Skip to footer

After 43 years of struggle, Basque separatist group gives up arsenal

ETA, the Basque separatist group that has fought an armed struggle for the region's independence from Spain, announced it has turned in its weapons.

|
Bob Edme/AP
A man walks past graffiti reading 'ETA, Basque country and Freedom,' in Sare, southwestern France, Friday. The armed Basque separatist group ETA, inactive for more than five years, is to hand over its arms Saturday, a finishing touch to a 43-year violent campaign that claimed 829 lives, mostly in Spain.
  • By Associated Press Associated Press

| Madrid

The Basque separatist group ETA says it has given up its entire arsenal of weapons and explosives to civil society groups – but warns the disarmament process isn't formally complete.

"After giving up all its weaponry (arms and explosives) to Basque civil society representatives, it is now a disarmed organization," the militant group said in a letter published by the BBC on its website.

The letter, dated Friday and signed with the ETA's seal, is the group's first public communique in more than five years, since it gave up the violence it waged to achieve an independent Basque state in southern France and northern Spain.

A group of activists self-appointed as "peace artisans" had already announced a disarmament strategy in southwestern France but ETA had not confirmed it directly.

Two of the mediators told The Associated Press they considered ETA's statement legitimate. Both spoke anonymously given the sensitivity of the issue.

Spain and France consider the ETA to have been defeated, and therefore refuse to engage in the disarmament process. They demand that the ETA disband permanently.

In the letter, the ETA accuses both governments of being "stubborn" and persisting in a "winners and losers scheme."

It also warns that the disarmament could still be derailed.

"We want to warn that still the process can be attacked by the enemies of peace," ETA says, calling Saturday "disarmament day."

"The only real guarantee to succeed are the thousands of people gathering tomorrow in Bayonne supporting the disarmament," the group adds, referring to the southwestern French town where thousands of pro-Basque independence supporters are expected to take part in a demonstration to cap the disarmament.

Experts view the disarmament as symbolic, saying ETA's arsenal had already been diminished, with much of it obsolete.

Earlier on Thursday, the Basque regional parliament also called for a disarmament to be "unilateral, complete, definitive and verified."

ETA killed 829 people and wounded many others over 43 years of armed struggle.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to After 43 years of struggle, Basque separatist group gives up arsenal
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2017/0407/After-43-years-of-struggle-Basque-separatist-group-gives-up-arsenal
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe