By Norm Dixon
Following the January 21 bombing in Madrid, which apparently brought to an end ETA's (Euskadi Ta Askatasura — Basque Homeland and Freedom) 14-month unilateral cease-fire, the right-wing Spanish government has launched a serious attack against the Basque nationalist left.
In the pre-dawn hours of January 30, around 270 National Police in several cities in the Basque Country and Madrid arrested eight members of the international relations department of the legal pro-independence Basque political party Herri Batasuna. The arrests were ordered by National Court judge Baltasar Garzon.
The detainees are Miriam Campos, Mikel Resa, Txaro Buquel, Sabin del Bado, Gorka Martinez, Joxerra Antxia, Iqigo Elkoro and Mikel Korta. The state news agency, Efe, citing unidentified police sources, said police also searched the homes of those arrested, seizing documents.
Interior minister Jaime Mayor Oreja said the operations were aimed at cutting off ETA's fundraising and international relations. The statement claimed the arrests had "practically eliminated the international relations apparatus", which according to Oreja gives logistical support to members and collaborators of ETA in Europe and the Americas.
Herri Batasuna said the arrests were "political revenge perfectly orchestrated by the Madrid government". Oreja said all the detainees have "a very clear and unmistakable connection with the armed band" and denied the operation was aimed at politically destroying Herri Batasuna.
According to several news agencies, citing sources from the National Court, the police operations are based on an investigation by Garzon of the so-called terrorist organisation KAS-ETA (KAS is the political organisation that coordinates the various underground Basque national liberation organisations of which ETA is the armed wing).
Twenty-nine people were jailed in 1998, including workers of the Basque daily Egin, shut down by Garzon, for their alleged links to the "KAS-ETA case". They were later released on bail or without charges.
Garzon is now targeting Xaki, the international relations section of Herri Batasuna, the Basque daily Gara reported. The Spanish interior ministry is presenting Xaki as "the international apparatus of ETA" and claims that Martinez, coordinator of the international section of Herri Batasuna's executive board, and Elena Beloki, Herri Batasuna's representative in Europe, are the "leaders of Xaki".
On January 28, the Basque regional government, led by the conservative bourgeois Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) announced it had "suspended" its alliance with the left-wing Euskal Herritarrok (which includes Herri Batasuna and several far-left parties) "until that political party ... distances itself and voices its disapproval of this ETA action" (the September 21 bombing).
Euskal Herritarrok later issued a statement saying it regretted the loss of human life in the blast. "Direct responsibility for the occurrence lies with its authors. But the whole of the political class is responsible for not having avoided it, especially those political forces that refuse to recognise the political nature of the (Basque) conflict."
Meanwhile, Ezker Batua (the Basque branch of the Communist Party-led national United Left) has quit the "Lizarra pact" in protest at the Basque nationalist left signatories' refusal to condemn ETA. The Lizarra declaration, signed on September 12, 1998, by all major Basque nationalist parties, trade unions and social movements, called on Madrid and ETA to begin unconditional talks for a political settlement to the Basque conflict. ETA's unilateral cease-fire several weeks later flowed directly from that initiative.
On January 27, Spanish national and regional police arrested at least 26 people in the provinces of Navarre and the Basque autonomous region during marches that coincided with a general strike called by Euskal Herritarrok and Herri Batasuna's trade union organisation LAB. The strikers were demanding that Basque political prisoners be granted amnesty and that the policy of dispersing Basque prisoners of war through prisons outside the Basque Country end. The strike was not backed by the PNV or its trade union body or the Spanish nationalist parties.