Last three weeks' Basque Info

• Basque political prisoners on hunger and thirst strike
• Despite Spanish attacks meetings to reach broad pro-independence unity continue
• National tribute paid to slain ETA volunteer Jon Anza
• Policemen “can’t remember” evidence to link Udalbiltza with ETA
• Women prisoners protest against isolation

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Basque political prisoners on hunger and thirst strike
Basque political prisoners Ander Geresta and Inaki Abaunza today entered their 11th day on hunger and thirst strike in protest against the humiliating searches to which they are subjected on their way to and from visits.
Doctors have warned of the dangers of the protest. After a week without taking any food or drink there is an immediate risk of death.
Geresta was taken to hospital after having lost 15 kilos (2 stone 5 lbs). Even in hospital his hands and legs were bound. Abaunza remains in the prison and his kidney is has ceased to function normally.
The mayors of Gernika and Zizurkil from where both prisoners are from have contacted the French jail’s director to ask him to respect the Basque prisoners rights.
Vigils are taking place every day in their home towns.
(BREAKING NEWS: THE PRISONERS HAVE ENDED THEIR HUNGER AND THIRST STRIKE AFTER REACHING AN AGREEMENT WITH THE PRISON’S DIRECTOR)
Basque prisoner Mikel Ibanez was sent to jail after two years on house arrest. He had been released from jail due to a grave illness. He has cancer and has recently suffered a heart attack; his physical incapacity is 80%, according to doctors.
Last week the right-wing Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported the special treatment to which the Basque political prisoners are subjected by the authorities. Despite the Spanish government’s denials that they are political prisoners they are certainly treated in a different way. According to the article Basque political prisoners are subjected to special control by a group of policemen and prison guards who decide about the new and special measures to be imposed on them. For the past two years Basque prisoners receive harder punishments than ordinary prisoners for the same conduct. El Mundo said that the situation for Basque prisoners is now “suffocating” (meaning of extreme pressure).
Last week Gurutz Agirresarobe and Aitziber Ezkerra were arrested and acused of taking part in an ETA operation in 2003 in which a local policeman, who was also a member of a Spanish far right-wing group, was killed.
While in incommunicado detention they have been taken at least three times to hospital. Relatives, friends and previously tortured citizens expressed their concern about the way they were being treated.

Meetings to reach broad pro-independence unity continue despite Spanish attacks
Last 20th June the Pro-Independence Left and the social-democratic nationalist party Eusko Alkartasuna (“Basque Solidarity”) signed a historical and strategic agreement to work together to achieve a Basque independent state.
Since then they have been meeting other left nationalist parties in order to continue joining forces to build a broad pro-independence movement which would work through exclusively political, democratic and peaceful means.
Those meetings have intensified over the past few weeks and some practical results are expected by September.
Meanwhile the Spanish authorities’ offensive against the Pro-Independence Left continues and 43 alleged members of the banned Batasuna leadership have been charged with “membership of a terrorist organization” and now face ten years in jail. An additional 13 were also charged last week with “membership of a terrorist organization” for trying to stand in the past general elections on pro-independence tickets. The trials could start in September.
Twenty pro-independence local authority councillors and mayors are currently attending trial and face up to 15 years in jail for their political work.
Despite all repression the Pro-Independence Left presented the conclusions of their last and crucial internal debate entitled “Basque Country, Stand Up!” in Boise, Idaho, where around 50,000 Basque-Americans celebrated their national festival. The local mayor David Bieter and former Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa, both of Basque descent, expressed their support for Basque self-determination and for those who suffer Spanish political persecution.
The USA’s State Department refused entry to Martxelo Otamendi, former Editor of the first Basque-language Daily Egunkaria, which was closed by the Spanish state in 2003. Otamendi, who was going to attend and address a meeting at the festival, had been tortured and, along with others, charged with “assisting a terrorist organisation” but was cleared of those charges by the Spanish National Court earlier this year. A number of Basque-American public figures protested the exclusion by the State Department, including the Mayor of Boise.
The largest concentration of Basque-Americans is in the area of Boise, Idaho, where approximately 15,000 of them live. Boise is the home of the Basque Museum and Cultural Center and every five years hosts a large Basque festival known as Jaialdi, receiving Basques and people of Basque descent from across America and further afield. It’s the largest celebration of Basque identity and culture outside of the Basque Country. People of Basque descent comprise around 10% of the populations of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile.

National tribute paid to slain ETA volunteer Jon Anza
ETA volunteer and former prisoner Jon Anza went missing 15 months ago and was eventually found in a morgue in the French city of Toulouse four months ago. His relatives and ETA pointed at the Spanish security forces as those responsible for his disappearance. Many questions remain unsolved and there are strong suspicions of collusion by French authorities.
On Friday Jon Anza’s remains were finally brought back to the Basque Country where they were greeted by hundreds of people.
On Saturday a national homage event was organised in the northern Basque village of Ziburu where he lived before disappearing. Around 2,000 people took part in the tribute and many more were unable to, due to the police check-points erected at the artificial border between the southern and northern parts of the Basque Country.
A representative of the Basque pro-independence movement said that now is the time to gather the fruits of the last 50 years of struggle thanks to the work of Jon Anza and many more.
Three people in white balaclavas, wearing the ETA uniform and holding its flag then took the stage and read a statement encouraging people to take their future in their own hands. ETA said “this is not a time for resistance, it is time to take the lead and win. The Basque Country is about to enter a new phase of political change.”
Music was played, bertxos sung and traditional dance performed and a former comrade of Jon Anza related to the audience the kind of person and militant he had been.
The atmosphere was highly emotional, full of anger but at the same time full of hope for the future of the struggle.

Policemen “can’t remember” evidence to link Udalbiltza with ETA
The trial against Udalbiltza continued last week with the testimonies of “witnesses”. At times the trial was chaotic. Fifteen policemen had been called by the State Prosecution but only half of them appeared and there were continuous technical problems in connecting with them via communication link. The policemen gave little actual evidence and said they couldn’t remember much about the police operation against Udalbiltza. Udalbiltza was set up by 2,000 elected local authority representatives in 1998 to be the first Basque truly national institution. Twenty of them are on trial accused of being members of ETA because of organising Udalbiltza and face sentences of between 15 and 20 years in jail.
The trial will resume in September.

Women prisoners protest against isolation
The Basque political prisoners in the women’s jail of Alcala, near Madrid, refused to go back to their cells last weekend to protest against the solitary confinement of one of them. Protests of this kind are being taken on a regular basis in many prisons to fight against isolation.
Others have been obliged to go on hunger strike. After reaching an agreement with the authorities, last week Basque prisoner Mikel Karrera ended the hunger strike he began on the 27th of June to demand his transfer to another French jail where Basque prisoners are held. He has lost 13 kilos during the protest. The same happened to Maite Aranalde.