another basque political prisoner killed by spanish repression

by Gearoid O Cuanachain - none Mon Feb 27, 2006 16:10

Hi, all.

I lived in the Basque country for 11 years. I lost count of the number of times the pro-ETA media used the expression "torturas" when describing the arrest of a suspected terrorist.
Putting handcuffs on an ETA prisoner and searching an ETA prisoner is described as torture. Obviously, ETA will genuinely have been tortured.

I suppose the same media feel that these prisoners should not be arrested in the first place, for merely carrying out their "natural duty" - to fight for Basque freedom.

A friend of mine, J M Korta, was murdered by a 30-pound car bomb, which blew up as he left his factory for lunch. His crimes: to be Basque; to speak Basque; to oppose violence and to object to paying ETA their "revolutionary tax".

Here is a few lines from BBC on line: "The level of autonomy afforded to each region is far from uniform. For example, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia have special status with their own language and other rights".

Finally, the Basque country has its own police force-yes, its own.

It seems that ETA is killing just for a word - "independence".

by observer - none Mon Feb 27, 2006 17:54

ETA is not even fighting for "independence"
It is for a Belfast Agreement type "inclusive negotiated settlement". They're big fans of the SHinners. I have no time for them.

by observer Mon Feb 27, 2006 19:22

Nevertheless, we should worry about the status of the POWs who are scattered about the country.
ETA sympathisers label anyone who disagrees with them "fascists" (Faxistak)
In my view ETA are the real Fascists.

by Seosamh Mon Feb 27, 2006 19:41

Basque POWs are subjected to inhumane torture, comparable to the torture of Irish POWs by the British. Techniques include cigerate burning, beatings, kicking in the genitals and suffocating. Women prisoners are also often treated in a dispicable way.
Whether or not you believe in the Basque people's right to national self-determination (which most thinking people should,) torture is always wrong.
To suggest it is just a case of handcuffing is an insult.

by Shane OCurry - WSM - personal capacity Tue Feb 28, 2006 03:09

Not fascists
author by Shane OCurry - wsm - personal capacitypublication date Tue Feb 28 02:07:06 2006author email

To brand them 'fascists' because they use force and intimidation dilutes the term. If they were 'fascists' because of that, then the ANC were also fascist, and the jewish guerilla who rose up against the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto. Plainly nonsense.

The Spanish state, with their repressive laws, political censorship, officially sanctioned torture and police death squads, are more deserving of the term. The practise of systematically torturing Basque prisoners goes back to Franco's truly Fascist regime, to the days when prisoners were executed with the garotte.

The history of the Basque people goes back beyond Franco's blitzing of the town of Guernika using the Luftwaffe's Condor Legion, through centuries of repression and subjugation with the aim of erasing a language and culture that is thousands of years old, in the name of a unified Spanish State.

The Basque people are entitled to self-determination. Whether the conditions justify the use of terror tactics to achieve that, or any perceived gain in that direction, is another question altogether.

The Spanish State, in denying the Basques their right to a referendum to determine their future and in closing down newspapers, political organisations, youthgroups, and in abolishing whole town councils, in demonising intermediaries and advocates of dialogue, as well as in torturing and 'disappearing' activists, are clearly hell bent on making it clear to ETA that they are not interested in political dialogue.

With all the resources that it has at its disposal, the Spanish State can easily afford to conduct its Basque policy within the rule of (bourgeois) law, such as respecting the human rights norms the west likes to think it champions. Yet its refusal to do so and its dogged demonisation of Basques betrays the sinister and totalitarian force driving that policy.

A situation where the conflict can be transformed from one of terror on both sides into a purely political one is literally only a terms of truce and a referendum away. The dogs onthe street know this in all regions of the Spanish State. In fact, an opinion poll only 2 weeks ago showed that the majority of people in the Spanish State think that their government should negociate with ETA, and yet they refuse.

I object to the use of 'armed struggle' as a tactic for achieving social change. But it's not ETA who are the fascists.

See link for pictures showing electrode burns on the body of a prisoner. This is torture.
http://www.stoptortura.com/irudiIkusE.php?gai=Tortura%2...N=asc

by Hernani Tue Feb 28, 2006 13:33

Gearoid

I have also lived in Euskadi and the routine torture of ETA suspects is well documented, and includes beatings, rape, cigarette burns, suffocation -all the tricks from the torturers arsenal. A competely non-political friend of mine was brutally tortured by the Guardia Civil (whose enblem is still the fasces) and when they realised their mistake, they merely alternated torture with bribery to pressure him to become an infomer.

Nobody can take seriously your claim that torture reports are merely exaggerated complaints about handcuffing and searching -it suggests a lack of honesty and hopelessly blinkered thinking on your part.

Yes the Basques have their "own" police force, we had the RIC, "Irish" Militia when we were under occupation - unforunately imperialsim has never been slow to recruit native collaborators to secure their rule in any country.

by iosaf Thu Mar 02, 2006 14:47

Prisoner issues are essential to any confict resolution. I suspect many Basque prisoners have become as disillusioned as ordinary Basque people with the lack of movement to a proper publically ackowledged peace process and I suspect for many younger people cought up in the spiral of violence and criminalisation that lack of progress sometimes produces chronic depression. We can not rule out suicide in some of these cases. _but not all_ Peace for Euskal Herria means movement on all sides. ETA did not offer a ceasefire despite hinting that one was one the table in the last three weeks. But equally the intransigence and anti-basque feeling on the Spanish right has raised spectres which no-one in a democracy wants to see. The conflict in the basque is about lining up basque and spanish bottles . I would never have thought of relying on the BBC to appraise the relationship with constitutional autonomy and local wishes. Certainly true as the first commentator suggests, that Galicia, Basque and Catalonia have language rights, and that both Basque and Catalonia have police forces, but understanding the Spanish democratic constitution means accepting that "asymetrical federalism" and the "continuation" of the dictator's regime has at long last come to the point where reform, deep reform is needed. @ least that's what I consistently hear in Catalonia where I've lived for years. & not just from nationalists or regionalists, but across the political spectrum.
Peace requires that all victims be remembered. Peace requires that people say we were terrorised and we don't want to be anymore Often peace fails, because one side can't see that it has no monopoly on being terrorised. as true for Ireland/Britain as it is for Basque/Spain.

