Euskadi Ta Askatsuna and Enviromentalism: Back in the Times of the Transition?
Autor: Óscar Hidalgo-Redondo » Kategorie: 01/2009, Archiv » 01. 05. 2009
The Basque independentist terrorist organization ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna; Basqueland and Freedom) assassinated Ignacio Uria on 3 December 2008. He was the fourth person to be killed in the year 2008. However, the death of Ignacio Uria can be considered different. The other three people killed by ETA in 2008 were military and political targets: a policeman and a member of the Spanish army on the one hand and a former municipal representative of the Spanish Socialist Party just before the local elections in March 2008.
In the case of Uria, he was a Basque entrepreneur, owner of a building firm „Altuna y Uria.“ This is not the first time that ETA selects a member of the Basque entrepreneurial class as the target of its attacks.1 ETA has a strong socialist-revolutionary component in its ideology and the social questions tend to be a central part of the discourse in the terrorist group’s communications. Anti-capitalism is part of ETA’s credo and it was evident since the adoption of the KAS alternative.2 However, in the communication in which ETA claimed the action against the entrepreneur, the fight against the capitalist exploitation was not mentioned. The justification of the „execution“ of Ignacio Uria Mendizabal was ‘his responsibility in the works of the imposed High Speed Trains and its refusal to pay ETA the revolutionary tax.’3 This is an important change in the strategy of the terrorist groups and implies and escalation in the means that the band has traditionally used against the projects that are considered negative for the future of the Basque people. This is not the first time in the history of ETA in which the terrorist group justifies its violence using the defense of environment as an argument. The cases of the nuclear plant of Lemóniz, the dam of Itoiz or the high-way in Leizarán are examples in which nationalism and environmentalism appeared mixed and in which ETA involvement was direct.
In this paper we are going to analyse if this assassination could imply a u-turn in the strategy of the terrorist group or a return to the 1980s and early 1990s scenarios in terms of the use of environmental questions as a justification for the political violence. We will analyse the relation between the Basque radical nationalism and the environmental movements and we will explain the main reasons behind the latest developments in ETA’s activity.
Basque Nationalism and Environmentalism
Nationalist movements are based on the existence of a feeling of national identity shared by a group of individuals that distinguishes itself from other individuals that do not belong to that group. This irrational feeling is based on tangible elements that can be measured. Aspects like language, religion, history and myths, territory or landscape, ethnicity, among others provide the substance around which the feeling of national identity can develop. In the case of the Basque nationalism the role that the territory plays is central. Basque nationalist defend the existence of a „map“ of the Basque country that is composed by seven territories („herrialde“). But associated to the land, in the imaginary of Basque nationalism exists a landscape that links the Basque people with a traditional agrarian society. Ludger Mees describes well the origins of the Basque nationalism as a movement of resistance to the consequences of the modernization of the Spanish and Basque society. According to him, the social base of the Basque nationalist was ‘recruited among sectors of the traditional urban, lower middle classes, who saw themselves as victims of modernization, displaced from the centre to the periphery of society and under pressure both from the socialist labour movement and from the small clan of the politically and economically leading elite of the financial and industrial oligarchy.’4 The Basque Nationalist Party founded by Sabino Arana in 1895 reincarnates this vision of the Basque as opposed to the Spanish; as Díez Medrano points out ‘Arana hated Spanish immigrant because they were important agents of change in the traditions and culture of the Basque country.’5 Arana idealised the Basque past and considered that the Basque ‘uses and traditions were sign of nobility, virtue and virility of the Basque People: and you, degenerated and corrupted by the Spanish influence, have either completely adulterated them, or you have changed for the uses and traditions of a nation both effeminate and brutish.’6 The reference in the motto of the Basque Nationalist Party to „God and the old laws“ (Jaungoikua eta legezarra) indicates the idealisation of the old Basque past. Muro stresses the importance of the notion of nostalgia, defined by Armstrong as ‘a persistent image of a superior way of life in the distant past [...]; the yearning to return to a Golden Age’7 , in the Basque nationalist ideology. This link individual-land is not only present in the discourse of the moderate Basque Nationalist Party but in all the nationalist forces. It is also the case of Arnaldo Otegi, one of the historical leaders of Batasuna, the political party representing ETA in the Spanish and Basque institutions. In a documentary film on the Basque conflict, the leader of Batasuna was interviewed and he stated that ‘we (radical nationalists) believe that the day in which in Lequeitio or Zubieta people will eat in a burger and listen to American rock music, and everyone will wear American clothes, and stop speaking their language to speak English, and everyone will be, instead of contemplating the mountings, using internet; that day, for us, it will be such a boring world that it will not be worth living.’8
As a consequence of the link between the land, the nature, the landscape and the people that live in it that the Basque nationalism established from its origins, we can find differences between Basque and Spanish feelings towards the importance of the environment and the social use that is made out of it. According the Basque Sociological barometer, the Basques tend to consider that environmental problems are more urgent than the rest of the Spanish do (see figure 1).
Public opinion surveys show that Basque citizens tend to spend a considerable amount of their leisure time in contact with the nature. This is especially true in the case of the young. According to the 2004 survey about young people and leisure time conducted by the observatory of young people in the Basque Country, 12¬% of young people mentioned „go to the mountains“ as one of the activities that always do in weekend, being this one the fifth most popular option.9 This perception continues a tradition for young people in the Basque Country, were mountaineering and trekking clubs have been important in the life of youngsters and a vehicle of political socialisation in the times of Francoist repression. As Gurruchaga points out, ‘the associations (mountaineering and trekking) substitute the political parties in activities carried out normally by these’.10 Some people have referred to the hiking associations as ‘schools of nationalism’ defining the hikes as „acts of patriotism.’11 The association between being in contact with the nature and the nationalist identity is direct and groups of „mendizaleak“ (people that like to go out in excursions to the countryside) choose Basque as the language in which they communicate and take with them political symbols as the „ikurriña“ (the Basque flag).
The extension of an environmental consciousness and environmentalist values is evident, not only in the Basque Country, but in general in Spain since the 1970s.12 However, the in the case of the Basque Country, the defence of the environmental cause has traditionally been politicised. While in the rest of Spain, the environmental movements have been essentially movements defending the environment, in the case of the Basque territories, the political and the environmental were closely associated. In his study on the conflict about the dam of Itoiz in Navarre, Barcena refers to the easy transition from the local (environmental) to the national (political). According to him, ‘the local dimension is rapidly overcome by the Basque national conflict [...]. From the first local mobilisations, the political sides appear clearly defined, replicating the structure of the known ethno-national positions.’13 In reality, the connection between radical nationalism with social movements cannot be circumscribed only to environmental movements but also to other type of social movements such as anti-military, feminist, anti-globalisation or anti-discrimination. However, it has been only in the case of the environmental defence when the terrorist group ETA has been directly involved using ecology as not only justification for its actions but also as the reason for them. In the next section we will analyse the most notable actions.
ETA and Environmentalism
Originally ETA had no link with environmentalist movements. We have described above the importance of the land and the contact with the nature for the nationalist movement especially in its origins. However, in the creation of ETA the environmentalist discourse was not present. ETA was product of the frustration that a part of the Basque society felt about the way in which their national aspirations were handled both by the Spanish government in Madrid and the leaders of the moderate nationalist movement. ETA is going to define itself as a progressive movement. The nationalist inspiration coexists and blends with other anti-systemic and alternative tendencies found in the Basque society. Very soon in ETA and its political arm a socialist wing is going to develop, becoming very influential. The Basque Movement of National Liberation (MNLV) includes not only ETA and its political articulation (Herri Batasuna, Euskal Herritarrok, Batasuna…)14 but other anti-systemic groups rallied around the idea of the fight against an unfair state.15 ETA aims to represent the vanguard of the nationalist forces and aspires to lead the process of transformation in the Basque society. In addition to that, if ETA was able to influence those movements, the possibilites of ETA of becoming a pivotal force would be enhanced. Thus, ETA recognised the need of the communion between the terrorist band and the progressive groups present in the Basque society. In the last communication of the terrorist group commemorating the fifty anniversary of the organisation, ETA explains that ‘in order to enter the phase of independence, it is the time to unite the forces in favour of the nation without excuses. It is the time to begin the way for the Basque People to have their place and voice in the world.’16
If we focus on the use that ETA has made of the environmental issues to select targets in its terrorist activity, it is necessary to refer first to the case of the nuclear plant of Lemóniz. This power station was part of the nuclear plan that had been developed in the last years of Francoism in order to provide for Spain energetic autonomy.17 The plant began to be built in 1972 and it was the Basque energy corporation Iberduero the company that was behind the project. Lemoníz would be able to generate with its two reactors about 70% of the energy that the Basque Country needed at that time. The nuclear plant of Lemoníz was part of a very ambitious project: two more nuclear power stations were to be built in the Basque Country (Deva and Izpáster) and one more in Navarre (Tudela). However, very soon, the Iberduero found the opposition of the local communities. City councils, intellectuals and neighbours united against the construction of these power stations. From the four nuclear power stations only Lemóniz became a reality. Despite the growing opposition of, first a local, and later a Basque anti-nuclear movement, Iberdrola received the permissions to initiate and continue with the construction.18 In 1977, ETA got involved directly. It was an opportunity to establish an strategic alliance with environmental movements and the local communities and appear as the defender of the powerless in front of the institutionalised power. In addition to that, making out of the fight against the nuclear plant in Lemóniz one of ETA’s priorities did not contravene the foundational objectives of the terrorist organisation’s: in their eyes, Lemóniz was an imposition of the Spanish state on the Basque Country. Iberduero was a Basque corporation but it was acting in fulfilment of the plans developed by the Francoist government and always under the authority of the Spanish nuclear authorities (the Junta of Nuclear Energy and the Council of Nuclear Security). In his communication of 15 June 1979, ETA maintains that ‘the imposition in the Basque Country of nuclear energy plans delegitimised by the public opinion, responds to the existence of an anti-democratic and anti-Basque policy of imperialist oppression and wild exploitation by the Spanish people against the working Basque nation.’19 The first actions of ETA against Lemoníz power station aimed at sabotaging the works with the installation of bombs. Also offices of Iberduero were attacked trying to force the company to halt the whole project. The Spanish police was commissioned to take control over the security of the construction site. The conflict escalates when in December 1977, ETA attacks a security checkpoint in the access to the works and one of the terrorists, David Álvarez Peña, dies as a consequence of the assault. Since that moment ETA considers Lemóniz as a priority target and despite the increase of the security measures the attacks continue. In March 1978 another bombs killed two of the workers that were building the power station. In June 1979 a third construction worker is killed as a consequence of another bomb installed by ETA. The anti-nuclear movement suffered the consequences of these attacks that killed innocent workers and was divided between the radicals close to the theses of ETA and those that considered that the strategy against Lemóniz had to be peaceful. The most spectacular action of ETA was the kidnapping of the leading engineer of the power plant Jose María Ryan. ETA gave an ultimatum to Iberduero threatening with the execution of the worker if the project was not paralysed in a definitive way. ETA fulfilled its threat and killed the engineer. The consequences of the assassination were paramount. First, the cruelty of ETA spurred a movement of protest. Second, Iberdrola had to slow down the project. ETA stroked again killing another engineer, Ángel Pascual Múgica, in 1982 when the project had been put to a halt and the definitive termination of the project was becoming a reality.
The fight against the power plant of Lemóniz implied the use of a non-political cause by ETA in order to gain popularity and presence among the Basque social movements. This was a well designed strategy that also allowed ETA to gain leverage within those sectors. The connection between the environmental movement in the Basque Country and organisations closely associated with ETA has been constant since the 1970s.
The other two major environmental conflicts in which ETA has been present are the construction of the dam of Itoiz and the highway of Leizarán. In these two cases the participation of ETA as an actor in the protests has been very different. In the case of the reservoir, ETA has not been involved directly as an actor. The shadow of ETA was present and the Basque and Navarrese public opinion knew that ETA opposed this project.
The protest dam of Itoiz’s project began in 1985 when local residents began their mobilisation against the plan of the Spanish Ministry of Public Works. The construction of the dam would inundate eight villages and residents and ecologists founded the Itoiz Cordinating Group.20 The protests increased since 1993 when the works began. In 1995 a second group appear, Solidary with Itoiz. This second group had a more radical approach: ‘if the Coordinating Group have concentrated their attention on information, social mobilisation and legal battles, „Solidari@s con Itoiz“ have chosen to complement these methods of struggle with civil disobedience.21′ The highest peak of the sabotage actions conducted by activists of this organization was when eight people cut steel cords that were used in the construction of the dam, paralysing the works. The members of the platform were prosecuted and sentenced to almost five years in prison for the attack against the security guard and for the damage caused in the construction site.
Despite the strong resistance of the ecologist movements on the ground and the tenacious pressure of the platforms against Itoiz in the courts of justice, the project became a reality in 2004. Itoiz represents the defeat of the environmentalists; however the platforms have not been completely dissolved since still continue their pressure monitoring the ecological effects of the creation of a reservoir in that land (especially the seismic activity).22
In this case, the political representation of ETA in the Basque and Navarrese institutions, openly supported the actions against but ETA did not attack directly the workers that were executing the project. The crisis took place in a moment of weakness of the organisation after the police intervention in Bidart and it was a time in which ETA was letting Herri Batasuna, its political party, to explore a new line: an attempt to build a nationalist front including moderate nationalist parties that was going to crystallise in the agreements of Lizarra.
The case of the highway of Leizarán presents more resemblances with the case of the nuclear plant of Lemóniz. The 43 kilometres of highway between Irurzun and Andoáin that would be linking Navarre and the East of the Spanish Basque Autonomic Community were one of the most expensive roads built in Spain. The road, originally planned in 1985, collided with the interests of ecologist groups that believed that the initial project had a very high ecologic impact in the valley of Leizarán. The coordinator group Lurraldea is going to become the representative of those that were against the plan connecting Navarre and Guipúzcoa using the corridor proposed by the regional authorities. The political arm of ETA at that time, Herri Batasuna is going to immediately join the ecologist cause.
Six years later the highway was finished but after the regional authorities negotiated a change in the course followed by the road. The change came in 1992 after a fierce campaign of ETA and the so-called „y-groups“ against the interests of the firms involved in the project. 23 More than 200 sabotage actions took place in this short period. One of the products of the campaign of ETA against Leizarán was the death of four people: two policemen that fail in the deactivation of a bomb in a postal parcel addressed to a building company taking part in the development of the works, a member of the security of one of the building companies, and one of the directors of the company Ferrovial, José Edmundo Casañ. This last assassination can be link to the actions in Lemóniz against the leading engineers. The goal was to attack directly those strategic targets whose elimination would damage the capacity of ETA’s enemy to continue with the project. In this case, the construction companies could find a replace for the assassinated engineer or the damaged machinery but the morale was so low among the workers that the regional governments decided to agree with Lurraldea a change in the project, altering the itinerary of the road. The radical nationalist achieved their original goal, not so much to paralyse the project, but to force the regional government to negotiate, recognising them as parties with the right to be present in the negotiation.
To summarise, ETA has made an extensive use of the environmental cause in order to gain leverage and influence over the anti-systemic groups and social movements and gain them for the independentist cause. The use of the environmental movements and association to environmental protest gave ETA a notable social relevance that also helped to create an image of modernity that was appealing for the most progressive sectors of the Basque society and particularly among young people.
ETA’s Present Strategy and the Role of the Environmental Cause
The aim of this paper was to analyse the role and the involvement of ETA and the conglomerate that is labelled as the Basque National Liberation Movement (MNLV) within the Basque environmental movement, particularly focusing in the latest developments witnessed in the strategy of the terrorist organisation.
At the beginning of the paper the assassination of the entrepreneur Ignacio Uría in December 2008 was mentioned as a turning point in the strategy of ETA. Since 1991, ETA leadership had not ordered the „execution“ of a person due to its participation in a project that damaged the environment in the Basque Country. The assassination of the entrepreneur born in Azpeitia is the peak of a campaign that targets the creation of a net of high speed railroads that will connect the Basque Country with Spain and the rest of Europe. This project has been known as the „Basque Y“ because it will link the Basque capitals with a high speed line in the form of that letter being the axis Vitoria-San Sebastian would be part of the European line Madrid-Dax. Despite the project had been born in the 1990s in was only in 2006 when the agreement Spanish government and Basque regional government about financing the costs of the works was reached and the works began.
