatives, especially its mayors. In ethnically Basque areas where no party has an overall majority, the nationalist parties generally choose a nationalist mayor. In Mondragon, where Ortega Lara was held captive, the media campaign led to the moderate nationalist parties removing the Herri Batasuna mayor.
The press campaign attempted to link the left with Herri Batasuna. There is no organised Marxist group in the Basque country, so on the morning of 18 July, I spoke to Maria Luisa Sánchez, the Communist Party (PCE) coordinator for San Sebastian. She explains that her party tries to work in social movements, residents associations, parents groups, etc. The only other party to do so is Herri Batasuna, who are, of course, much larger than the PCE. Should the PCE always oppose the only people who want to do anything? It would be fine if Socialist Party (PSOE) members would participate in social movements, but they don’t. They have a great loyalty to their organisation and remain faithful, although many are sickened by their party’s involvement in corruption. Those who leave are not likely to join the PCE. What about ETA’s prisoners? She told me that it is unconstitutional to keep prisoners so far away from home. Apart from nearly 500 ETA members, there are 2,000 ordinary Basque prisoners who, according to the constitution, should be serving their sentences nearer home. (The PCE is very keen on the constitution, which it was partly instrumental in drawing up.) This seems an eminently reasonable position. I bite my tongue and stop myself asking why she has a picture of Dolores Ibárruri (La Pasionaria) on her wall. The outlook for the PCE seems bleak, as its partners in the United Left electoral alliance begin to desert as the media turns on the pressure.
The left here was not always so weak. Twenty years ago, there were more Trotskyists per head of population here than anywhere else on the planet. In 1973 the leaders of ETA (who became known as ETA VI) joined the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. ETA VI was in fierce competition with a larger group, the Movimiento Comunista, who they themselves had expelled from ETA in 1967. [1] The two groups, by now greatly shrunken, united a few years ago and are now known as Zutik. I called round to get their statement on recent events. To their, credit, they have not surrendered to the prevailing hysteria, although Blanco’s murder puts a terrible strain on their relationship with Herri Batasuna, which they consider is the only substantial radical force.
Zutik does not define itself as Marxist, although some of its members consider themselves to be so. It publishes a journal, Hika, which is concerned with culture, ecology, the Third World and largely defunct or imaginary social movements. There is no group as nice as this on the British left.
Every Friday, the families of ETA prisoners hold a dignified, silent demonstration in San Sebastian. They assemble in the main square carrying placards with their relative’s name or photograph, and parade through the town. It would take a heart of stone not to feel sorry for the mainly elderly participants. The families usually take some time to assemble, as they come from all over the province, so it is generally easy to talk to them. On 18 July, a few days after Blanco’s funeral, they seemed to be late, so I sat down to wait. I asked a group of young people gathered in a corner of the square if they knew if the scheduled demonstration was cancelled, and was told that they did not know. They were perfectly polite (rudeness is not socially acceptable here), but were less communicative than their elders. A bloke addressed them through a megaphone in Euskerra, the Basque language, and I realised this was Jarrai, Herri Batasuna’s youth group, who are portrayed in the press as thugs or as a second division ETA. The young people leave the square, but return 10 minutes later, marching behind a banner and shouting ‘Long Live ETA!’. They disperse quickly, no police are in sight. Jarrai has shown that they are not running for cover.
On 20 July, the following Sunday evening in Zarauz, a pleasant seaside town, the sea front cafés are crowded. Suddenly, a procession of several hundred people emerges and marches along the promenade, shouting slogans in favour of the prisoners. The marchers are mainly, but not overwhelmingly young. Some wear Che Guevara T-shirts, proclaiming Hasta la victoria siempre, but the final victory is not on the current agenda, any more than it is with ETA; the stress is on the prisoners. The march disperses without a police presence or any sign of hostility from bystanders.
After a week, there are definite signs that the government’s attempt to isolate Herri Batasuna socially is flagging. Conservative Basque nationalists know that a resurgent Spanish nationalism will be turned against them. Besides, the idea of socially isolating members of Herri Batasuna is absurd. PNV members have friends and relatives who support that party. Arzallus, the PNV chairman, criticises the government interpretation of the anti-ETA agreement made by the main parties. The way to peace, he declares, lies through dialogue, not through criminalisation of opposing views. At one level, this is simple self-preservation. PNV leaders know that they would not have the degree of autonomy they now enjoy, were it not for ETA’s activities in the past.
