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AP - Sunday, 5 September 2010
The group is under pressure from political allies to renounce violence and has been repeatedly hit by the arrests of its leaders.
But the Basque regional government immediately dismissed the announcement as meaningless because ETA failed to renounce violence or announce its dissolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_Country_%28greater_region%29#History
The Basque Country (Basque: Euskal Herria) is a European cultural region home to the Basque people in the western Pyrenees that spans the border between France and Spain on the Atlantic coast.
It comprises the Autonomous Communities of the Basque Country and Navarre in Spain and the Northern Basque Country in France.
Even though they are not necessarily synonyms, the concept of a single culturally Basque area spanning various regions and countries has been closely associated since its very inception to the politics of Basque nationalism. As such, the region is considered home to the Basque people (Basque: Euskaldunak), their language (Basque: Euskara), culture and traditions. Nevertheless the area is neither linguistically nor culturally homogeneous, and the very Basqueness of parts of it, such as southern Navarre, remains a very contentious issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA (En
glish: Basque Homeland and Freedom; pronounced [ˈɛːta]), is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country from a Marxist-Leninist perspective.[4][5]
ETA's motto is Bietan jarrai ("Keep up on both"), referring to the two figures in its symbol, a snake (representing politics) wrapped around an axe (representing armed struggle).[6][7][8]
Since 1968, ETA has killed over 800 individuals, injured thousands and undertaken dozens of kidnappings.[9][10][11] The group is proscribed as a terrorist organization by the Spanish and French[12] authorities, as well as the European Union as a whole,[13] and the United States.[14] This convention is followed by a plurality of domestic and international media, which also refer to the group as "terrorists".[15][16][17][18] More than 700 members of the organization are incarcerated in prisons in Spain, France, and other countries.[19]
On 5 September 2010 ETA declared a new ceasefire.[20]
Link: Great documentary, 'BasqueBall' (embedding disabled)
The ETA has been hit hard over the last year or so, not only at home but internationally. I've been tracking the arrests and other events for a while and don't believe that a cease-fire can be kept for more than a few months, perhaps a year.
AntwortenLöschenThese hostilities are ancient and not likely to go away soon.