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Declaration
of Foro Ermua addressed to the European Parliament
on neo-nazism and political violence in the basque country ( 17 February 2000. BACKGROUNDONE. Raising the alarm about the antidemocratic phenomenon that is currently seeking refuge in Europe's ethnic and linguistic minorities. The nazi-fascist cancer that was extirpated at the end of the second world war is now threatening to metastasize in the secessionist claims of the European Union's ethnic and linguistic minorities when these minorities put their aspirations before the freedoms and inalienable democratic rights of the citizen. Today's nazism is no longer that of great, fully-fledged nations; rather, it is that of nations which are attempting to come into being by sacrificing the individual for the sake of the group and ideology. This national-socialism also exploits a type of victimism that is equally or even more dangerous than the one the historical Nazis used as a pretext, because in this case the fact that it involves minorities makes it all the more credible. Indeed, it is more dangerous than that of the Austrian extreme right because the latter is based on the traditional and recognizable model and, furthermore, is still a virtual nazism in that, unlike ETA, it has not yet claimed any lives. Today, more than ever, it is necessary to raise the alarm in the European Parliament because this neo-fascism, which is using the so-called people's Europe to negate and sabotage citizens' Europe, constitutes a major threat to the building of Europe in coming years. We are raising this alarm on the basis of the experience of citizenship of the Basque Country. REPORTTWO. Considerations on the deterioration of freedoms.
The case of the Basque Country. ETA's kidnapping and subsequent murder of
Miguel Ángel Blanco, a young councillor of
the Basque municipality of Ermua, deeply moved Basque and Spanish society.
For several days millions of people all over The president of the Basque government went even further, proposing negotiations with the criminal organization without establishing prerequisites, not even that they lay down their arms. Meanwhile, Nazi groups supporting ETA and Herri Batasuna [2] (HB) -the party considered to be ETA's political wing- took to the streets in the Basque Country. Once again, properties and possessions of members of the non-nationalist parties were destroyed by fire and fresh assaults and attacks were carried out on those parties' premises and on citizens who had attempted to express themselves freely, denouncing such barbarity. However, the Basque regional police, the supreme command of which rests with the Basque government, did not act with the promptness and efficiency required to quell these attacks on freedom. Fear and insecurity spread among non-nationalist citizens; feelings induced -and now deeply rooted in all Basque democrats- by years of nazi terror and instrumentalization of power by the nationalist parties who are indulgently called moderate. In these circumstances of a gagged and fearful society, a group of Basque citizens formed an association they called FORO ERMUA in order to present publicly a declaration, entitled "A Manifesto for democracy in Euskadi [3] ", which was signed by them all. This foundational text stated what had failed to be recognized due to fear: it branded the movement led by ETA and its political arm Herri Batasuna as fascist and underlined the responsibility of the Basque political representatives and institutions for the deterioration of democracy. This denunciation did not merely point out the inhibition of those who ought to safeguard the freedom and security of citizens and their property; it also warned of "the collaboration of the institutions that represent us with those who support and encourage fascism". The signatories likewise expressed their opposition to any type of political negotiation with the terrorists. The document stated that "political projects must be validated through citizens' votes and debated in Parliament", that "giving in to the blackmail of weapons would signify the downfall of democratic legitimacy, and that only arguments and votes are legitimate instruments of persuasion and decision making". It ended with an appeal to Basque society to commit itself "to the defence of democracy and free expression". Today, nearly two years later, democracy in the Basque Country continues to deteriorate. A large part of the population is afraid of falling victim to the terrorist repression of those who do not share their nationalistic aims, and fears being discriminated against by a political power in the hands of the nationalist parties which marginalize those who do not collaborate with their project to build a Basque nation. THREE.
Some Europeans perceive Basque nationalism and terrorism to be the expression
of a national liberation movement characteristic of earlier colonial situations.
