Basque separatist group ETA declares ceasefire

Hi, as a spanish citizen I would like to make a few clarifications:

- ETA is a terrorist group, not a separatist group. In Spain we have many separatist political parties (almost in every province) but only ETA kills (almost one thousand people until today)

- It ´s not a guerrilla. This term implies a war betewen two parts and this does not exist. ETA kills civilians. The police does not kill them.
 
France has problems with ETA as well. (The Basque area is the Mountains literally on the border between France and Spain. Hence ETA is a nuisance in both countries). As Coracutta stated, despite their bravado as 'Freedom Fighters' make no mistake, like the IRA they are a violent terrorist group.
Although they are most active in Spain, they have been involoved in assasinations in France as well. That routinely assasinate anyone they see as a threat, they deserve no pity.

I think the reason ETA is asking for peace is because of Madrid. Although it wasnt involved in the Madrid bombings, the Spainish people, (and to a smaller degree the French) have basicially decided that they have had enough of ETA's horse hockey. A major crackdown in both countries as been going on. In short, Madrid put an end to the public's toleration of ETA.
 
mmarsh, The Basque country is divided in three provinces: Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa and Álava. Only Guipuzcoa is near France, the other two are a litle bit in the west. The part of southern France that ETA claims as theirs is called Iparralde. You can see the map where they want to make their state here: Map

The reason of the ceasefire is because they want to start their secesionist process. To mantein the truce they gave three conditions:

- Referendum asking the Basques if they want independance-

- Independace

- Stop police and judicial persecution.


Mmarsh, every day there are more proves that point that ETA had something to do with the 11-M terrorist attacks, may be they did not put the bombs, but they helped the ones that did it. I have opened another threat to talk about this in the political area. The judicial investigation concerning the 11-m attacks is showing that there are many black holes, fake proves and a lot of dirty stuff.

In other order of things, there is not public toleration of ETA in Spain, only a few thousand people (around 15.000) in the Basque country support them, Remember that in Spain lives over 40 million people.


Phoenix80, yes, we are looking the cease of fire (not peace agreement) very carefully. Be had 13 before. It is a conditional truce, they will stop killing if they get the independance, and that is not going to happen, I can tell you. So the truce is "wet papper" (do you have this expression in english?:sarc: )
 
Corocotta

Interesting post.

You maybe right, but I honestly think the police crackdown in both countries had something to do with it as well. Otherwise why did they wait until now they could have begun sessionist talks a decade ago?

I agree that nobody in Spain supported ETA, but I do think people in general are indifferent about those sort of thing as long as they are not personally involved. That's not a knock against Spain, I'm afraid its human nature. Look at al-Qaeda, they bombed the WTC in 1992, nobody cared. 2 US Africain embassies bombed in 1993, nobody cared. The USS Cole was nearly sunk, nobody cared. In all these episodes people were shocked or so for a few days and then they forgot about it and returned to their lives.

It took a catastrophic event such as 9-11, Madrid, or London (at that was reletively small) for people to finally wake up. Thats what I meant earlier...

All terrorist organizations, even non-affliated ones do business with one another. The IRA got weapons and explosives from Libya and Iran. They have recently caught a el-Qaeda member in Colombia helping the socialist FARC rebels, Carlos the Jackel was from South American but worked for Islamic terrorists and so on... So if your saying ETA was involved I am sure they were, the Free Corsica terror groups in France might have been as well.
 
Well, then I have to tell you that you do not know much about the situation here. If you make that kind of afirmation you should give at least a few arguments.

I am going to give you some:

- The Basques are not etnically different from the spanish. Actually many of the bloodthiertiest terrorist are spanish people that born and grew there.

- The spanish army is not in war. The spanish army do not bomb basque villages, do not kill basque civilians, do not kill terrorist. There is no genocide here.

- We only fight terrorism with the LAW

- The Basque country has never been independat from Spain.

- Spain is a democracy, Turkey is not.