The PSOE shows less intelligence, going along with the government’s attempt to blur the distinction between ETA and Herri Batasuna, a legal political party supported by about 12 per cent of the population. Giving extra powers to Franco’s heirs does not seem sensible, but the PSOE is not a free agent. When first elected to office in 1982, it feared a repetition of the military coup attempt of the previous year if it failed to end ETA’s violence. The solution adopted was the creation of GAL, squads of hired mercenaries who murdered ETA sympathisers in France. Creating secret funds for this purpose provided excellent opportunities for embezzlement for some PSOE leaders. As trials proceed and minions inform on their superiors, the finger of suspicion points at Felipe González, who has now resigned as general secretary of the PSOE. It is unlikely, however, that the conservative government will jail him for his services to a unified Spain.
Herri Batasuna called a demonstration for 27 July, demanding that ETA’s prisoners be returned to the Basque country, which was promptly banned. The organisers appealed to the court, declaring it would abide by its decision. When the march was allowed to go ahead, Herri Batasuna told Atutxa, the Basque interior minister, their pet hate, that they would provide stewards, and that there would be no trouble if he kept ‘his boys and girls, whether in uniform or not’ out of the way. The campaign against Herri Batasuna lost momentum when, on 22 July an ETA prisoner, Juan Carlos Hernando, killed himself. It is suggested that the prison authorities, observing his horror at Blanco’s murder, leaned on him to make a declaration attacking ETA, causing him unbearable mental torment. When remission was taken into account, Hernando’s sentence was already completed, so he should already have been free. Herri Batasuna mounted a vigorous campaign alleging that there was a double standard in condemning loss of life according to whether the victim supported the government or not.
On 25 July, at a hamlet not far from the city, I expect my host, a native Basque speaker, to be a model abertzale (patriot) as he has a friend who has been sentenced to 102 years in prison. A ludicrous slogan on a nearby wall proclaims ‘Spaniards! This will be your Vietnam!’, but the young man is less militant than his wife, although she is from the city and a from a culturally Spanish background. I listen with slight surprise as she describes the oppression of the Basque people. I know that members of her family suffered death, imprisonment and exile under Franco, none of it for nationalism, but for socialist and anarchist activities. Her grandfather, whose death sentence had been commuted in 1940, had been the secretary of the socialist UGT during a strike in a ceramics factory. He regarded nationalists as agents of the Vatican, eager to return to the eighteenth century. On our walks he would point out churches as fortresses of reaction and corruption. ‘What can you do while people believe this nonsense?’, he would proclaim, congratulating me for my good fortune in living in an irreligious country. I ponder on the eclipse of his tradition as his granddaughters show me the Basque flags they will be carrying on Sunday’s demonstration.
On 27 July, I waited at the march’s finishing point. There were lots of police vans drawn up in the side streets, but they made no attempt to interfere. The stewarding, much of it by women, was very efficient. The demonstrators might not appear stylish by Barcelona standards, but some are too smart to be at such an event in London. There were lots of young people, but there were also old people, children and even a bloke in an electric wheelchair. The main banners were in Euskera, as were the speeches. There was a large banner in English, but I saw none in Spanish. Everything passed off peacefully, but when the demonstration ended the police blocked the main avenue, and it took some time to get into the narrow streets of the old town, where some demonstrators had retreated. There had been a few arrests and some slight police injuries, and there were some horrible smelling remnants of Molotov cocktails, but that did not interfere with the normal activity of strolling round the bars. The riot police appeared alarming, wearing what looked like paramilitary balaclavas, but turned out to be flameproof metallic masks. The skirmishes had ended, and the police showed no aggression to the general public, apparently being more constrained by political or social pressure than their British counterparts.
Attitudes to nationalism divide many families here. I spoke to Maria Teresa Castells, the sister of one of Herri Batasuna’s lawyers, and the owner of Lagun bookshop, who was imprisoned during Franco’s dictatorship. Last winter, her bookshop suffered two attacks by abertzales. In the first incident, after paint was sprayed over her shop, someone suggested that, as a gesture of solidarity, people should buy the damaged books. Now, for many people, a paint-sprayed book is a valued possession. On the second attack, the assailants dragged part of the stock out to the square and set fire to it. Maria Teresa is a genuinely moderate, principled, person, and seems sceptical that the people who once approved of her persecution now support democracy. It is unlikely that the book-burners would know of her anti-Franco record.
