[Islam-Online- Europe]

In actual fact, ETA, the secessionist terrorist organization in the Basque, has exploited the 14-month truce with the Spanish government to renew its infrastructure and armed bases, and train more commandos, who are well prepared for the new campaign launched by ETA against the Spanish State.

Condemnations, high sounding statements, denunciations, mass demonstrations, funerals and painful burial ceremonies - these are the scenes that have been witnessed by Spain for more than 30 years. However, as of early July 2000, these scenes occurred semi-daily, as seven people were killed and more than 30 others injured. Besides, the Basque Street is witnessing acts of sabotage every hour in a bid to escalate matters in an unprecedented way. ETA is no longer differentiating between its victims, whether they belong to the Right or Left, or whether they are security men standing alone or with their children and wives. The theater of these operations is the Spanish map as a whole.

The last ETA victim died on July 29, 2000 immediately after reaching the hospital. An ETA member shot this victim, who was drinking coffee at the time, twice in the back of the head. This man, representing the Socialist Party, was the civil governor of the Basque province of Guipuzcoa, and he had just returned from voluntary exile outside Spain, having left because of the daily threats that he used to receive from ETA. On June 24, and July 12 and 26, three booby-trapped cars exploded, one of which was in Madrid, injuring nine people. On July 16, ETA killed a member of the ruling People's Party, who represented the city of Malaga.

Owing to the terrible size of terrorist operations, a question was raised: "What does ETA want?" It wants independence. It is impossible for any Spanish government to think about this request because it will mean a response to terrorism that is unprecedented in the history of all states. It will also mean that nationalist movements, sleeping in more than one Spanish province, will wake up and call for independence in ways more logical or effective than those followed by ETA.

Spanish Premier Jose Maria continued with his official visits to Algeria and Mauritania during the ETA campaigns. However, he voiced highly sounding statements that terrorism would not compel him to kneel down. These statements brought angry reactions. Addressing the Prime Minister, a leader of the Basque national parties said: "Ask Clinton or Blair whether they consider solutions to their countries' problems an act of kneeling down."

This compelled the Spanish Prime Minister to adapt his statements, saying that his government urged ETA to understand that the solution to the Basque problem would only come through dialogue and ETA should know that the people would not accept any encroachment upon the rules of the democratic game.

For their part, the people are still taking to the streets in mass demonstrations following every terrorist act. They silently express their rejection of terrorism and murder, and their support of the successive governments' attitudes towards fighting this epidemic with democratic means. They also assert their full rejection of granting independence to the Basque.

ETA on the arena anew:
The ETA campaign has put an end to any possibility of renewing the truce, which lasted for 14 months from September 1998 to January 2000, during which the terrorist organization stopped assassinations. However, the Basque Street kept flaring up daily to the extent that the security forces in this province registered more than 900 misdemeanors, crimes, and assaults on persons, establishments, or public property. The ETA supporters in this province do not exceed 15% of the inhabitants, who are ruled by fear and terrorism, practiced by ETA against them. Such terrorism compels the Basque people to keep silent, while watching the collapse of security and economic conditions on their territories.

In mid September 1999, ETA announced that it had broken the truce and halted the peace negotiations with the Spanish government. It immediately made a very serious attempt to have its voice heard on the international arena. It prepared two booby-trapped buses, each containing one thousand kilograms of explosives, and left them beside one of the most sensitive trade centers in Madrid on the eve of Christmas in an attempt to commit an unprecedented massacre in Europe. However, the security bodies managed to detect them and deactivate the explosives.

ETA ascribed its decision to break the truce to the government rejection of its requests during the peace talks. Among these requests was the transference of ETA prisoners to Basque prisons to be near to their relatives. Moreover, the security forces arrested ETA's official spokesman during the truce. This step was considered political intransigence that should not have been adopted by a democratic government during its talks to build bridges of understanding with this important, dangerous terrorist group, particularly as this organization had announced that it would lay down arms unilaterally in the hope that the problem would be solved on a par with the Irish one, which was not flaring up at that time.

