Dissolution of ETA, the challenge of reconciliation

News Mondays - Diego Taboada

The Spaniards had been waiting for it for months. After fifty-nine years of activity, the terrorist organization Euskadi Ta Azkatasuna (ETA - Basque Country and Freedom in Basque) announced last Thursday the dissolution of its organization and the dismantling of all its structures. The announcement, made in Geneva, ratifies the disappearance of a group which had already renounced all terrorist activity in 2011.

Created in 1959 during the Franco dictatorship to combat «the policy of oppression» against the Basque people, ETA committed its first assassination in 1968. Since its foundation, ETA's aim has been to obtain the right to self-determination and the creation of a socialist state. Paradoxically, however, the organization did little during the dictatorship. It concentrated its actions in the seventies and eighties, in the midst of the transition to a democratic regime.

The ETA then set about destabilizing a fragile democracy in which unprecedented regional autonomy was being established, paving the way for the creation of a Basque parliament. After causing a great deal of material and human damage (854 murders and over 6,000 injured, mostly Basque citizens), the political outcome was a failure: no Spanish government gave in. On the contrary, Spain has fought the movement relentlessly, despite logistical difficulties and little support from its French neighbor, who tolerated ETA's use of the French Basque country as a rear base.

Despite its announced demise, ETA is determined not to be condemned by history. As recently as last April, the terrorist group was trying to justify its action. According to them, it was a reaction to the bombing of the village of Guernica by... the Nazi regime in 1937. Of course, the organization has always claimed to fight for the good of the region. But the myth of the Basque people's unanimous support when they were the first victims of the attacks is increasingly difficult to defend.

The majority of Spanish and Basque politicians are unequivocal in their condemnation of the terrorist group, which they do not regard as a national liberation movement. The terrorist group therefore seems well and truly destined for general opprobrium, although this is not enough to heal the wounds of the families of the victims of terrorism.

Beyond this battle of memory, other obstacles to reconciliation remain. One of the Basque government's long-standing demands concerns the «repatriation» of prisoners linked to terrorist operations, scattered throughout Spain in order to isolate them and avoid mass concentrations of sympathizers outside prisons in particular. The problem is that the central government is intransigent, and has already announced that it will only enter into the matter if there is public recognition of the damage done to the victims, something that neither ETA nor its political avatars have ever done.

The disappearance of ETA as Europe's last terrorist movement marks the end of an era of violence on the Old Continent. But this «victory for Spanish democracy», as some were quick to declare, should not blind us to the fact that the wounds are still fresh. The fractures in Basque society run deep, and their healing will also require the reconciliation of memories, including those who once applauded the terrorist actions. This will be a difficult but necessary process, in a country still haunted by old demons and torn by territorial issues.

Write to the author: diego.taboada@leregardlibre.com

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