This perception disregards the past five centuries of Spanish history and
masks the reality of a country, the Basque Country, endowed with democratic
institutions similar to those of the rest of the countries that make up the
European Community. The institutional organization of each of these autonomous regions comprises a legislative assembly elected by universal suffrage, a Government Council with executive and administrative functions, and a President who is elected by the legislative assembly. The basic institutional law of the Basque Country is its Statute of Autonomy [5] , which regulates the wide-ranging powers of the autonomous region. The Basque Country has a police force that is fully independent of the other state security forces: supreme command of the force and the recruitment of officers rest with the Basque government. The region has its own Treasury, regulates the tax system within its territory and pays the central government a global quota as a contribution towards state burdens that the autonomous region does not assume. Education, health and many other areas are the responsibility of the regional authorities, which even have the capacity to legislate on these matters and have their own civil servants who are paid considerably higher than those in other Spanish regions. There are also a Basque public radio and television, which are the exclusive responsibility of the regional government. Although the majority of Basques are Spanish speakers, the Statute declares that the Basque language (Euskera) is the Basque Country's own language and Spanish is relegated to the status of joint official language. FOUR. Basque nationalists do not accept autonomy and are using coercion to create an independent nation with territories in France and Spain; the Estella Declaration [6] . The Basque nationalists contributed to drafting the Statute, endorsed it by giving it their support in a referendum and, since it came into force, have exercised power and institutional representation in the Basque Country. However, they have now adopted ETA's programme and are attempting to gain further political advantages in exchange for the definitive cessation of terror. To this end they have signed an agreement which they call the Estella Declaration. It proposes a swap: Basque national sovereignty for peace. But it is not ETA who is making this offer; it is the nationalist parties as a whole, including those which govern the institutions. It is a strategic nationalistic project whose true nature lies in the fact that ETA is the implicit threat underlying the proposal, since failure to accept the terms of the offer signifies resumption of terror. Indeed, since the first day of the ceasefire, ETA has continued to reinforce its logistics, reorganize its members and gather information about possible victims. The Partido Nacional Vasco (Basque Nationalist Party, PNV), which has governed the Basque Country for 20 years, has always concealed its political programme for independence from its voters. Even as a party to the Estella Pact, it continues to conceal this aim, since in the agreement, which does not mention ETA, it is masked by a language disguised with neutrality. However, beneath this appearance of impartiality lurks an attempt to involve the whole of Basque society in a concealed nation-building process. The text involves Spain and France in settling three issues which it calls "territoriality", the "subject of the decision [7] " and political sovereignty. That is, a referendum on self-determination and the building of a sovereign nation comprising territories from both nations. But the most serious matter is that the Estella Declaration is not only a pact for political action based on the underlying violence of a terrorist group; rather, it is also the government programme of the current Basque Executive branch. Power in the Basque Country is held by a coalition formed by the two nationalist parties that signed the document; these parties signed an agreement with Herri Batasuna (HB), the third party of the Estella nationalist front, in order to form a government. Herri Batasuna is a party that does not condemn the terrorist violence or the fascist violence that stem from its own ranks. It is very serious that there should exist within the European Union a government which relies on the support of a party that advocates political violence as a method. For this is what is inferred from the fact—an aberration to the mind of any democratic observer—that the highest institutional authorities of the Basque Country advocate a "dialogue without limits" with the terrorists, whom they are not even asking to lay down their weapons once and for all. When democratically chosen leaders behave in this way, they are failing to fulfil their most important mandate: defence of democracy. FIVE. The Basque dispute is a fallacy. The Basque institutional representatives, headed by the president of their government, identify the whole of Basque society with their nationalist ideology.
Their point of departure is the existence of what they call the Basque dispute:
"a historical conflict of political origin and nature in which
the Spanish and French states are involved", according to the Estella
Declaration. An idea which implies that any Basque citizen, by dint of his
citizenship, should feel threatened by this supposedly inherited dispute.
However, the dispute cannot be regarded as a conflict between the Basque Country,
SIX. There is no conflict between two nationalist forces in the Basque Country: peace merely amounts to the disappearance of ETA.
