Basque Group ETA Calls Permanent Ceasefire After Four Decades of Terror

Basque terror group ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in a four-decade fight for independence from Spain, announced a permanent cease-fire. The Spanish government said it didn’t go far enough.

“ETA has decided to declare a permanent and general cease- fire that can be verified by the international community,” said a statement posted on the website of Basque newspaper Gara, the habitual channel for the movement’s declarations.

The group called for recognition of the Basque Country’s “right to decide” on its future, including the possibility of independence. The Basque people should be allowed to determine their future “without any type of interference or limitation.”

ETA, whose initials stand for Basque Homeland and Freedom, started its campaign for an independent nation carved out of northern Spain and southwestern France in 1968, when Spain was under a military dictatorship. Previous cease-fires have ended with the group’s return to violence and the government said the statement today didn’t go far enough.

“We have said time and again that the only statement that we want to see from the terrorist group ETA is one where ETA declares the end, in an irreversible and definitive way, and it’s clear once again today that ETA hasn’t done what we democratic parties want,” Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told reporters in Madrid.

Government Popularity

Some opposition lawmakers also said the announcement didn’t go far enough. The statement doesn’t mention the dissolution of the group, saying “ETA will not cease in its effort and struggle to propel and complete the democratic process.”

“They haven’t abandoned their objectives,” Rosa Diez, a former Socialist lawmaker in the Basque parliament who leads the Union for Progress and Democracy in the national assembly in Madrid, said in a telephone interview. “ETA has said these things many times over the course of this story.”

The announcement comes as the Socialist government’s popularity has collapsed in opinion polls amid the worst economic slump in six decades. It may bolster support for Interior MinisterRubalcaba, who has presided over a crackdown on ETA and who opinion polls rank as the leading candidate to possibly replace Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in elections scheduled for 2012.

The opposition People’s Party has an 18 percentage-point lead over the Socialists, according to an opinion poll published by newspaper El Mundo on Jan. 2.

Local Elections

The government may face demands from Batasuna, an outlawed political group that shares ETA’s goals for independence, to be allowed to field candidates in municipal elections scheduled for May. Batasuna urged ETA in September to call a “permanent, unilateral and verifiable” cease-fire, state newswire Efe reported.

Zapatero has hardened his line against the group since the peace talks he initiated collapsed in 2006 when ETA bombed a car park at Madrid’s Barajas airport, killing two people. Police have made more than 400 arrests of suspected ETA members since that cease-fire was broken, and at least seven alleged leaders have been detained in the last two years, according to the Interior Ministry.

“The permanence of such a cease-fire is going to depend on the ability of ETA to control its own people,” Bob Ayers, an international security analyst who served as a U.S. intelligence officer for 30 years, said in a telephone interview. “I wouldn’t be surprised if individuals within ETA continue to fight on their own.”

Basque Economy Boost

An end to violence may strengthen the economy of the region that borders France and includes the cities of San Sebastian and Bilbao. The region is Spain’s richest in terms of gross domestic product per capita and has the country’s lowest unemployment rate at half the national average.

ETA has traditionally raised funds by extorting local businesses through “revolutionary taxes” or kidnapping executives and demanding ransom. The campaign has raised security costs for companies operating in the region where hundreds of corporate and government officials are protected by bodyguards.

Spain, the country in continental Europe most affected by domestic and international terrorism, has suffered from ETA violence for more than a generation. ETA was formed to fight the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, who suppressed the Basque people and banned teaching of their language. In 1973, the group killed Franco’s prime minister and likely successor Admiral Luis Carrero-Blanco in a Madrid car bombing.

To contact the reporter on this story: Emma Ross-Thomas in Madrid at erossthomas@bloomberg.net; Ben Sills in Madrid at bsills@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Fraher at jfraher@bloomberg.net

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