Remarkably enough, ETA and its Irish counterpart started to change their general ideological frameworks, under which they moved during the long past years and gained sympathy and support from some international arenas. These frameworks had been followed before the Cold War that absorbed the leftist ideology and dealt a strong blow to Communism in Europe. This change, however, helped these two organizations, ETA in particular, to remain as the last hotbed of traditional terrorism in Europe. It is known that ETA adopted the liberal leftist ideology against Franco, then the secessionist Communist and then the separatist Nationalist. After thirty years of guerilla wars, more than 800 victims, scores of kidnapped people, thousands of harmed and handicapped people seemed ready,during the truce, to forgive ETA soldiers, in return for having peace and security established in Spain.

ETA internal structure:
The general body of ETA is divided into three parts:

The legal political institution:
A political party, acknowledged by the State, formed it. Its candidates permanently contest elections. It managed to win four seats in the Spanish Parliament in 1996. One of those parliamentarians was a prominent historical figure in the organization. He won the seat, although he was serving an imprisonment term on a charge of being a member of an armed organization that threatened State security. He was brought from prison to parliament to participate in the sittings. Moreover, he was arrested in parliament anew, after he had been released, on a charge of returning to connivance with the terrorist organization!

Although this was an excellent example of democracy, ETA's political wing was not deceived by this scene of constitutional freedom, which might be, in the first place, astounding to those who are not used to living under the rule of law. The representatives of ETA's political wing were not lenient with the Spanish government, and they kept calling for the independence of their province and accusing successive Spanish governments of launching a secret war against ETA and its members to get rid of them illegally.

This party, which changes its name whenever judicial orders are passed to close down its bureaus, issues a daily newspaper that is considered the official spokesman for ETA.

Technical institution:
It is concerned with dispatching recruits, accommodating them and supplying them with faked documents necessary for their moves. Moreover, it qualifies them psychologically and ideologically. The leadership of this institution lives in French territory.

Executive military institution:
It qualifies effective ETA members, prepares them militarily, and supplies them with necessary maps, plans, and weapons. It also forms commando groups of two or three members, to hit strategic areas chosen by the organization to carry out its operations.

Finance:
ETA is financed via bank robbery or the kidnapping of senior Basque businessmen, who delay in paying what ETA calls "revolutionary tribute." It tends to ask for millions of pesetas in return for releasing the victims, whose detention periods may extend to more than a year owing to security forces' interference, or in order to give the kidnapped time to provide the ransom.

From time to time, ETA tends to abduct those persons and imprison them in graves, the area of each of which is 1 x 1.5 square meters. It leaves such a kidnapped person for a year and a half and isolates him, even from his jailer. If this abducted person does get out of his grave prison, he may have lost one third of his body weight, in addition he may suffer from psychological problems.

The security forces have information to the effect that ETA is still receiving assistance from foreign countries, including Arab and Latin American states, which directly and indirectly attempt to pressurize Spanish policies in particular and European ones in general. These countries consider Spain one of the countries that are mostly involved in major problems from which its former colonies in Latin America suffer.

Moreover, uncertain reports had it that the former socialist government was involved in paying high bribes to the terrorist organization to halt its acts during certain occasions, such as the World Cup Finals in 1982, the Seville International Exhibition, and the Olympics in 1992.