Since ETA declared its ceasefire -though it has now resumed its strategy of
terror- the Basque government and the Estella signatories have regarded the
cessation of terrorism as a "peace process" conducted by
means of agreements between two factions. This is a fallacious idea that springs
from the identification of Basque violence with the nationalist conflict in
In the Basque Country there is no conflict between two types of nationalism, Basque nationalism and an alleged Spanish nationalism; rather, Basque society is divided into two segments, which are asymmetrical as regards their political characteristics. The non-nationalists do not constitute a structured group or community; they are a plural society, basically attached to liberal democratic models, which accepts representative democracy as the best form of government. Their vote runs the full natural spectrum ranging from the liberal right to the social-democratic left. They all accept the Spanish Constitution and, although they are not necessarily in favour of autonomy, the Basque Country Statute of Autonomy as a guarantee of democracy and the legal framework for coexistence. Basically, it is a democratic society in which citizens, irrespective of whether they are right- or left-wing or in favour of economic liberalism or the welfare state, all consider individual freedom to be a higher good. The nationalist society, however, is attached to community models in which the cultural values of the country take preference over individual liberty. In that society more conservative currents exist side by side with others that advocate radical social changes, but over and above these differences the nationalists aspire to unify the whole of society under a common identity. The very president of the Basque government demands of all the parties of the autonomous region what he calls "a feeling of fellowship". To the nationalists, "nation" represents a linguistic, cultural and even racial heritage which all citizens have the duty to perpetuate. They thus define the Basques as a people who are ethnically different from the Spanish and French and who therefore have an immanent right to national sovereignty. The nationalist declarations also include racial references: an important document drawn up in 1996 by the PNV, the main nationalist party and supposedly the most moderate one, to which the president of the Basque government belongs, states literally: "We are the oldest people, the most autochthonous people with special cranial, hematological and biological characteristics... We are the truest Nation of the nations of Europe..." The nationalists subordinate democracy to the achievement of the political
and cultural unity of the Basque Country. Their ethnicist
aims include restoring traditional pre-democratic forms of political organization
which they consider more genuinely Basque. The same text referred to above
reads: "We are a small people, penetrated and surrounded by peoples who
are oblivious to our concerns, determined to subject us to their conceptual
and cultural schemes, to their economic and political structures". This
pursuit of genuine political formulas recently materialized into what they
call the Asamblea de Municipios [9] : a group of nationalist councillors
from the Spanish Basque Country, SEVEN. Public education in the Basque Country is used for political indoctrination. The cultural policy of the Basque government may be understood in the light of the principle of which a senior PNV leader reminded his followers in 1995: "First shape a people, then independence". Those responsible for education in the Basque government openly uphold the idea that teaching should fulfil the purpose of transmitting "Basque values". The most effective vehicle they employ to this end is the teaching of the Basque language, since the principle governing the nationalists' conception of the transmission of Euskera is not to offer children a cultural heritage for their personal development as free individuals but to involve them actively in restoring the Basque identity. The Basque institutions pursue a cultural and educational policy that gives exclusive priority to Basque culture over any other models that can be freely chosen by citizens.
Under the name of "linguistic normalization" an educational system
has been put in place that is transforming the socio-linguistic situation
in which Spanish is the language of the majority. It is now compulsory
for all children to study Euskera, irrespective
of their mother tongue and of any modern or classical languages they may choose.
Public education at primary and secondary level, which years ago was taught
in Spanish, has been largely supplanted by Euskera.
This has required conjuring up teachers capable of expressing themselves in
Basque, while hundreds of teachers with many years of service have been displaced
or forced to emigrate to other autonomous regions of EIGHT. Political violence and democratic deficit in the Basque Country. There is no objective explanation for the existence of political violence in the Basque Country, since it cannot be said that it springs either from the supposed oppression of a nation or from a conflict between rival factions. On the contrary, it can be said to have ideological causes, to be the result of the weak foothold of democratic culture, undermined by twenty years of cultural and institutional hegemony of nationalism. Rejection of terrorism within the nationalist society, when it occurs, is not accompanied by a moral condemnation of violence. Since the truce of ETA, the nationalist media have not based their condemnation of acts of violence on ethical and democratic principles but on the fact that, according to the standard expression, "it damages the peace process and only benefits the Madrid government". The Basque church and, particularly, some of its bishops often express their grief at the suffering of the prisoners convicted of terrorism and systematically ignore the suffering of the victims and assistance to their families. Councils with nationalist majorities have paid tribute to terrorists shot down in clashes