The opposition to the plan existed before the works began. In 2001 the platform AHT Gelditu! (Stop High Speed Train!) was created and it grouped all the associations that were against the creation of this type of infrastructure in the Basque Country. According to the foundational charter of AHT Gelditu!, their rejection of the high speed train was based on the ‘anti-social, anti-ecologic, non-rational economically, and absolutely inappropriate character that the project has.’24 This platform groups a myriad of social organizations including groups that belong to the close circle of organizations around the radical nationalist movement such as LAB (the independentist trade union), Eguzki (the ecologist movement close to the theses of the radical parties) or Haika (the organization of young people illegalised in Spain for its links with ETA). At the same time, AHT Gelditu! had rallied groups that have a clear pro-ecologist agenda such as Ecologists in Motion (Ekologistak Martxan, that is part of the Spanish ecologist platform Ecologistas en Acción), Batzarre (a political party that is part of the coalition Nafarroa-Bai and rejects the use of political violence to solve the Basque question, or Izquierda Unida-Ezker Batua (that is the Basque branch of the third biggest party in Spain and one of the members of the governing coalition in the Basque government). The appearance of ETA as an actor in the conflict and the use of direct violence against people associated with the works of the high speed train opened a debate within the platform. Despite AHT Gelditu! was not dissolved as a consequence of the assassination of Uría, the organization suffered the consequences of the terrorist actions. While the most radical groups within AHT Gelditu! remained silence about the assassination, the organisations with a purely environmental interest protested against the use that ETA did of the fight against the high speed train to justify a terrorist action.25
With this action ETA intends to become a reference point for the alternative and anti-systemic movement in the Basque Country. ETA tries to penetrate and exert control over those sectors of the society that do not feel represented by the traditional political parties or those that believe that using the institutional channels in the Basque Country and Spain do not allow their voices to be heard. This attempt to monopolise and control the anti-systemic movements stirs also a reaction from those sectors that do not want ETA to gain representativity. In January 2008, a group of people that belong to the platform AHT Gelditu! including Iñaki Antigüedad (a historical leader of Herri Batasuna) or Mikel Álvarez (brother of the one of the leaders of Batasuna in prison after the illegalisation of the political party) wrote a manifesto asking ETA ‘to stop interfering in the social struggles, and to stop acting as the guardian of the Basque society. We believe that the use of violence is entering in a spiral less and less controllable every time. The strength of the chain of command is substituting other ethical and political criteria.’26
These opinions have not changed the strategy of ETA that has continued the pressure against the project and those firms that are working in it. The last episode has been the bomb in Madrid against the building of the firm Ferrovial on 9 February 2009 that has caused only material damages and links directly the strategy against the high speed train to the fight against Leizarán highway.27
To conclude this paper we would like to address the question of why ETA returns nowadays to tactics that were used more than 15 years ago; what has changed in the Basque Country that makes ETA return to strategies that have been not been used for such a long period of time.
In order to answer these questions is important to differentiate Lemoníz from the other two cases that have been studied in the paper. The fight against the nuclear power station of Lemoníz had a justification that went beyond the environmental. Lemóniz, as it was indicated before, was a project „inherited“ from the administrations of the dictatorial state. The fight against Lemóniz was a fight against the impositions of the Francoist regime for the Basque Country. Lemóniz began when the Basque Statute of Autonomy did not exist.28 There is another element that made very attractive ETA’s direct involvement in the dispute about Lemóniz and was the consideration of the fight against nuclear energy as a sign of modernity and progressiveness. ETA, attacking Lemóniz, was linking its name to those anti-nuclear and pro-environmental movements that had already developed in Western Europe.
In the case of Leizarán, the decisive part of the conflict takes place between 1989 and 1992; and particularly the year 1991 when ETA conducted some of it most violent attacks. 1991 was the fifth most deadly year in the history of ETA (see figure 2).
After the collapse of the negotiation between the Spanish government led by Felipe González and the leaders of ETA in 1988 in Algeria, the activity of ETA in terms of people assassinated reduced to levels similar to the period before 1978. The years from 1988 to 1991 are difficult years for the terrorist organisation due to a change in the leadership (the group leading the negotiations was deported to Santo Domingo) and to the union of the democratic forces in the Pact of Ajuria Enea in which the political parties of the Basque Country demanded ETA to stop its activity and condemned the use of violence to achieve political objectives. The case of the highway of Leizarán was a golden opportunity for the terrorist group to try to break the policy of isolation that the rest of the political forces in the Basque Country and Navarre were imposing over ETA and those that supported its activity. The police action against the leadership in the band in 1992 in Bidart (France) force ETA a change of generation among the leaders of ETA and it initiated a new period in the history of the band. The weakness of the organisation became evident and a process of regeneration did begin. The attitude of ETA towards the conflict of Itoiz represents a good example of the new times for the group. The struggle to put project of Itoiz to a halt began in 1993 but ETA was never present as a decisive actor. On the contrary ETA was trying to break with the isolation product of the Pact of Ajuria Enea letting its political arm, Herri Batasuna to negotiate an agreement with the nationalist forces. The pact of Estella-Lizarra in 1998 marked the beginning a period of ceasefire that ETA used to reconstruct its damaged structures.