Why have the Spanish governments not managed to eliminate ETA?
ETA has managed to be the most painful thorn in the side of eight successive Spanish governments since the establishment of democracy in 1979. None of these governments was able to face this problem or deal with it in a way that halts violence and puts an end to the sufferings of the country and its people. This is ascribed to the following reasons:

Large parts of the Basque people are convinced of the legitimacy of their struggle against the Spanish state. The socialist government paid heed to this point during the last years of its era, and the new conservative government exploited it optimally. It mobilized the remainder of the Basque people against violence and armed action, and the Basque Province seemed to be an arena for internal conflicts among the sons of the same people.
The full adherence by the Spanish state in general to legal methods imposed by democracy, which totally bans executions. Moreover, no Spanish citizen, however savage his crime may be, can spend more than 30 years in prison. Prisoners are also treated generously, as they are socially considered patients. As for ETA prisoners, they receive special treatment. They are always considered political detainees, granted special advantages inside prisons and separated from other prisoners, who fear ETA prisoners' revenge. The ETA prisoners act as if they were the masters of the Spanish prisons, although all governments insisted on placing them in prisons far from the province.
The organization depends on a national ideology that managed to develop and adapt to all conditions and variables to preserve a special culture of the province that supplies young men with a special spirit, something that made ETA recruits martyrs in the eyes of some Basque people, who support them and supply them with everything, whether cheap or expensive.
The existence of an organization called GAL. It is a secret one, formed of senior security men in the State. GAL started to carry out terrorist acts counter to those of ETA. During the past 25 years, it had illegally abducted, killed, tortured, and detained those who were suspected of belonging to ETA. Official investigations, started in 1992 and continuing up till now, uncovered the fact that senior statesmen in all successive governments were involved in GAL acts. This led several ministers in the governments of Philip Gonzalez to tender their resignations.

The issue of the GAL was one of the most important issues of corruption that toppled the socialists' rule after spending 13 years in power. It transpired that the issue of this "dirty war" against ETA dates back to an earlier stage. It also transpired that successive Spanish governments were involved in establishing, supporting or financing the GAL, including the government of Adolfo Swares that led Spain in its peaceful movement towards democracy and a state of rights and freedoms.

Dilemma of a nation that does not want to kneel down:
ETA has become a complicated problem not only to the Spanish nation, but also to the European Union (EU), despite cooperation agreements among EU states in the fields of security and judiciary. ETA has become a complicated problem, as the rightist Spanish government was compelled, upon pressure by alliance with nationalist parties, to acknowledge, according to the Constitution, that Spain is a multi-national, -lingual and -cultural nation. The last chapter, granting all Spanish provinces autonomy came to an end, as some provinces, such as Catalonia, seemed on the international arena as if they were independent states.

For its part, ETA with its military body seemed to be a force that imposed a kind of illegal and inhumane "legitimacy" in the Basque; thus its sound is being heard. Moreover, the people who lack international respect and the ability of self-growth and have an effective impact on all categories of the society, attempting to convince them of an ideology they want to adopt, follow ETA. These people, thus, resort to fire and killing, out of their belief that this is the optimal way for imposing their views as quickly as possible.

Although the Basque people consider themselves to be an independent nation that has distinguished national pillars, it began to dismantle astoundingly and greatly more than was expected. This dismantling did not stop, until after the Conservative People's Party won a landslide victory in the latest elections. This victory was represented in the great majority in parliament that empowered it to discipline the Basque and Catalonian national parties, and stop their interference in the courses of action through political alliances with the government.

ETA and its political wing are trying to spread the spirit of revenge among the Basque people, at a time when a grinding war is taking place between the judicial and legislative powers in the country. Although verdicts were issued against the former Minister of the Interior, who was imprisoned, and against prominent leaderships in more than one of the four socialist cabinets that ruled Spain during the period from 1982 to 1996, rumors have it that a secret agreement was concluded by all men of government in Spain, called the "alliance of silence." This alliance is aimed at protecting the State against collapse and stopping threats to the nascent Spanish democracy.

The true threat that faces the Spanish nation today is represented in the emergence of an angry trend that calls for imposing death sentences on ETA recruits, convicted of murder, and extending imprisonment sentences to make them for life. This clearly violates the democratic pillars, on which modern Spain was established and for which it paid high prices. The majority of Spanish citizens are still calling for respecting democracy and maintaining the unity of the democratic ranks vis-à-vis this serious dilemma. ETA is seriously endangering Spanish society, which proved on more than one occasion that it could observe self-control and refused to combat terrorism with "Third World" means, which are in fact violence practiced by the State against society. Under these "Third World" means, innocent people are punished, while guilty ones are left free, and the people remain subject to emergency laws.