with the police. In this environment of serious moral deterioration it is understandable that in a trial held in 1997 a jury declared the plaintiff an HB sympathizer convicted of the cold-blooded murder of two policemen, to be innocent. In the nationalist parties that govern the Basque Country, condemnation of violence has become tinged with ambiguity and understanding of its executors. The Basque institutions themselves present terrorists convicted by courts as victims of a penal system that keeps them isolated from their families. The Basque parliament's Human Rights Committee, which has a nationalist majority, has taken upon itself to demand that all terrorists be transferred to Basque prisons. That same committee has repeatedly disregarded the demands of the relatives of victims of terrorism, who are denied public recognition of their suffering. A member of the Basque parliament elected from the radical nationalist party Herri Batasuna (“Josu Ternera”), known to be the head of ETA during one of its bloodiest periods, sits on this Human Rights Committee. Recently the Victims of Terrorism group in the Basque Country filed a complaint with the Directorate-General I of the European Union regarding the application submitted by the Basque Government department of Justice for financial aid to conduct a study on assistance to ETA convicts and their victims. This is an example of how our institutional representatives, likening executioners to their victims, attempt to hold the state responsible for violence as, according to them, it curbs the Basque Country's just aspirations of sovereignty. More recently, this same association, which brings together the families of victims of terrorisms and is systematically scorned by the Basque authorities, was obliged to demand from the European Parliament an explicit condemnation of the parties that govern the autonomous Region. It is evident that in such conditions, although the Basque Country institutions are democratic, the exercise of democracy is seriously hindered. Basque society is caught in the grip of the ETA's blackmail, which threatens to resume killings if its political demands are not met, and of the daily street violence against non-nationalist public employees, members of the pro-constitution parties, police, judges, lecturers and other citizens. In the period between 17 September 1998 (the day ETA announced its indefinite truce) to 31 October 1999 alone, 727 violent incidents were reported in the Basque Country and Navarre -the neighbouring autonomous region which the nationalists include in their plans for an independent sovereign Basque Country- amounting to almost two violent actions daily. Such is the offensive of the radical nationalists, whose actions, true to the style of fascist shock troops, are mainly targeted at the two non-nationalist political parties, the Basque Country Partido Popular and the Partido Socialista de Euskadi (Basque Socialist Party, PSOE). On 299 occasions these actions have been directly aimed at people. The worst affected are people in public office, who have been victims of 134 violent incidents; on 76 occasions the violence was targeted at politicians and party members. The 511 recorded attacks on private property include sabotage of non-nationalist political party premises, private houses and vehicles, small retail establishments, banks, electrical installations, public transport, railways, police and military premises and urban furniture. Threatening posters and graffiti cover the walls of our towns, villages and cities. As a result of all this, freedom of expression is seriously constrained. Fear prevails among non-nationalists: to be elected councillor or deputy for a pro-constitution party or simply to be a party member or a candidate for elections entails a risk that can cost you your life. To express publicly disagreement with terrorism or with the nationalist ideology or even to be critical with the Basque Government's linguistic policy, which gives priority to Euskera and discriminates against Spanish, involves serious risks. It is a violence that recalls that of the old pogroms of Eastern Europe even in the passivity of the authorities. In January the number of aggressions increased to as many of 2.6 actions daily, yet the Basque police force (Ertzaintza), who receive their orders from the nationalist authorities, have not made a single arrest. A very recent example illustrates the sometimes cynical attitude of the nationalist authorities. After being forced to close their establishments owing to threats and aggressions suffered during a strike called by ETA's political arm to support terrorist prisoners, the shopkeepers of Guecho -a conurbation with over 80,000 inhabitants- approached the nationalist mayor to ask for protection. The mayor denied them the requested assistance, arguing that the problem of violence must be resolved "with prudence and tact, without adding to the conflict" (sic), though he nonetheless asked them to "be strong" (sic) vis-à-vis the pickets and "take valiant and bold measures" (sic). That is, not only are citizens denied protection; confrontation is actually encouraged. The nationalists and the Basque government who represent them underestimate the social reality of terror and violence. PNV leaders have described fascist actions in the street as "childish pranks" and have come up with a euphemistic expression, "low-intensity violence", to describe the acts that terrify people without actually killing them and destroy their property by fire. On the proposal of the PP, a motion of censure was recently tabled against the minister of the interior of the Basque government for questioning the pertinence of arresting a dangerous terrorist on French soil. The nationalist ranks also questioned the appropriateness of the arrest of the terrorists who stole several tonnes of dynamite in Brittany. Every time the truce seemed more likely to be broken, Basque institutional representatives and their parties accused the Spanish government of "immobilism" and of "not taking sufficient steps towards the peace process". The nationalists have