when communcative media turns to thought crime

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday February 21, 2003 19:26 by ipsiphi barcelona catalunya

on the closure of EgunKaria.

Maybe I am guilty again of thought crime. I read the paper and see a Professor arrested for chanting in arabic,... (do I know everything I have shouted?) ....would I be ready to face examination on every word offered? I would rather wait to see the one judge more supreme He who has that right alone. Did I not shout at the Governer of that State in the USA?

First the picture. go look at the cartoon. the catpion reads "ok i propose to make a daily homage to the flag" the language is Catalan. go have a peep then return.
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=33907&group=webcast
good to have your attention.

In 1980 Adolfo Pérez Esquivol (born 1931 Beunos Aires) got the Nobel for Peace. The former profesor of architecture had long been known as a "non violent" peace and human rights activist.

It was at a conference in Montevideo in 1968 that the decision was made to set up a joint organisation covering all non-violent elements throughout Latin America. At a conference in 1974 it was decided to give the organisation a more permanent form, and Pérez Esquivel was appointed its Secretary-General. In 1976 he initiated an international campaign aimed at persuading the United Nations to establish a Human Rights Commission, and in this connection a document was drawn up recording breaches of human rights in Latin America. In the Spring of 1977 Pérez Esquivel was imprisoned without cause being shown.

The organisation of which Pérez Esquivel is the leader, Servicio Paz y Justicia, is a well-established one. Latin America is divided into three regions, each with its own offices, and under these come the national organisations. Their activities are co-ordinated from Pérez Esquivel's office in Buenos Aires.

The organisation is based on a Christian view of life, and enjoys close contact with clergy and bishops critical of present-day conditions in Latin America. The chief task of the movement is to promote respect for human rights, a phrase that is intended to include social and economic rights. On the practical level this means that Servicio provides assistance to the rural workers in their struggle for land, and to the trade unions in their struggle to protect the rights of their workers. This is done inter alia in the form of legal aid. Despite the opposition he has encountered, Pérez Esquivel insists that the struggle must only be waged with non-violent means.

This man is a "heavy duty activist".

This man has been much connected since winning his Nobel with ETA.

ETA are a "heavy duty organisation".

Pérez Esquivel was the interlocutor between the socialist goverment of Spain (led by Gonzales that preceded Aznar) and ETA. He negotiated a truce
http://www.basque-red.net/tregua/eng1.htm
and falied to negotiated another.

The Spanish Press started circulating and suggesting his name in 1995. His efforts to play such a role were often rejected.
(for a chronology of the Basque conflict goto)
http://www.ehj-navarre.org/news/n_conpol_chro1997-75.html

Now why am I pulling one of my Nobel prize winners out of the Mr O´as-if hat today?

Well because this charming man who has tirelessly fought for pacifism and justice rights and diginity from Argentina to Brazil to bilbao and the pyrennes has spoken out against Aznar´s anti-ETA strategy again in the last weeks.
And so have I. And so do many of those I hold acquaintance with. It is called ·freedom of Speech·
He has in my opinion quite rightly said that Aznar has chosen to treat upon the questions of Basque seperatism, nationalism, regionalism, culture, ethnicity and the violence those questions have been linked to as a matter for the Security forces alone.
Not a matter for cultural discussion.
Not a matter for debate.
Not a matter for the People of Euskadi to decide in a referendum.
Only a matter that they may express opinion on if they march in crowds of near a half million through their cities.
Only a matter for the public if they may be manipulated.
I have seen them say NO to ETA.
I believe they wish speak of PEACE.
Yet the Spanish state will offer them no space to hold such discussion.

So todays european newspapers report (as was reported here yesterday by Sean) http://ireland.indymedia.org/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=29795
the closure of the Basque countries only Basque langauge daily newspaper. The editor and staff have been arrested in an armed and masked raid upon their offices yesterday.

The Spanish state always raids in masks and always carries arms. Most states are this way.

The newspaper "Egunkaria" first hit the streets on December 6th 1980. Its circulation has fluctuated between ten and fifteen thousand readers in a zone where only 22% are bilingual. [compared to Catalonia where 90% are bilingual or Ireland where only 15% are]. Iñaki Egaña wrote in the Historical/Political Dictionary of Euskal Herria , [Diccionario Histórico-Político de Euskal Herria, Ed. Txalaparta, 1996] that "EgunKaria" with its 15,000 print run and 40,000 readers played A KEY ROLE in the political normalisation of the Basque territories. That it must be remembered was before the current most abnormal situation in Euskadi.

