Basques unite against Spanish State repression
There has been a massive response to the arrest by the Spanish police of left wing, Basque nationalist, political activists, Arnaldo Otegi, Rafa Díez, Rufi Etxeberria, Sonia Jacinto, Arkaitz Rodriguez, Manel Serra, Amaia Esnal, Txelui Moreno, Miren Zabaleta and Ainara Oiz.
There were spontaneous protests and demonstrations by hundreds of members of the LAB Trade Union at several different locations in the Basque Country when the public learned about the arrests
The majority of Basque political and social sectors. Including ELA, Aralar, EA, AB, and also the president of GBB, Joseba Egibar, made a joint statement which expressed their belief that the police operation intended to suppress a leftwing nationalist movement and even said that the State is acting with evil intent to avoid a new stage in Basque Nationalism.
The ELA Trade Union issued a statement which claims that “those who have decided the arrests of political leaders of left-wing nationalism has acted in response to political impulses and do not want a solution, do not want to go through the necessary road to find a solution to political conflict.
ELA Trade Union, general secretary, Adolfo Muñoz, and said on Radio Euskadi that “while noting” the efforts and commitment of those currently detained and, therefore, labeled the police operation as “very bad news. He also recalled that it is unusual for a government to arrest those who opt for political means, and said not find a similar example in the world.
Munoz said that “it appears that the powers of state are more comfortable with the current impasse and no way out. We do not agree. One must ask: What does the State intend to reinforce these arrests? It is a provocation, when with performances like these, the state arrests people who have expressed their commitment to civil means? “.
In this situation, ELA encouraged, basques to follow that path. it is essential. it is the desire of the majority of Basque society. This is precisely the way that most bothers the State and those who have taken it for granted that the status of current polarization on the violence has no alternative. “
ELA concluded by showing solidarity with the detainees and announcing that “it is taken for questioned, first because of the gravity of the situation and, secondly, to share the cry of complaint that this situation requires.
ELA, Aralar, EA, AB, and also the president of GBB, Joseba Egibar, have expressed their belief that the police operation intended to avoid a leftwing nationalist movement and even said that the State is acting with evil intent to avoid a new stage in Euskal Herria.
Aralar deputy coordinator, Jon Abril, appeared before the media, accompanied by other party leaders to join forces in the complaint against the raid.
Abril asked “what is behind this police operation? it is more necessary than ever to the policy, and for that, we must guarantee the political participation of all people and all ideas. These arrests violate the most fundamental rights, against democracy itself: It is against the right to participate in politics, against civil and political rights, against a solution through politics. ”
The Eusko Alkartasuna Executive met yesterday to discuss the situation created by the arrests and also announced an extraordinary National Assembly of the membership to discuss the situation and to identify initiatives to be carried out.
Eusko Alkartasuna communications secretary, Ikerne Badiola, described the raid as “dirty tricks” of the Spanish State and noted that the objective of these policies and judicial decisions is an attack directly against the union of nationalist forces, but said that “despite this, EA will step up efforts to agree a strategy with all nationalist forces in order to push for peaceful means a sovereign process.”
The moderate nationalist party EAJ-PNV spokesman in Parliament Joseba Egibar showed that they have similar concerns to the left-wing nationalists yesterday, on Radio Euskadi, he did not hesitate to say that those who are behind this operation “do not want ETA to disappear.” In his view, “the crackdown aims to prevent the normalization of the political life of Euskal Herria because, in his view, they have arrested people who have opted for peaceful means rather than by ‘armed struggle’.
According Egibar, the position of detained leaders is known and “if you know that all these people are betting on these political channels, it is clear that they are not asking to join ETA to continue the armed struggle, but quite the opposite.”
The president of the EAJ-PNV, Iñigo Urkullu, offered different reasons , he is wondering if the raid has been ordered by Judge Baltasar Garzon to divert attention from his own personal issues because there have been allegations made against the judge for neglect of duty.
Urkullu called for respect for due process of detainees and expressed the hope that LAB “is not involved” in the case “no matter how the arrests have taken place at its headquarters.
Batasuna Abertzaleen also denounced “strongly” arrests, and wondered if he really wants to give Madrid a political solution to conflict, if all those who seek to organize politically for the government are criminals Span-ish and if the Executive really all you should ideas are present in the debate.
The echoes of the Spanish Government’s actions went beyond borders and Sinn Féin MEP, Bairbre de Brún, has defended the need to revive the Basque peace process “and that” the outlawing of Batasuna, along with continued imprisonment political representatives, does not help in this effort in any way.
According to Sinn Féin, “The arrest by the Spanish Government of Arnaldo Otegi Batasuna leader with nine other members of the party is a step back and make more difficult the reconstruction process and efforts to give new impetus to a lasting peace process. ”
Bairbre de Brún concluded by noting that the raid “will prevent any further search for progress” in resolving the conflict, which “requires that every effort be made to implement and promote dialogue between all parties in the Basque Country and the Spanish Government . The punitive measures and criminalization by the Spanish authorities bring these objectives. ”
Many other left wing Spanish organisations and Basque or catalan Nationalist organisations have condemned the arrests as provocations including NaBai, Hamaikabat!, Communist EB, Red Current, Alternative and the CGT made public reaction against the arrests, as well as the collective Lokarri among many agents. CCOO, meanwhile, argued “that provide channels to preserve the country’s political normalization.
Meanwhile hundreds of people have gathered in spontaneous demonstrations in different cities to protest against the arrests they have called for an end to repression is not the way and for basque self determination in the concentrations at noon, there were demonstartions at the LAB Trade Union offices in Bilbao, Gasteiz, Donostia and Iruñea.
