A week after the Eta ceasefire, a Basque peace process is advancing by inches, but it is advancing, writes Paddy Woodworth
THE FIRST move by the Spanish judiciary after Eta’s ceasefire was to prohibit a demonstration that Basque pro-independence radicals, including former leaders of the banned political party Batasuna, had planned for last Saturday in Bilbao. The theme of the demonstration was human and political rights for all, with pride of place being given to the right to life.
A Spanish court argued that those who have been cheerleaders for Eta’s violent campaign for many years have little interest in such rights and were simply seeking to flex their muscles on the streets in support of a banned party linked to a terrorist group.
The banning of Batasuna demonstrations usually results in very violent rioting. This time, however, Batasuna and its associates called off the demonstration and had a quiet meeting indoors instead.
The abandonment of the demonstration can be read either as a sign of weakness or strength. Some will argue that Batasuna has lost the authority and momentum that used to bring thousands of Basques on to the streets at a moment’s notice.
The group itself says that the ban was a deliberate provocation. Party sources argue that their refusal to be drawn into a probable riot is a sign of their political maturity, their commitment to pursuing Basque independence by exclusively peaceful means.
Time will tell who is right and whether restless militants in Eta, said to be very unhappy with the ceasefire, will swallow a strategy that they would certainly have considered humiliating a year ago.
But the peace lobby can take some comfort in another development over the weekend, that suggests that the ruling Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) may be more positive about the ceasefire than its initial statements suggested.
Jesús Eguiguren, president of the Basque section of the PSOE, which is also in power in the Basque autonomous government, was given a very extensive interview in the Madrid newspaper El Pais yesterday.
Challenging the views of other members of his party’s leadership, he set out a fairly optimistic but complex choreography as to how a new peace process could play out.
He is convinced that Batasuna is now absolutely serious about ending violence, and that Eta has little choice but to follow. He claims that Rufi Exteberria, an erstwhile Batasuna hawk, has told him he wants to set up an independence party that condemns violence if Eta does not toe the line. He says that the Basque conflict is a “family quarrel” that can be sorted out at home without great involvement by Madrid.
The real significance of this interview is that El Pais, which is very close to the PSOE, has published it at such length at this point. It seems a clear indication that, alongside the government’s public dismissal of Eta’s ceasefire statement, there is a parallel track that will quietly engage with the radicals in an effort to draw them fully and finally into democratic discourse.