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ETA waves white flag - but I've been busy. So sue me...


Hi children. Long time no see...

Sorry about my delay in the writing, but I had a combination of things to do and sickness, so, I left the ole' blogging on the backseat. I know this isn't the first time it’s happened, but hopefully it'll be the last in a while.

Anyways, lots has happened so, lets get started with the biggest piece of news that I missed out on: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, otherwise known as ETA, disarming.

Now, the ETA for those of you out of the loop, is a Basque separatist group that was/is active in Spain and a bit in France, with the intent of separating the Basque territories from Spain and the small area considerd Basque that is part of France. The European Union, Spain and the US all have designated them as "terrorists".

And what is Basque Country you may ask? It depends who you ask. There are those who see it as nothing more then a region of greater empires who simply forgot to impose their language on them and others who see it as a tribe or ethnic group with it's own language and culture. Personally, I see it as the latter but I'll leave the rest up to you. Its difficult to pinpoint who they are or where they came from, but the assumption is that the Basques are an Ibero-Celtic group that somehow survived the Roman conquest of Iberia and although were under Roman rule, were able to retain their language and customs for all that time. Then after the Visgoths came along, they were able to defend themselves well enough as to avoid falling under their rule. So basically, whenever the fuck they got to where they are now, they haven't budged since then. In fact, its said that the Basques have resided in a single region of Europe longer than any other ethnic group since, well, pre-historical records.

Anyways, in the Middle Ages it was called the Kingdom of Navarre, which was then annexed to Aragon, which later merged with Castille to form the Spanish Empire which is now called the Kingdom of Spain and basically the Basques want out. Its a long and complicated history, which every young person in Latin America has to endure when in Secondary school, so, I'll save you the other stuff to read on your own discretion. For now, I'll just talk about the modern history.

The Basque separatist movement started mostly in the XIXth century (alongside every other fucking separatist movement)by guys like Sabino Arana (a staunch, ultra Catholic conservative) who were pissed at the stuff the fuckers over in Madrid were up to. So, they funded the Eusko Alderdi Jeltzalea (EAJ) or National Basque Party with the intent of creating a separate Republic from Spain.

For the most part they were pretty much ignored in the national scene but after the coup in 1936, they sided with the Republicans (which is interesting considering how the Republicans were mostly Socialist while the Basques were mostly conservative. I guess they all agreed that the Republic was much better then having to live under facist, authoritarian Gen. Franco who was also a friend of Hitler)

No, this guy isnt Basque. It's Francisco Franco, the most un-Basque person of all time. I tried finding a picture of him with Hitler (which exist) but none were in very good quality so I decided to put this one up. You like?

As we all know, the Republicans lost and Spain fell under the harsh hand of El Generalisimo Francisco Franco. Franco thought that the whole national identity and seperatism that the Basques had been talking about was treason and government subversion, so he went and actually banned the Basque language and told the Basques to forget anything and everything about their history or culture.

Needless to say, the Basques got pissed. And when tribes get pissed, thats when the fun starts.
Thats when the ETA comes into the picture. They formed in 1953 as a student discussion group at the University of Deusto in Bilbao but as most people back then, quickly adopted Marxism and took up guns against the establishment.

At that time, pretty much every country in the free world gave em a pass because no one really liked Franco, who pretty much dodged the bullet when he decided not to join his fascist friends Hitler and Mussolini in the Second World War, so the whole free world didn't mind the idea much a group of kids blowing up cars and shooting some fascist assholes. Sure they were commies, but back then, who wasn't?

But in 75, the old fucker kicked the bucket, and Spain moved back to being a democracy... err... actually a monarchy, but with certain democratic privileges. They were offered amnesty if they laid down their weapons, but they told the new SpanishRepublic to go fuck itself and continued with sporadic attacks in the 70s, 80s and 90s and were in fact close allies with the IRA over in Ireland. Celts stick together I guess...

ETA declared a unilateral ceasefire on September 18, 1998, and began negotiations with Spain's government. They talked for a while, but they went back to their old habits of killing cops and bombing cars in 2000 after they accused the Spanish government of being "inflexible", which is arguably true. Spain wasn't willing to let them out of the great Kingdom no matter what the Basques thought of it, so they went back to what the knew best: armed struggle.

Now, this is around the time I started getting interested in this. I myself am of Catalonian stock, so I can sympathize with their movement, although I don't sympathize with their desire of a socialist state. Thats really what prevented me from ever supporting them 100%. Frankly I think they should have focused more on general Basque liberation with no clear socio-economic ideology, that way bring more conservative minded folk into the struggle, and after liberation was achieved, they could let the people choice who's policy they preferred.

But, theres one big issue that the press seems to be forgetting while reporting on this so called "terrorist" organization. Over the past 35 years, they've only killed 817 people. Don't believe me? Look at it right here. I'm not gonna say I wish they had killed more people, but the Crips gang kills more people in Compton in one year then these guys killed 35. I'd hardly call them some ultra effective, paramilitary group with numbers like that.

So anyways, after 9-11 and the Madrid train bombings, most people in Europe and in Spain stopped liking these one time darlings of the Franco era. The number of recruits dropped and they stopped finding sources of funding. So that whole speech saying stuff like "ending the conflict, here and now, is possible. This is the desire and the will of Eta" is bullshit. They know they can't carry anymore large scale attacks so they're basically waving the white flag in hopes the Spanish gov. will not prosecute them (which would have been inevitable).

Boo! The ETA during their farewell speech

Alas, so ends the story of the ETA. You and your ineffective, wussy attacks will be missed. Now, who will Zapatero blame when his bullshit economic policies fail? The Americans? The Islamists? The Catholic church? Who will be their new scapegoat?

I for one would suggest blaming the Socialists, what with their "social justice" programs, high taxing, intervention in private businesses and apathy towards fighting illegal immigration, which is making thousands upon thousands of Spaniards lose their jobs to cheap labourers from Latin America and Africa. Spain's gonna be in real bad shape in a few years and the Zapatero government is gonna really regret celebrating the ETA ceasefire.


This post first appeared on Adventures In Space (Now In English), please read the originial post: here

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ETA waves white flag - but I've been busy. So sue me...

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