already taken their biggest step: they have established the conditions for dialogue, entrusting management of the negotiations to the terrorists, whom they regard as the best advocates of their own political project. The recent consummation of ETA's threats -the murder in Madrid of lieutenant colonel Blanco García-, marked the terrible confirmation of the illusory and antidemocratic nature of this project. Herri Batasuna, the political arm of the terrorists, has not condemned the murder; however, despite the repeated appeals made by the non-nationalist parties urging it to break its pact with that party, the Basque government continues to collaborate with it for the purpose of governing. NINE. European reaction to the lack of democracy in Euskadi. Human rights are constantly violated in the Basque Country and citizens are not afforded the institutional protection of the rule of law. Euskadi is endowed with democratic institutions through the Constitution and the Statute of Autonomy. The problem therefore does not lie in the Basque system but in the political leaders who control it and in the renunciation by those who govern these institutions of their functions in favour of the goal of independence. The department of the Interior and regional police (Ertzaintza) do not guarantee public order and institutions like the Basque government and Juntas Generales [10] explicitly and openly delegitimize the arrests of alleged terrorists made by the Interior Ministry of the central government and state security forces attached to the latter. This creates a dangerous power vacuum as the central government has transferred powers in matters such as police security, yet the regional government is failing to exercise them, shielding itself in the effective argument of non-interference in the matters of a sovereign state—despite not being one. The grotesque paradox thus arises that Basque antidemocratic nationalism can act with even greater impunity than Austrian neo-Nazism as it is protected against any corrective measure of the European Union by the democratic Spanish state which it nonetheless refuses to acknowledge. We denounce this absurd situation propitiated by the aggressive rise of ethnic and minority nationalistic movements in Europe and by sovereign states' fears of encouraging them socially and legitimating them politically by merely complying with the law. Therefore, the FORO ERMUA solemnly and firmly declares, before the highest European Institution: CONCLUSIONSGiven the circumstances described above and by way of a conclusion, the FORO ERMUA wishes to draw attention to the following three facts: 1. FREEDOM IS REPRESSED BY ETA'S THREATS AND POLITICAL BLACKMAIL The murders committed by ETA and their constant threat affect citizens, particularly non-nationalists. It is the punishment terrorists impose on a democratic society that has failed to concede them political victory or the institutional changes they demanded. Since the announcement of the false truce, far from dying out, street violence—the Basque version of the former pogroms—has increased, while the regional police, who are ultimately controlled by the Basque government, do not even attempt to find an adequate response. The street violence of Basque extremists, which is tolerated by their nationalist allies, thus plays an essential role in maintaining the nationalists' political and ideological hegemony: that of terrorizing and curbing the freedom of expression of non-nationalists. 2. NATIONALISM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DETERIORATION OF DEMOCRACY The Estella Pact has marked a shift away from the nationalists' traditional ambiguity towards violence and preference for a political alliance with those who practice it. The so-called democratic nationalism not only adopts the aims of ETA and its political arm; it also accepts its violent and antidemocratic methods. PNV and EA do not advocate violence among their ranks, though they consent to that of their allies. Nationalism as a whole has taken upon itself the terrible responsibility of supporting and legitimating a large sector of Basque society that aspires to ethnic homogeneousness and whose most sought after and publicly cheered political device is violence and fear. 3. THE EXERCISE OF POWER BY THE NATIONALISTS HAS UNDERMINED THE PRESTIGE OF THE REGIONAL INSTITUTIONS The president of the Basque government's promises to sever his alliance with ETA's political arm unless political violence ceased have proved to be no more than empty words, and failure to fulfil them seriously compromises Basque citizens' confidence in our institutions and their president. The parties that govern the Basque Country remain in power thanks to the parliamentary support of ETA's political arm. The price of this offer of support is acceptance of a "nation-building project" that reflects the aspirations of ETA as opposed to those of Basque society as a whole. The permissiveness with street fascism perfectly illustrates the antidemocratic nature of this nationalist alliance. The current Basque government cannot therefore secure citizens' loyalty to institutions that it itself has subverted, since by placing them at the service of a totalitarian political project it has stripped them of their democratic meaning. PETITIONS TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT1. We ask the European Parliament to condemn the policy of the Basque government in respect of both the Estella Pact and the alliance it has established with EH for the current parliamentary term. 2. We ask for the moral and explicit protection of the European Union in view of the lack of public freedoms in the Basque Country. 3. We ask the European Parliament and Commission to urge the Basque government to enforce the rights and freedoms of Basque citizens which are protected in the Spanish Constitution and enshrined in the Treaty on European Union. We furthermore urge them to explicitly support the Spanish government in enforcing the law throughout its territory. [3] The Basque Country. |
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Foro Ermua documents