I wait for your arguments.
 
Sorry for double posting mods, but I think that there are a few things to clarify. As a spanish I find very offensive to compare the kurd situation with the Basque situation. I guess that this afirmation from Bulldog was due to his ignorance in the issue.

Bulldog, if you want to know a little bit about the Basque nationalism click:
Here As you will see he thought that Basque were a superior race. Yuo can see here how racist he was.

The Basque country has their own Parlament, they make their own laws: CClick

They have their own police: Basque Police


As I told you before, ETA is the only one that kills here. No terrorist are killed they just go to jail. They kill normal people, civilians.

The Basque country is one of the richiest province of Spain.



Your comparation was so ridicolous that I do not know what to say. Have you been here? I live 20 minutes from the Basque country and I probably know a little bit more in this issue that you. Just 10 days a go ETA explode a bomb in my town, 300 meters from my house.



To the Mods: can we move this threat to the political area?
 
Corocotta, no intent to offend you. I will digest the information you have posted and get back to you. I am already finding some new information and we'll see where it leads my thoughts.
:)
 
Bulldogg

I cant agree with you either for a number of reasons.

1. First of all the Kurds don't attack civilians, ETA does.

2. Kurds arent not listed as a Terrorist group by Europe, and the US, ETA is.

3. The Basque are not ethnically different from Spain, the Kurds are a compete seperate culture, they are not even Arabs.

4. The Kurdish Government (which is democratic) really does represent the Kurdish people. ETA claims it speaks for all Basques, but it doesnt in reality, there are many Basques who dont want independance and see ETA as Terrorist group.


***I do give you Kudos :thumb: for acknowledging your infamiliarity with the subject and agreeing to read up on it.
 
mmarsh, we could add a thousand more reasons.

- ETA´s ideology comes from Sabino Arana, a xenofobic guy. The want to create a comunist Basque country.

- ETA is a maffia, they get their money from extorsion and drug deling.

- The Baques has always been part of Spain and contributed to many things in our history. For example, many of the colonialist that went to America were Basques.

- Their language is completely official here. The basque police speak basque, in their parlament they speak basque and so on.

- Their level of independance is amazing. The irish would be flipping if they had just the half of what the basques have. The only competences of the state there is the Army, part of the judicial system, ports and that´s it. They even have their own Civil Law.

- In the Basque country lives more than 2 million people, about 150.000 support ETA. That is around 8 %



I could keep giving reason for hours.
 
An education is always a good thing. ;)

My comparison with the Kurds was a specious one. I would say that some of the reasoning against the Basque separtists is specious or highly subjective at best much akin to the Chinese arguments for their suppression of the Uighurs BUT... I agree they are "bad" and differ from the Kurds for the following objective reasons only.

1) ETA has targetted civillians
2) The level of autonomy the Basques currently enjoy
3) The lack of an organised pogrom by the Spanish against the Basques.

:)
 
The only good thing about Basque is Euskatel.... that is a fine cycling-team..... and they speak Spanish! I reckon that it has been a waist of human lives because an independent Basque will not happen. And the majority of the Basques think this too. Therefor I think that the equation seperatist = terrorist is feasable.
 
bulldogg said:
An education is always a good thing. ;)
Click to expand...

:drunkb:

Ted, The Basques are great people, extremely friendly, and it is a shame that they have a bad reputation for a few criminals.

Of course that the equation seperatist = terrorist is feasable. We have the example of Catalunya, another spanish province that today has aprobed their "Constitution" were they say that they are a nation :-? , and without shooting. We have secesionist in almost every province, but they only kill in the basque country.

In Spain we are living a bad time, may be in a few years this is gonna end in a very bad way. The nacionalist are destroying this country.

Our constituion says that Spain is a Nation, but now comes Catalunya and they say that they are a nation also, the next are the basques, then galicia, then Andalucia, then Canary Islans....and then Spain is gone.:-|
 
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