40,000 readers were never enough to make a commercial concern so the Basque government funded the paper since the beginning.

These last few days I have touched upon worries I have about the current Spanish state. The article on BCN indymedia whose cartoon I wished open this article with treat upon the now infamous speech of the Spanish King last year.
"El castellano nunca fue lengua de imposición sino de encuentro...",
="Castillian has never been an imposed language".

There are several Catalan language, seperatist and republican activists facing indictment by Garzón for taking issue with that statement.
¿¿why??
Because Franco forbade the use of Catalan and Basque during the dictatorship. Just as the different forms of Gaelic (Irish, Erse, Welsh) were forbidden by succesive English centralised and homogonising Governments and for the same reasons.

This issue has touched linguistic acitivists first, as is shown by the fist posting here.
I qoute
"An páipéar nuachtán Báscach EgunKaria dúnadh síos é agus tógadh bainisteoirí agus roinnt
oibrithe an pháipéar nuachtán ar maidin.
Níl anseo ach an céim is déanaí de pholasaí brú faoi an rialtas Spáinneach in éadan gach rud Báscach".

as is also shown by its reporting on BCN indymedia

"la criminalització i persecució de mitjans i persones pel simple fet de ser independentistes, la separació de català-balear-valencià a la Biblioteca "Nacional" espanyola...). Però això de tancar un diari que l'únic "delicte" que ha comès és publicar-se en basc és pur Feixisme. No té altre nom".

both writers accused the Spanish state of Fascism. The BCN writer has linked the seperation of Catalan a language and cultural unity (though distributed over several dialects) with political seperation at the National Library of Spain. The same curiousity that seperates Basque. It ought be noted that tomorrow an edition of EgunKaria may be published in token resistance by the French office. The paper itself is not proscribed only its Spanish resident staff have been arrested.

Languages do not recognise borders.

neither do Birds, Pollution, Emissions, Famines or Oil in the Sea.

The writer in the BCN article concludes in the section quoted above .."but here a newspaper is shut the obly "crime" it has commited is to publish in Basque this is pure Fascism. It has no other name".

¿It has other names my neighbour it has many names but we have used them up that now we find the "F" word strangely empty of its power to warn?
=che tanti nome per questa paura.

Todays El Periodico a middle to right wing Spanish daily which is itself published daily in both Castillian and Basque editions has run several articles on the EgunKaria.

They look back to July 15, 1998 when Garzón (judge prosecutor of the Spanish State) closed 'Egin' a blingual magazine after concluding that it acted as a media of communication for ETA.

they discuss the different stances of both PP and PNV. PP is Aznar´s party almost non-existent in the Basque countries and the PNV is the ruling party a moderate nationalist party. Mr Adolfo Pérez Esquivol (Nobel Prize for Peace) last week spoke to ElPais and others of hwo Aznar must stop attacking the "Lenhendakari" (taoiseach) of the Basque country. He has the reader may remember been touring the states of North America and Europe with his vision of "external association" and a referedum on the "national question".
His centre right Catalan equivalents have been doing the same.

So what charges are laid against this paper?

Well after two years of investigation by the Guardia Civil the branch of the Spanish military with responsilibty for Border Security Custom Excise and Civil Authority the Spanish state has decided that ETA are using the newspaper as a media of communication and are financing it.

The PP today laid charge against the Lehendakari that he should justify his "near complete" funding of the same newspaper.

This strikes me as being most odd.
Lest the reader think they are subject to some trickery on my part the paradox is as it is reported. I do not understand either how a paper may be financed by ETA and funded by the Government.

The 22% of the Basque population who are bilingual must now find their news in Basque on the internet. Since the illegalisation of HB the political wing of ETA the presence of Euskadi on the internet has grown.

I shall leave you with two qoutes one from the Basque minister of Education that has reached the English newspapers...

"they are criminalising ideas".
and
"the Lehendakari must accept his responsiblities".

{tá eagla orm nuair a bhfuil an droimean donn dilis "na Basca" í na gcoillte tosaim ag smaoineamh cá bhfuil an siochain? is olc a deantear faoi Euskadi}.