Spain, however, succeeded in developing its society, though it has been suffering from terrorism for half a century. The successive Spanish governments proved that terrorism was a dilemma that should not halt the nation's development and society's progress. This was the target of the current Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria, who said: "ETA with its terrorism will not compel us to kneel down because the Spanish people do not want to overstep the rules of the democratic game in our combat of this pest. The people are still betting on the state institutions, right, law, fair and independent judiciary, as well as the unity of ranks of the people's categories and their political and social representatives. They bet that these means are the sole way for getting rid of terrorism in our country."

Home of terrorism:
Terrorism, with its current concept, proved that it is a phenomenon that has no home, nationalism, or religion. Those who want to confine it to the Arabs and Muslims enjoy no credibility. However, this phenomenon is imputed to the Arabs and Muslims owing to the hegemony of the Western media, which have become so powerful that they can reach any corner on earth and impose their views on other mass media.

The latest campaign of the terrorist ETA organization in the Basque followed serious setbacks that hit the peace project in Ireland. These setbacks assert that ETA and the Irish Republican Army are not only thorns in the sides of Spain and Britain, but also in the side of the EU's internal and external policies on the one hand, and in the tendencies of other bodies that are not less important in the world of decision-making on the long and short runs inside and outside Europe on the other hand. These bodies were saying that the West would enter the new century free from its problems. They wanted this other kind of terrorism to be the alternative "monster" around which the European swords gather and through which the European war machine finds justifications for its existence and continuous production and sale of weapons. This was the main reason, which urged all these bodies, for the first time, to adopt a unified media attitude towards ETA's announcement of breaking the truce and resuming war against the Spanish State. Europe wanted to reach the peak of its history in the year 2000, while the world is totally subject to it, as if it had no other problems except that of Islamic terrorism - its preferred ghost that stands on its political and historic borders. It considered Islam a threat that endangers human relations and civilizations. It wanted to devote history to serving fanaticism and exploit man-made geographical borders in overcoming all difficulties facing Europe's advance towards absorbing the wealth of the Islamic nation.

No one can deny that the European peoples are violent. To prove this, we recall the inquisitions as well as World Wars I and II. This violence was created due to the nature of the European culture that plants pride and ethnic fanaticism in its sons. It gives them sufficient justifications for interfering in the affairs of others, who, they feel, cannot think without support from the Europeans. This feeling of pride and these acts of belittling others and controlling them planted violence in the European character and bequeathed it to generations. However, such violence had always been governed with a kind of self-control and clarity, not correctness, of visions and goals. European violence in general was governed with a will to exploit revolutions' outcome in social or political organizations, whose targets are well studied. Therefore, the European terrorist organizations do not move without awareness, deep thinking, popular support and a political base on which they rely.

Spain itself is one of the biggest weapon exporters to the afflicted nations in Africa. Indisputably, it is involved in the dilemma of the Sub-Saharan problem in Morocco. Press reports and human rights organizations in Spain itself say that Spain sold weapons to the fighting tribes of Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi. Moreover, Spain is involved in more than one region in South America where its former colonies lie, and in the Philippines as well.

Basque Province…Facts & Figures
The Basque Province is situated in the north of Spain at its borders with France. Part of it overlooks the Bay of Biscay. It is formed of several regions: Alava, Guipuzcoa, Vizcaya and the French Basque Province, which lies within the French borders. The area of the Basque Province amounts to 18,000 square kilometers. Its population hits 3 million, out of the 39-million Spanish population.

The Basque people speak the Basque language, which is considered the most difficult language in the world. The Basque people worked to revive their language in the areas where it faced total extinction. They opened schools, printed books and taught it to young men at home at the weekends. They also earmarked radio and TV stations for transmitting programs in Basque only.

