ETA announced the abandonment of arms 10 years ago, on October 20, 2011. It was totally defeated in its great objective to subdue democracy with the threat of terror. Today, the only incompressible thing is that the political tension has reached such a point that has prevented democracy from commemorating, united and satisfied, a great victory.
Beating ETA was not easy. There were many years of suffering. And it wasn’t just about taking down an armed gang. It was also necessary to separate it from the support it had in sectors of the Basque population that they voted for the successive incarnations of the Abertzale left and that – without always approving of violence – they sympathized with the mixture of independence and communism that were their banner.
And because it was not just to end a terrorist group, three Spanish governments – three – negotiated three truces. The first was that of Algiers in 1989 with Felipe González as governor. The second, that of Aznar in 1998 that followed the Lizarra Pact. The third, that of Zapatero in 2006, which ended with the Barajas attack on December 30 of that year and prepared by contacts between Jesús Eguiguren, president of the PSE, and Arnaldo Otegui.
The last two truces created high hopes in public opinion –The terror was going to end – and also among the nationalist left that wanted to do politics. And Arnaldo Otegui had a role in both. But it all ended badly. The governments, that of Aznar and that of Zapatero, They could give little on the bottom -independence or self-determination-, but they had a certain margin because Spain wanted to end terrorism. They could handle the equation of peace for prisoners.
And the Pact of Ajuria Enea of 1988 (PSOE, PP, PNV) offered the independence movement the political path in exchange for the end of the violence. But ETA, fanatized, believed that it could get more. That is why the absurd attack on Barajas in the middle of the negotiations.
Antonio Camacho, who was Secretary of State for the Interior (2004-2011) and who was Minister of the Interior after Rubalcaba, When ETA said goodbye to arms, it has always maintained a meritorious silence. But last Sunday, asked by ‘ABC’ about the key moment of ETA’s defeat, he said: “An attack never has positive aspects, but that of the T-4 in Barajas he demonstrated to a part of Basque society, and to the nationalist left, that ETA had no intention of dialogue, of solving the slab that threatened democracy & rdquor ;. Zapatero’s negotiation was key. With the T-4, ETA lost a lot of credibility with Basque society. It was his great political failure.
But before it had already been cornered by the gratuitous cruelty of her crimes and – not without errors such as the dirty war – by the democratic parties, the security forces and the courts of justice. But it still took five more years, until 2011, for police harassment and the fall of several of its domes force her to admit her military defeat.
What is relevant is that we have already been without ETA for 10 years. AND the abertzale left has embraced democracy to continue existing. It is his right, but despite his relative successes – in the last Basque elections he was the second most voted – they have not finished be a normalized party because they have not condemned ETA, but only –Otegui this week– the suffering caused and the delay in abandoning arms.
Because the PNV prefers to govern Euskadi with the PSOE to do it with Bildu. There is a nationalist majority, but it would generate excessive tension. And the vast majority of prisoners are still outside the Basque Country despite the 10 years that have passed. And although Bildu has already voted on the 2021 budgets.
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Now Bildu wants to weigh and count in Euskadi. And in Spain. You have the right, in proportion to your votes. But two annotations. One, as long as it does not condemn ETA – difficult because there are those who pride themselves on their past – they will not be a party like the others. Two, what is an error – in which part of the right falls – is wanting to exclude them, from the outset, of political life.
What is relevant is that ETA lost. The presence of Bildu in parliaments only indicates that there are quite a few Basque citizens who vote for them and that Spanish democracy does not prohibit ideologies. It only requires respecting the rule of law.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com