In the capital of Navarre there was a larger spontaneous demonstration by Errotxapea with about 800 demonstrators who shouted that “the Spanish State is a terrorist state” and have called for “getting into jail the bankers. “
LAB protests against the operation have resulted in the arrest of a dozen political representatives and they will continue “the strategy to make possible further steps on the road to independence.” LAB also called on workers to participate in further demonstrations which which have been planned for Friday in the workplace.
Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, announced yesterday that it would continue the persecution of left-wing nationalism on the grounds that any political movement that seeks to be “provided under the direction of the terrorist group ETA. According to Rubalcaba, “will happen again and again. While there is violence, will be no radical politics in this country, police are systematically going to stop. In Spain nobody is going to do politics and violence at the same time. “
October 16th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
PNV leadership announce they will join protest march in Donastia
by o as if Fri Oct 16, 2009 10:42
The leadership of the moderate nationalist PNV party, which until this year had held power in the regional assembly of the Basque region, has announced that it will attend the march organised by the majority of Basque trade unions in donastia tomorrow, to protest the detention this week of 10 prominent abertzales.
This represents a completely unprecedented show of unity amongst Basques.
Related Link: http://www.eitb.com/noticias/politica/detalle/268026/la…stia/
October 20th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
From Askapena we call for the denunciation with all possible strength of these fascist acts of the Spanish government, activating where possible internationalist solidarity with the Basque Country, in order to raise, little by little, this veil of silence and misrepresentation which the mass media and the allies of the neoliberal system have drawn in Europe and the World, over the reality of exploitation and struggle which is developing in the Basque Country.
On the 14th October, in the HQ in Donostia (capital of the Gipuzkoa province) of the pro-Independence Left trade union LAB, the Spanish police arrested 10 well-known public activists, on the charge of being the political leadership of Batasuna. This is the popular organisation of the Basque pro-Independence Left, which had been banned by the Spanish courts in 2003 but which continued to be active to the present day. The HQ of the trade union was totally surrounded and taken possession of by the repressive forces for a number of hours. Those trade unionists who happened to be in the HQ were identified and confined to a room for a number of hours, among which was Rafa Diez Usabiaga, ex-leader of LAB.
Detained in another room were Arnaldo Otegi, Rufi Etxebarria, Sonia Jacinto and Arkaitz Rodriquez, in which Rafa Diez Usabiaga was later confined. Also arrested were Manel Ugarte, Amaia Esnal, Ainara Oiz, Txeluis Moreno and Miren Zabaleta. All of the arrested are currently being held incommunicado. These extremely serious acts, carried out under the signature of Baltasar Garzón, judge of the Spanish Audiencia Nacional (National Court), have nevertheless their origin in the Zapatero government. Yet in previous days the government newspaper El País was making much of the idea that these same leaders had been disowned by ETA, as a result of their alleged political position in contradiction to the armed struggle. And why then are they being detained?
The subsidiary reaction to the events in the Basque Country of the Socialist Party of Zapatero has been to say on the one hand that ?they had no important political initiative in hand?, that ?this operation has been the same as others previously in that they were organising the political direction of Batasuna?. On the other hand, they underlined that ?we are in a new political phase that is difficult to define in a few words?. Perhaps the novelty is in the stigmatisation and fascist criminalisation of the prisoners whose photos have been de facto forbidden from being shown in public? Is the novelty of this political phase the disappearance for four months of the activist Jon Anza in French territory? The neo-Francoist drive of Spanish governments of the past decade of banning political parties and community (social) associations, criticised by some parties in the Basque arena but always supported in the final outcome: certainly there is nothing new there. Neither is there anything new in this drive by regimes of neo-fascist orientation which is, with regard to the struggle for independence and socialism in the Basque Country, totally fruitless with regard to its objective: to paralyse and to bring to a ridiculous pass the movement that sustains it, the Basque pro-Independence Left. Neither ETA nor Batasuna has disappeared, nor has the anti-repression movement, nor the social struggles sustained by the Basque Left. Much to the contrary, the pro-Independence Basque Left has given proof of vitality in the many legal mass mobilisations, including also in some cases those that were banned.
The banned pro-Independence Left, during the decade in which it was banned, has presented itself in elections under tens of different names and has renewed its participation in institutions of all kinds, that 15-20% of the electorate again and again making their mark, including in extra-legal manner, in each electoral contest. To summarise: it continues with the political initiative energetically.
During the past months in the Basque Country the intention of the pro-Independence Left to invest hugely in the future, in the agreement which has been called the Pro-Sovereignty Pole, has been increasingly public and marked. Arnaldo Otegi himself has announced important new initiatives for this autumn. It can have escaped no-one that to avoid the political inertia in which this initiative was located has been the pivot of yesterday?s warlike act of the Spanish PSOE government, with the total connivance of the Spanish Popular Party (political heirs of Franco). The arrests of these ten activists, in addition to being denounced by the pro-Independence Left, being also denounced by the parties Ezker Batua?Izquierda Unida, Aralar, Eusko Alkartasuna and the trade union ELA, will achieve nothing more than to delay the political process a little. Without doubt, it will increase the quota of suffering and pain that the Basque Country will have to pay for the intention of constructing a Basque language, feminist, internationalist and socialist future on the basis of universal suffrage.
>From Askapena we call for the denunciation with all possible strength of these fascist acts of the Spanish government, activating where possible internationalist solidarity with the Basque Country, in order to raise, little by little, this veil of silence and misrepresentation which the mass media and the allies of the neoliberal system have drawn in Europe and the World, over the reality of exploitation and struggle which is developing in the Basque Country.
Keep on!!!
Onwards the Basque Country!!!
ASKAPENA Basque Internationalist Organization
read all the solidarity messages in http://www.askapena.org