The new developments after the 2006 ceasefire and the use of the defence of the environment as a justification of the actions against individuals that ETA has used are a direct consequence of the state of weakness of the terrorist organisation. Weakness is the crucial concept to understand the re-edition of the environmental issues to justify the assassination of citizens by ETA. The main reasons for the return to the centrality of the environmental discourse and the direct link between the assassination of an individual is due to two main factors: first, the loss of political space for the radical independentist movement to engage the Basque society; second, the military weakness of the organisation. We can refer to the weakness (political and military) of the terrorist group as the central element behind this return to the environmental discourse to justify assassinations.
On the one hand, the union of the main political parties in Spain against the terror of the organization and its practical application with the Law on Political Parties of 2002 has added a new front to the fight against ETA. This law open the possibility of the illegalisation of parties that do not ‘respect the democratic values’ and particularly ‘offering explicit or implicit support to the terrorist group, legitimating the terrorist actions to achieve political goals not using the peaceful and democratic channels.’29 This law opened the judicial track towards the illegalisation of the political parties that supported ETA impeding them to compete in the elections. The political party Batasuna was illegalised by the Spanish justice in 2003, the Communist Party of the Basque Lands (EHAK-PCTV) in 2008 and Nationalist Basque Action (ANV) is in the process of a definitive illegalisation. The regional elections in March 2009 will be the first time when the radical nationalist forces will not be represented by any party: the lists presented by the two groups associated to the radical independentism have been declared void by the Spanish Supreme Court. Demokrazia Hiru Milioi (D3M)30 , with clear links to Batasuna, and Askatasuna31 , with candidates not directly associated with Batasuna in the past, were considered by the Spanish Supreme Court as political parties that did not fulfil the requirements set by the Spanish law on political parties. At the same time, the moderate nationalist forces are trying to occupy the political space that the impossibility to compete in the regional elections and collect the suffrages of those voters that in the past were represented by these groups.
This scenario: weakness of ETA, the parliamentary and institutional channels blocked, an offensive by the other nationalist forces to collect the votes left behind by Batasuna’s illegalisation forces ETA and its environment to look for alternatives to be present in the Basque political life. With a clear rejection in the Basque Society about the use of violence in order to achieve goals and a perception that in the present political situation the use of violence is not legitimated (see figure 3); ETA is making a desperate attempt to connect with anti-systemic groups. ETA feels the need to continue being present as a political and social actor and regain a social relevance that has been losing in the last years.
Secondly, the military weakness is evident. The capacity of the Spanish and French police forces to neutralise activists is evident. In less than six months the head of the military apparatus of ETA has been captured by the police three times.32 The organisation is penetrated by the police and every time is more complicated for the terrorist cells to carry out their actions without being discovered. Terrorist actions that require a long and detailed planning are very difficult now for an organisation that has lost a good portion of its operational capabilities. The infrastructure of ETA has been damaged severely in the last decade and this is not only due to the police activity but also for the difficulties in recruiting new activists from a society that is tired of a very long conflict. In an scenario like the one described, ETA favours targets that are easy and actions in which much risk is not involved. Firms working in the high-speed train and the entrepreneurs responsible of the firms working are a perfect target for ETA. Their number is very big and it is very easy for ETA to attack them even with a limited preparation for the action. In addition to that, the impact in the public opinion would be immediate. A different issue are the effects of the actions in terms of the response than the Spanish and, especially, the Basque society can adopt.
The terrorist organisation is in a situation of weakness never experienced after the death of Franco. However, the attempt to return to strategies that were successful in the context of the transition, the use of the environmental defence (the opposition to the high speed train) to gain popularity and leverage among the ecologist movements may produce effects contrary to the interest of ETA. The strong reaction to the assassination of Ignacio Uría, the criticism directed at ETA for this „pro-environmental“ turn coming from many different sectors (some of them very close to the radical independentism) could be producing the opposite effect to the one desired by the terrorist organization. The environmentalisation of ETA’s discourse could be interpreted as a sign of weakness and a desperate attempt to gain popularity in a society extenuated by a very long conflict.