photos of the funeral at the link
http://www.euskalherria.indymedia.org/eu/2006/03/25720....shtml
Basque imc have got together a radio stream see the site for more details.

by iosaf Fri Mar 03, 2006 16:17

When TVE (the spanish BBC) reported the death of the man in the article above, they did so as a "suicide" and then without reason or relevance the report ended with a full screen photo of Mariano Rajoy, leader of the PP spain's right wing opposition party, the succesor to Aznar. Today's commercial press report that the PP have accused TVE of something or other, and Zapatero of supporting them in something or other, and for their part TVE says it was a mistake, to be regretted, blah de blah, just goes to show.

Of course it wouldn't surprise many to know that TVE gives jobs to many people who don't like the PP. This is mainly due to the unconstitutional and near illegal meddling in newsreports during the final Aznar years, and from talking to pals in TVE I know that "unforeseen problems of continuity and the image library" mean nothing more than tired news editor getting it regretably wrong. & sure it would have ended there if the PP hadn't thought to complain and bring everyones' attention to it.

in other related updates, 15 ETA prisoners due to be released this year will now not be set free, as the spanish judiciary and penal reform (a seperate institution of government to the ruling socialist executive) [ many readers in Ireland miss the multiple nature of the spanish state and its very distinct institutional nature to the anglo-saxon model which of course the irish have ]. At least 180 prisoners facing sentances above 30 years upto 4,799 years will remain in prison till at least 2020 under the new reform of sentancing review for crimes committed primarily under the 1973 penal code.

in other not totally related news, the leader of the Spanish IU party has accepted calls from groups and individuals in the Spanish republican tradition to call for the flying of the flag of the 2nd republic on all official buildings for this year's commemoration of the declaration of the republic, and shall table a motion at the EU parliament for a condemnation of Franco's regime and the fascist coup d'etat. This follows moves on the 23rd of February by the basque and catalan sister parties of the IU and the catalan nationalist ERC to similarly call for an official apology.

In completely irrelevant news, Mr Putin has apologised for the repression of the Czech spring revolution, but not commented on the findings of an Italian tribunal published yesterday that the KGB ordered the assasination attempt on the polish pontiff.

by Puzzled Fri Mar 03, 2006 16:23

But why are you supporting Basque Nationalists who planted bombs in Catalonia? Will Iosaf be supporting or opposing ETA support demos in Barcelona?

Basque Nationalism good!
Irish Nationalism bad!

by iosaf Fri Mar 03, 2006 17:07

but my position is consistent. I support peace processes, the end to armed struggle, constitutionalism at macro level and anarcho-syndicalism at local level. I supported irish prisoner release whilst living in Dublin, and wore the green ribbon, & got stick for it and was accused of being a shinner which i wasn't from the C of I community I lived and worked with, then after the releases started I befriended ex-prisoners, of the two most important to me - one was guilty (early release for renouncing armed struggle) the other was innocent (and famous for it).
Its not a question of doublethink basque "nationalism good Irish nationalism bad" at all. Its a question of believing that societies like Ireland or Catalonia or the Basque must move on from nationalist evaluation of their problems in the XXI century of neo-liberal globalisation and EU superstatehood (when the nation state model we fought for in the past is now impossible to achieve) to proper class based global or continental analysis.
I've not said any nationalism is bad per se but I do believe that the republican ideals of the french revolution are best served through class based organisation and critique without regard to ethnicity, creed, religion, gender &c..
I have also expressed consistently my belief that the best interim solution for the basque problem is the admittal that the spanish state is plurinational just as I believe Ireland is. I know that at least 3 elements will bring peace and proper class based politics to the basque people (along with caos en la red [comment above] and the anarko and spanish republican people over here), One is a ceasefire by ETA and the other is movement on prisoner issues and the other is certain declarations on behalf of the Spanish state in all its institutions, not just elected government. There are of course many other elements. But we may only start with those.
http://indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69891

by Arantzazu Wed Aug 22, 2007 22:33

I was born and Franco was in power. We were not allowed to speak Basque but my mother spoke to me in Basque. When I started in school I was bullied because I did not know Spanish .From my home window being small I saw many demonstrations and Spanish Police in all the shapes:in horses, in jeeps... allways hiting people ;with balls trowed by them I would play hand ball with my neighbours.
There are three Jauregis in my family, 2 brothers spent 16 years in prison as political prisoners and the other was killed by ETA as he was the Gipuzkoa zibil governor. To be honest being Basque I feel lots of pain knowing about Basque people sufering in prison and about Basque people who are refugees in South America.
Living in Ireland I do not share my pain with anyone as I realized that I can be considered a trouble person.For me my language is very important but many people will tell me that it is more important German than learn Irish.Politics is a tabu subject and the subject is
how much cost the house bought 6 months ago, €600,000 and I go on holidays to Marbella this summer.Now that Shanon-London route with Aer lingus is finished will someone bother? I will see...