Basque Info podcast (including interview with editor in-chief of Gara newspaper): http://www.archive.org/details/Bi4ww19.01.11

Basque Info 19/01/11

• Spain and France respond with more arrests to ETA’s ceasefire
• Strategic agreement for sovereignty and social change signed
• Pro-independence leader Arnaldo Otegi speaks from jail

Spain and France respond with more arrests to ETA’s ceasefire

More than 400 Spanish and French policemen took part in various operations in the early hours of Tuesday 18th January against pro-independence political activists.

Thirteen people were arrested across the Basque Country accused of being members of different pro-independence political organizations. All of them are well-known activists who engage in political work publicly in their towns. Some of them are spokespersons for the Basque Pro-Independence Left and some others run a media project focused on political repression, which includes a website, radio program and internet TV station.

These latest police operations come only one week after ETA announced a permanent, general and verifiable ceasefire which was welcomed by the majority of Basque society, as well as the international community.

Speaking on the arrests, the Basque Pro-Independence Left said that the Spanish state uses violence because they fear politics. They went on to say that one part of the conflict is being progressive and taking risks, while the other is engaged in practices of the past. The Pro-Independence Left encouraged Basque society to give a strong unified response to the Spanish repression. Despite the attacks the Pro-Independence Left reassured they won’t change their strategy to promote a democratic process for conflict resolution and self-determination.

All Basque nationalist parties criticised the police operations and asked the Spanish authorities to engage in dialogue as the only way forward.

While the Spanish authorities continue with their repressive measures the majority of Basque society demands, stronger than ever, the repatriation of Basque political prisoners and the legalization of the Pro-Independence Left.

The arrested remain under the incommunicado regime without access to their own solicitors and doctors. Supporters fear they could be tortured as has happened regularly in the past.

Strategic agreement for sovereignty and social change signed

Last Sunday the Basque Pro-Independence Left, Eusko Alkartasuna and Alternatiba parties signed a very important long-term agreement called “The Basque Country from the left,” in order to work together to advance Basque self-determination, national building and social change.

These parties have also signed previous agreements along other forces to promote a democratic process in the Basque Country. The latest agreement is open to other parties, trade unions and social movements and aims at building a broad left-wing sovereignty movement.

According to the three parties there can’t be national building of the Basque nation without a transformation of the current social and economic model. They also state that there won’t be social and economic change without Basque national democracy including sovereign institutions.

They will only use peaceful and democratic means, including mass struggle, institutional struggle and civil disobedience to promote direct and participatory democracy, people’s power, social and environmental justice, feminism, internationalism, youth rights, education and Basque language.

Pro-independence leader Arnaldo Otegi speaks from jail

Basque newspaper Gara published last Wednesday an interview carried out with imprisoned Pro-Independence Left leader Arnaldo Otegi just days before ETA’s latest cease fire announcement.

This is the third newspaper interview with Arnaldo Otegi since he was imprisoned in October 2009 while promoting an internal strategic debate within the pro-independence movement. The two previous interviews appeared on The Wall Street Journal and Spanish paper El Pais.

On the interview Otegi analyzes the political situation in the Basque Country from his particular balcony. Asked about the pro-independence movement’s change of strategy he points out at the apparent contradiction of having constantly declared over the past ten years that there were objective conditions for political change in the Basque Country while being unable to make it happen. At this stage of the liberation struggle Otegi says that that was the key issue to be analyzed and on which the new strategy has been built up.

He also highlights the international political context including new opportunities for independence in the Europe and the socialist revolutions in Latin America, all of them built on people’s power through peaceful and democratic means. He says it is also central in their analysis the worlwide brutal capitalist offensive and the structural crisis of the state model in Spain.

Despite he expects fierce opposition to the democratic process he believes the strength of it lies on the pro-independence movement’s capacity to set the agenda and take the lead and on the long experience of organising and fighting shown by its grassroots base.

Otegi summarizes the new challenge as “new phase, new strategy, new tools and same objectives”.

Along the interview he repeats the idea that the Spanish state won’t change its attitude until is forced by the pressure built up on it by the Basque people. He believes at some stage the state will have to politically manage to build a scenario of definitive solutions.