Notes:
1) ETA has a long tradition of attacks to Basque and Spanish entrepreneurs. Since 1976 (when ETA killed Angel Berazadi, executive director of Sigma) ETA has assassinated, according to the newspaper El Mundo, 41 entrepreneurs, Cristina Ramos, ‘«Ser empresario en este país es terea de valientes», afirma el Lehendakari’, Diario El Mundo, edición digital, http://www.elmundo.es/2008/12/04/espana/2555309_impresora.html, accessed 29 January 2009.
2) The KAS alternative was a document created in 1976 to unite ideologically and serve as reference for the different sectors of the Basque radical nationalism. The KAS alternative, in its third point refers to the ‘adoption of measures aimed at the improvement of the living conditions of the popular masses and, in particular, of the working class.’ A brief explanation of the birth of the Nationalist-Socialist Coordination (KAS) and its environment can be found in Paul Preston, The Triumph of Democracy in Spain (London: Routledge, 1987) pp. 87-91.
3) ‘Communication of ETA, January 2009′, http://www.abertzale.eu/wp-content/uploads/
2009/01/210109comunicadoeta.pdf, accessed 29 January 2009.
4) Ludger Mees, Nationalism, Violence and Democracy : The Basque Clash of Identities (London: Palgrave, 2003), p. 9.
5) Juan Díez Medrano, ‘Pattern of Develoment and Nationalism: Basque and Catalan Nationalism before the Spanish Civil War’, Theory and Society, 23, 1994, p. 547.
6) Sabino Arana, Obras Completas as referred in Teresa Fernández Ulloa, ‘Figuras Retoricas in Sabino Arana’, Circulo, n. 14, 2003, http://www.ucm.es/info/circulo/no14/fulloa.htm, accessed 28 January 2009.
7) John Armstrong, Nations Before Nationalism, (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1982), p. 16, as referred in Diego Muro, ‘Nationalism and nostalgia: the case of radical Basque nationalism’, Nations and Nationalism 11, 4, 2005, p. 504
8 ) Julio, Médem, La Pelota Vasca: La Piel contra la Piedra, SAV Films, 2003.
9) Observatorio Vasco de Juventud, Indicadores de Juventud 2007: Ocio y Tiempo Libre (Vitoria: Servicio Central de Publicaciones del Gobierno Vasco, 2007) p. 10.
10) Ander Gurruchaga, El Código Nacionalist Vasco durante el Franquismo (Bilbao: Anthropos Editorial, 1985) pp. 383
11) That was precisely the expression used by one of the persons interviewed in Alfonso Pérez-Agote, The Social Roots of Basque Nationalism (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2006) p. 181.
12) For a brief history of the post-1978 development and consolidation of the Spanish environmentalist movement see Manuel Jiménez, ‘The Environmental Movement in Spain’, South European Society & Politics, vol. 12, n. 3, pp. 359-78.
13) Iñaki Barcena, ‘Itoiz: Entre lo Local y lo Global’, paper presented in the III Iberian Congress on Management and Planning of Water Resources, Seville 2002, p. 3, http://grupo.us.es/ciberico/archivos_acrobat/sevilla4barcena.pdf, accessed 2 February 2009.
14) The political representation of ETA has changed its name in numerous occasions. Born as an electoral coalition in 1978, Herri Batasuna took the name Euskal Herritarrok in 1998 and Batasuna in 2001. The 2002 Law on Political Parties in Spain has forced this political groups to adopt different names in an strategy devised to allow them to be present in the elections celebrated after 2002.
15) These groups have very dissimilar agendas: there are groups that are anti-militaristic as Kakitzak, a trade union as LAB, organizations created to promote the solidarity with the activists in prison as Gestoras Pro-Amnistia, students like Ikasle Abertzaleak or Segi, environmental groups as Eguzki…
16) ‘Euskadi ta Askatasunaren Agiria Euskal Herriari, January 2009′, Diario Gara on line, www.gara.net/agiriak/20090130_eta_agiria.pdf, accessed 6 February 2009.
17) See Albert Presas i Puig, ‘Science on the Periphery. The Spanish Reception of Nuclear Energy: An Attempt at Modernity?’, Minerva, 43, 2005, pp. 197-218 for a detailed description of the development of a nuclear program under Franco’s regime.
