Spain: The ceasefire appears to confirm that the prime minister was right all along, writes Paddy Woodworth
The long wait for Eta's unprecedented announcement of a "permanent ceasefire", coupled with the bitter experience of several false dawns over the last 30 years, made the response of Spanish politicians decidedly muted yesterday. "Prudence" was the word on almost everyone's lips, despite the apparently unambiguous and positive tone of Eta's statement.
Even the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who has been doggedly - and many believed foolishly - optimistic about the prospects for an end to Basque violence, was remarkably downbeat about a development which is, on the face of it, a vindication of his policies.
He asked for "prudence and caution", and warned that "any peace process, after so many years of horror, will be long and difficult".
It is probably fair to speculate, however, that Zapatero is exercising more statesmanship than sincerity in his public response, and is inwardly breathing an enormous sigh of relief.
Eta's fairly straightforward declaration that the Basque war is over is better news than most people who have worked for a Basque peace process dared hope for. This is especially true given the group's repeatedly obtuse responses to Zapatero's bold - and widely unpopular - overture to the Basque terrorists in May of last year.
In a state of the nation address, he had stepped outside the rigidly fixed script of Spanish counter-terrorist policy, and offered talks to Eta.
Although he stressed that he would pay no political price for peace, and that any talks would take place only after violence ended, he was immediately damned by the conservative Partido Popular (PP) for "betraying the dead".
Since then he has been caught between two fires. The PP has mobilised associations representing Eta's victims to lead massive demonstrations branding his new strategy as "treachery to the Spanish nation".
Meanwhile, Eta showed little sign that it understood that a unique window of opportunity to peace had been opened.
It persisted in a campaign of financial extortion and "low-intensity" bombing, which risked scuppering any prospect of peace. Zapatero was in danger of staking his political reputation on the good will of an organisation notorious for its contempt for Spanish politicians.
Yesterday's statement, if it reflects the view of a commanding majority of Eta's membership, appears to confirm that the prime minister has been right all along. The organisation, certainly chronically weakened by arrests, but also influenced by the impact of Islamist terrorism and by the example of IRA decommissioning, seems to be genuinely seeking an exit from the violent cul-de-sac in which it had placed itself.
That is certainly the view of several of the leaders of Batasuna, the political party closely linked to Eta. They have repeatedly told The Irish Times, in interviews over the last year, that they now see the use of "armed struggle" as an obstruction to their continuing pursuit of an independent Basque state.
The fact that Father Alec Reid, a key facilitator in the Irish peace process, has confirmed that he was involved in bringing about this cessation is significant. It suggests there has been a series of contacts between the Spanish government and Eta, mediated by go-betweens trusted by both sides.
In retrospect, it is clear that such a delicate process required a great deal of time and patience. Eta has always been a much more hermetic organisation than even the IRA, with its leadership deeply underground and usually living abroad. Its relationship with Batasuna was mostly at one remove, though Batasuna has been generally only too willing to follow every byzantine twist and turn in Eta strategy.
That has been partly reversed over the last two years, with political leaders increasingly, though very discreetly, calling the shots over the heads of the military activists.
Eta's statement is not only uncharacteristically unambiguous, it also appears to be free of any conditions. It expresses political aspirations towards full Basque nationhood, but at no point does it suggest that there will be a return to violence should these aspirations not be met. It seems unlikely that there is a big danger of the emergence of a "Continuity Eta" with the clout to undermine the Basque peace process.
So what happens next? Zapatero will no doubt want a cooling-off period before any talks begin. These will then centre on the issue of prisoners and exiles. It remains to be seen whether decommissioning will be a condition for prisoner releases. Ironically, however, the IRA has set a painful benchmark for their Basque counterparts, so that some symbolic act of disarmament will probably be necessary.
In the meantime, the prime minister will multiply his efforts to win opposition support for the process, which is probably vital to its ultimate success. That partly explains his lack of triumphalism yesterday. He can take some hope from a relatively moderate statement from the PP leader, Mariano Rajoy, though the latter does still insist that the ceasefire is "a pause, not a renunciation of criminal activity".
If the peace does turn out to be permanent, Zapatero will have won a great prize - that of being the Spanish leader who finally healed a dangerous and persistent open wound in Spanish and Basque society. This could gain him the popular support to pursue his own radical strategy of reforming the relationship between Madrid and Spain's peripheral nations. This strategy, however, will fall well short of Eta's aspiration to Basque independence. So the road ahead will certainly be, as he says, long and difficult.