With no Eta ceasefire yet declared, suspicions have deepened, writes Paddy Woodworth
"The logic of terrorists is not our logic. There is convincing evidence that Eta has already taken the decision to end violence. The question is when they will choose to declare a ceasefire. Like the IRA, however, they will continue to attempt to apply pressure through violence until the very last moment."
Gorka Landaburu knows Eta (Euskadi ta Askatasuna, which translates as Basque Homeland and Liberty) more intimately than most people outside its ranks. Like thousands of middle-aged Basques, as a young man he was briefly a member.
Since then he has been a journalist, an acute critic of terrorism and a resolute democrat, while understanding the cultural and political roots of the radical Basque pro-independence movement, and following every twist and turn in Eta's strategy.
He nearly paid the ultimate price for his criticism in 2001, when an Eta letter bomb in his home cost him the use of a thumb, a finger and the sight of one eye. Also his wife and daughter might easily have died.
Last week he spoke by phone to The Irish Times as he was returning from a ceremony commemorating his friend, Basque Socialist Party (PSOE) leader Fernando Buesa, who was killed by an Eta car bomb, along with his bodyguard Jorgé Diez, a Basque policeman, six years ago last Wednesday.
You might expect Landaburu to harbour some rancour against the terrorists. However, unlike the hundreds of Eta victims who demonstrated in Madrid last Saturday, Landaburu strongly supports the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, in his initiative to achieve a negotiated end to Basque political violence.
The angry demonstrators, supported by the entire leadership of the opposition Partido Popular (PP), shouted slogans that Zapatero was "surrendering to terrorism". Landaburu believes the prime minister is "trying to ensure that the last victim of Eta really is the last victim. This is not to surrender, this is to make peace."
The last mortal victims of Eta died 1,000 days ago last Friday (see panel). They were two policeman, killed by a limpet bomb. Since then, Eta has continued to carry out attacks but has not killed anyone. This was not for want of trying in the early stages, but since the Islamist bombings in Madrid on March 11th, 2004, a policy of avoiding bloodshed has evolved.
It was in this new context that Zapatero made a controversial offer, during a state of the nation parliamentary debate last May. He said he was willing to enter talks with Eta, on the strict condition that the group first totally abandoned terrorism. Zapatero also made it clear that he would not negotiate political issues with the group.
He was immediately savaged by the leader of the PP, Mariano Rajoy, for "betraying the dead". Bipartisan unity on terrorism had been a hallmark of Spanish policy on the issue since democracy was reintroduced in 1978, but it stands in tatters today, as the angry rhetoric of last Saturday's protest shows.
"The PP are manipulating the victims of Eta," says Landaburu. "Previous demonstrations about terrorism were directed against Eta, now they are against the government, and this is happening at the point when the government is closer than ever to achieving peace."
This is a disturbing development, but it is at least equally worrying that Eta's response to Zapatero's offer has been decidedly cool. The group has planted dozens of bombs since last May, and this month it has once again deeply embarrassed the prime minister.
Ten days ago, Zapatero expressed "optimism that we are near the beginning of the end" of Eta's violence.
There was intense speculation that he had learned that Eta's long-delayed ceasefire communique was imminent.
Two days later the group issued one of its infrequent statements, which claimed a whole series of recent bombings but made no reference to a ceasefire. This weekend a further statement demanded "self-determination". Zapatero has already ruled that out.
This failure to climb through the window of opportunity opened by Zapatero seems particularly obtuse, given that both the rank and file and the leadership of its political wing, Batasuna, are clearly in favour of an end to violence. Last April, even before Zapatero's offer, Batasuna's spokesman, Arnaldo Otegi, told The Irish Times that he believed there would be a permanent ceasefire, but he could not say when.
It is clear that the impact of Islamist terrorism, which made Eta's actions seem almost irrelevant, and the example of the IRA's voluntary disarmament, have made a deep impression on the Basque movement. Many people who had drifted away from Batasuna are coming back in expectation of an end to violence.
While the party has been technically illegal since 2002, it may now be as strong as ever. And the political climate under Zapatero opens new perspectives. Madrid has already moved towards recognition that Catalonia is a "nation", without any terrorist pressure in that region. So the status of the Basque country could also be renegotiated, among all political parties, once Eta calls a final truce.
Yet Eta's attacks go on. A member of the PSOE was attacked with fireworks last week, and two people were injured in a bombing on Saturday night. Any one of these "operations" could end in a fatality, however unintentional, which would leave Zapatero no option but to withdraw the talks offer.
When this was pointed out to a senior Batasuna figure last year, he said he believed Eta was taking all possible precautions. Then he raised his hand from the table and eloquently crossed his fingers. He tacitly agreed that this was not exactly a secure path to peace.
There are well-grounded fears that some senior elements in Eta may not be at all convinced of the virtues of peace, and that they see the current long lull as just one more stage in a protracted struggle.
Some of them have in the past supported the principle of "the worse, the better" - that is, harsh repression by a right-wing or even military government would radicalise the Basque population and increase support for their armed struggle for total independence.
To such men and women, the Spanish conservative opposition's shift to the hard right, using a rhetoric of aggressive Spanish nationalism not heard since the Franco era, offers an attractive prospect.
The counter-analysis to this view is that one of Eta's veteran leaders, José Antonio Urrutikoetxea (also know as Josu Ternera), is operating a peace process "tandem" with Arnaldo Otegi, albeit an excruciatingly slow one.
After a long prison sentence, Urrutikoetxea became a Basque MP alongside Otegi, who also has an Eta background. Some two years ago, he went underground again. If he is back in the Eta leadership, it is the first time that the group has been led by someone with experience of parliamentary democracy, and with close links to a current Batasuna leader.
This would put him in a unique position to convince his comrades to take a purely political road.
It is very difficult to know if either scenario is valid, because the leadership of Eta is more hermetic than the IRA army council ever was, and has been never afraid to embarrass its own political wing. Nevertheless, observers with good contacts in the movement say that recently released prisoners, close to the thinking of that leadership, are steadily advancing the argument for a full cessation.
Batasuna repeatedly makes the point that Madrid is also sending out contradictory signals. As well as continued police harassment, they point to a series of draconian judicial decisions, one of them taken only last week, which means that, as things stand, several Eta prisoners already convicted will have to serve longer sentences.
Perhaps there is a clue to the thinking of both sides in a metaphor used by Arnaldo Otegi last week: "Right now we are doing the warming up exercises before going out onto the football pitch," he said. And then added: "We are at the start of a process which will definitively resolve the political and armed conflict."
So maybe all the recent obscure manoeuvres really are just a flexing of muscles, a shouting of the odds before the talking starts.
Some sources say an Eta ceasefire will come on Aberri Eguna, Basque National Day, which coincides with Easter Sunday - in honour of the 1916 rebellion.
It will certainly need to come soon to be effective. While polls show that most Spanish public opinion still supports Zapatero's initiative, that support is tentative and conditional. The advent of municipal elections next year put both sides under further pressure. Zapatero needs to show his electorate results, and Batasuna desperately wants the current ban on its participation lifted.
The only certainty is that the end of Eta's terrorism would transform Spanish politics. The PP's shrill rhetoric would sound very hollow indeed if Zapatero can claim the title of the prime minister who ended a 45-year conflict.
Without Eta as a bogeyman, the Spanish right would have to re-engage constructively in the great debate about restructuring the state, which Zapatero has opened up and which will not go away.