18) A very detailed summary of the actions against the construction of the nuclear plant of Lemóniz can be found in the website Lemoiz Apurtu, www.lemoiz.com.
19) This was the communication of ETA as quoted in Patxo Unzueta, ‘ETA Reivindica el Atentado de la Central Nuclear de Lemóniz’, El Pais, 16 June 1979, http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/ESPANA/PAIS_VASCO/PARTIDO_NACIONALISTA_VASCO_/PNV/IBERDUERO/ETA/ETA/reivindica/atentado/central/nuclear/Lemoniz/elpepiesp/19790616elpepinac_14/Tes, accessed 6 February 2009.
20) For complete summary of the legal actions carried out by the Coordinating group consult María José Beaumont and José Luis Beaumont, ‘El Embalse de Itoiz: Historia y Situación Actual’, Ambiente y Derecho, n. 1, 2003, pp. 47-65.
21) Iñaki Barcena and Pedro Ibarra, ‘The Itoiz Reservoir in the Basque Country: A Local Conflict Becoming (Inter)Nacional?, paper presented in ECPR Joint Sessions, 2001, p. 13.
22) A good example of this activity is the website „Itoiz Stop“ representing „the neighbours threatened by the reservour“, www.itoizstop.org.
23) Most of the activity of ETA in this conflict was framed within what has been traditionally called in Spain low intensity terrorism: actions not aimed at causing any death but directed at exercising pressure against the social actors that have been identified as enemies. That was the goal of the „y-groups“; see Pedro Antonio Pizarro de Medina, ‘Terrorismo de Baja Intensidad: La Kale-Borroka“, Cuadernos de la Guardia Civil: Revista de Seguridad Pública, 24, 2001, pp. 99-104.
24) ‘Manifiesto Fundamental de la Plataforma AHT Gelditu!’, website of AHT Gelditu!, www.ahtgelditu.org/documentuak/fundacional.rtf, accessed 8 February 2009.
25) The best example could be the group Ekologistak Martxan that in a press release maintained that ‘Ekologistak Martxan showed a profound disagreement and rejection of the assassination of a person for participating in the works of the high speed train [...]. Maintaining our radical opposition to the projects of the high speed train, we state a profound rejection of any of type of violence directed against people, and of armed actions against entities or institutions due to their support to the high speed train’, ‘Comunicado de Prensa de Ekologistak Martxan’, Website of Ekologistak Martxan, http://www.ekologistakmartxan.org/308.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=679&tx_ttnews[backPid]=304&cHash=1e14067f5d, accessed 8 February 2009.
26) V.A., ‘Queremos Manifestar Nuestro Rechazo’, Boletín Ekologistak Martxan, December-January 2008-9, p. 12.
27) We have already referred that the only person directly associated with the works of the highway that ETA assassinated was a manager of the firm Ferrovial, José Edmundo Casañ in 1991.
28) It is also true that the Basque Parliament authorised and supported the project. Also the provincial government of Vizcaya, in the hands of the moderate nationalists was in favor of Lemóniz. Since 1981 this project was managed by the Basque Government that finally decided to paralyse it.
29) ‘Ley Orgánica 6/2002 de Partidos Políticos’, Boletín Oficial del Estado, n. 124, 28 June 2002, p. 23604.
30) Sala Especial del art. 61 de la LOPJ, Tribunal Supremo, ‘ Estimación recursos contencioso-electorales deducidos por la Abogacía del Estado y el Ministerio Fiscal sobre impugnación de los acuerdos de proclamación de las candidaturas de las agrupaciones denominadas Arabako Demokrazia 3.000.000 -D3m- y Demokrazia hiru milioi’ http://www.poderjudicial.es/eversuite/GetDoc?DBName=dPortal&UniqueKeyValue=70883&Download=false&ShowPath=false, accessed 9 February 2009.
31) Sala Especial del art. 61 de la LOPJ, Tribunal Supremo, ‘Incidente de ejecución de sentencia 1/2003′, Website of the Spanish Supreme Court, http://www.poderjudicial.es/eversuite/GetDoc?DBName=dPortal&UniqueKeyValue=70884&Download=false&ShowPath=false, accessed 9 February 2009.
32) Garikoitz Aspiazu “Txeroki” in November 11, 2008; his substitute Aitzol Iriondo in December 8 and finally Jurdan Martitegi on 18 April 2009.
Works Cited:
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