Basque sociologists, psychologists, and historians are preparing encyclopedias on the history of the Basque. They also preserve their heritage through maintaining folklore songs and hymns that mothers used to sing to their babies. Authoring literary works in the Basque language was energized and the Basque music was revived. Basque literature took a road distinguished from that of other Spanish literature. Scores of prizes were allotted to men of letters and poets. Winning poets are selected according to well-established criterion that compelled them with the passage of time to improve the Basque literature standards that match international literature.

Roots of Basque nationalist movement
The Basque secessionist national movement dates back to 1883. The province leaders started to address the local national feelings that were related to the deep religious feelings and supported with fanatic ethnic discrimination, which aimed at announcing independence from the neighboring European peoples, including the Spanish and the French.

The first national separatist group was established on these bases a hundred years ago under the appellation of the "Basque National Party," whose slogan was "a distinguished European people that speak a different European language." When the second Spanish Republic was established, the Basque people announced the first independent Spanish province, according to the results of domestic elections, conducted in 1936. This preceded the Spanish Civil War between the Spanish Right and Left, which broke out because the Leftist forces, foremost among which was the Spanish Communist Party, proclaimed the foundation of the second Republic. The separatists from the Basque and Catalonia were granted autonomy. But General Franco launched a violent campaign to reinstate the Right to power, ban the secessionists from ruling their own provinces, and put an end to civil war. When the secessionists defended their provinces fiercely, Franco besieged, killed, detained, and arrested them. This helped the emergence of new separatist national trends that were hostile to Spain and considered it an occupying state. This feeling of separatism started to polarize and took its final form in 1960. Secret groups were formed; the idea of armed struggle polarized and ETA announced its formation as the "Secessionist Basque Organization." It depended on three pivots - cultural, political, and military. Its first operation was launched in 1968, and its first assassination operation was against a senior statesman, who was the right arm of Franco.

Basque between France and Spain
The Basque Province is situated on the territories of two European countries - Spain and France. Close cooperation between the French Basque and Spanish Basque peoples has expressed itself in the past and the present. Fugitives from Spain were harbored in France, moral and material support was extended, and military and political coordination was brought about. The French Basque territories constituted an important strategic depth for the ETA recruits, who work in Spain, relying on the very bad reputation of the Franco dictatorial regime among the European milieus, especially the socialist French ones, which in the sixties adopted so-called progressive ideas and principles.

However, these conditions did not last for long. Franco died in 1979, and Spain took astounding steps in the field of democracy and entered the system of European unity. Since the mid 1980s, a phase of close cooperation between France and Spain in the domains of security and judiciary has begun. France started to chase, arrest and extradite ETA members, living in France, to Spain in return for Spain's support of France in creating a distinguished European identity on international arenas.

France had earlier, through its silence on the establishment of ETA in its south, succeeded in banning terrorism from being transferred to its territories, which were not totally free from some explosions and assassinations from time to time when it adopted somehow hard-line attitudes towards ETA. However, France adopted the method of media blackout on such terrorist acts on its territories, and managed to accuse other bodies of them. Imputing charges to Muslim communities living in France was evident to all, especially as this was one of the most important political scandals to be uncovered following the death of late French President Francois Mitterrand.

The French territories have remained for long number of years an exceptional solid base for ETA recruits, who implemented their terrorist operations out of these territories. They also concealed their weapons and leaders there. However, this image has started to change radically since 1997, when the third socialist government signed security and common defense accords with different European countries. Thus, ETA lost its main justification for staying in France and for the resort by its political members to any other European country on the pretext of political persecution in Spain, which has become a state that provides freedoms for its citizens. Moreover, the democratic constitutional royal regime was well-established in Spain, and most political, not psychological, differences among the platforms of the main Leftist and Rightist governments "melted," as is the case in all European countries since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The grip started to be tightened around ETA in accordance with the new Spanish policies, which were considered part of the European system