ETA's offer of truce convinces no-one

Wednesday, 08 September 2010 13:13

Written by Editor

Spain cannot trust the truce announced by Basque separatist group ETA according to interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba. ETA released its offer through the BBC around midday on Sunday. On Monday Snr Rubalcaba said Spain could not trust the anouncement and would continue to hunt down ETA members.

He confirmed that the government is not in talks with ETA, which has killed more than 850 people in half a century. He said that it was not enough for ETA to call a halt to armed attacks and urged the organisation to renounce violence once and for all. ETA has broken ceasefires before - notably in 2006 with the attack on Madrid airport.

In the video, three hooded ETA fighters are sat behind a desk with the ETA flag pinned up behind them. The figure in the middle – a woman – read out a prepared statement defending the campaign of violence, but said the group now wanted to achieve its aims by peaceful, democratic means:
"ETA confirms its commitment to finding a democratic solution to the conflict (...) ETA is prepared today as yesterday to agree to the minimum democratic conditions necessary to put in motion a democratic process, if the Spanish government is willing.”

The statement adds that ETA "took the decision several months ago not to carry out armed actions", and ends saying: "We call on all Basque citizens to continue in the struggle, each in their own field, with whatever degree of commitment they have, so that we can all cast down the wall of denial and make irreversible moves forward on the road to freedom."

The group has called two ceasefires in the past, but abandoned them both and it is unclear whether the latest is meant as a permanent or temporary move. Basque interior minister Rodolfo Ares called the statement "insufficient", while deputy premier Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said the only statement the government wanted to hear was that the group had laid down its arms and abandoned violence forever.

This latest announcement comes after the arrests of most of the group's leaders by the French and Spanish police and during an unprecedented period of debate within the Basque nationalist community, which has been calling on ETA to make peace and join the democratic process.

However, most political observers suspect that the latest statement is just another ploy to help its sympathisers to take part in next May's local elections. Both the Madrid and the Basque regional government are determined not to allow this without a firm commitment from ETA to disarm. Some observers say that ETA will return to its violent tactics as soon as it becomes obvious that the ploy has failed.

But others hope that ETA really means it this time. Since ETA was founded in 1959 with the objective of obtaining independence for the seven regions in northern Spain and south-west France that Basque separatists claim as their own, it has been responsible for the deaths of more than 850 people.