As the peace campaign winds down, the politicians resume their disagreements. Only one person, Gerry Adams, whose autobiography has just been published here, is above criticism. Herri Batasuna sees his strategy as an example of the success of combining armed and political struggle. When the Madrid government is prepared to negotiate, as the British government now seems to be doing, the nationalist response will be as generous as Sinn Fein’s. Adams is also lavishly praised by mainstream politicians, leader writers and academics for negotiating the IRA’s cease-fire. They ask why neither ETA nor Herri Batasuna has produced a leader of similar stature. Why don’t they fly him in to mediate, perhaps accompanied by Mother Theresa?
The Irish cause is very popular with Herri Batasuna supporters. Irish music plays in my local Herriko Taberna, and there is a petition to sign protesting against the chaining of Roisin McAliskey while pregnant. The two struggles are seen as parallel, and there are indeed a number of similarities. Both movements have broad support, making absurd the common allegation that their activists are isolated lunatics. Neither can be crushed by military action, and neither imagines it can inflict a military defeat on the ruling state. ETA, like the IRA, has put its ultimate demands on the back burner, as it concentrates on the issue of the prisoners. Both movements were once strongly Catholic, but ETA has moved much further away from Catholicism than the IRA is ever likely to. There are, however, important differences, notably the absence of a religious divide. Although ETA’s support still comes predominantly from Basque-speaking areas, support for ETA, and identification with either Euskadi or Spain, can and does split families. Half of the population is of immigrant (from elsewhere in Spain) or partly immigrant origin. Ethnic Basques are more likely to be better off than ‘Spaniards’.
One of the most disappointing aspects of the present situation is the role of the peace groups which were formed in the 1980s by small groups of people, of whom some had relatives killed by ETA. One, the Association for Peace in the Basque Country, adopted a very limited platform. Whenever someone was killed, no matter by whom, it held a silent assembly. It was thought that taking more specific stances would split the movement. The government and the mainstream political parties were largely indifferent to such movements, disliking anything which they did not control, and not seeing all deaths as equal. Herri Batasuna was extremely hostile at the equation of freedom fighters and members of the state’s repressive forces. The pacifists were presented, quite unfairly, as just another arm of the government. When a Basque industrialist was kidnapped by ETA, people took to wearing a blue ribbon as a sign of solidarity with him. This caught on, arousing the anger of Herri Batasuna, which alleged that the ribbon wearers were covering up for state violence. The peace movement was unable to develop a strategy, and it lacked the political skill to disengage from the politicians’ embrace. Now, in a sad conclusion marking the movement’s loss of independence, the government has issued a postage stamp bearing the blue ribbon. The main peace movement would now appear to accept state violence, but that outcome was not inevitable.
The most promising attempt to break the deadlock comes from Elkarri, a peace movement which has emerged from the abertzale milieu. Elkarri accepts the objective of Basque independence, but believes that the armed struggle has reached a dead-end, and that the way forward lies through discussion involving all parties. ETA and Herri Batasuna have a very ambivalent attitude to Elkarri, respecting its origin in the nationalist movement and its roots in the community. Yet a call for dialogue of all concerned challenges ETA’s hierarchical concepts. ETA would rather negotiate directly with the Spanish government, as it did in the 1980s. The main Spanish parties’ attitudes to the common people mirror those of ETA. The idea that anyone but themselves should be called to do anything but vote, or demonstrate when requested, appears absurd to them.
The Spanish government sometimes suggests that ETA will soon be crushed. More often it speaks of a fairly long-drawn-out operation, but this is seen as a police, not a political, measure. It is true, of course, that ETA has been defeated just as the IRA has, in that its main objectives are postponed to an indefinite future. Undoubtedly, there are differences within ETA which would sharpen if the state offered concessions in return for a truce. However, it is not in the interest of the present conservative government to do so. At present, anger against ETA strengthens the government’s position, at least outside the Basque country. If that continues, the Partido Popular (the ruling conservative party) can hope to call an election, and win an overall majority in parliament, thus freeing it from reliance on its Basque nationalist and Catalan allies. If that happens, the consequences for the working class everywhere in Spain would be disastrous. If the government were to succeed in criminalising Herri Batasuna, that would be a prelude to attacking the left, and clawing back many of the concessions which were made after Franco’s death. Socialists will have to fight to defend Herri Batasuna’s democratic rights. To be successful, they will have to win over many of those who, carried away by the horror of Blanco’s murder, have supported the government. It would be quite wrong to conclude that most of them are lost to democratic politics.
1. I deal with this at more length in my ETA and Basque Nationalism (Routledge 1988).
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