Ógra Shinn Féin highlight human rights abuses in Basque Country

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Saturday April 22, 2006 00:10

by Ógra B - Ógra Shinn Féin

Ballymoney Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí McKay has just completed a speaking tour of the Basque Country. The Rasharkin man, who was there representing Ógra Shinn Féin, was to be accompanied by a member of the South African ANC but they were refused access to the region by the Spanish Government. Journalists who were to interview the Sinn Féin man were also subject to harassment from the Spanish authorities. On Friday Cllr McKay gave the opening address - in Basque - at the Basque Topagunea Festival, the first big festival since the ETA Ceasefire and which was attended by over 20,000 people.

Gora Segi - Gora Ógra Shinn Féin!

Speaking on his return Cllr McKay said:

" The week's events were a very useful insight into the current situation in the Basque region and it is quite clear that Spanish State Torture, which has been highlighted by both the UN and Amnesty International, is still continuing unabated.
“The trip was also a very useful insight into the Basque Youth Movement, which is without doubt, one of the best organised and vibrant youth movements in Europe. The Topagunea Festival, which was held in Etxarri at the weekend, is organised entirely by young people involved in the Basque Youth Movement and is testament to the resilience of young people here who are continually the subject of state harassment and sometimes torture.
“We have been speaking to some young people who have been imprisoned for years without trial, effectively Spanish Internment, and who have also been victim to the Spanish and French Prisoner ‘dispersal’ policy.
“This is when the Governments concerned remove Basque Prisoners from their local areas and place them in prisons as far away from the Basque Country as possible. The result of this is that Prisoners’ relatives have to trek up to and over 1,000km to see their loved ones and this can often involve days on buses at great expense to low-income families. It has also involved in deaths on the roads, one prisoner who we were talking to spoke of how his mother died from sheer exhaustion and obviously stress whilst on the long journey to see her son.”
Cllr McKay also spoke about the Irish Peace Process and drew parallels between both the Basque and Irish conflicts,
"We are keen to see this peace process work and key to this is the lifting of the Spanish ban on Basque political parties, youth groups, trade unions, language groups and newspapers.
"One of the things I highlighted to Basque audiences this week was that a successful peace process relies on positive moves on all sides. In that regard it is clear that the onus is now on the Spanish and French Governments to move this process forward.

"There is also an onus on the International community, and in particular the International media to start covering the human rights abuses that are occurring in this so-called Western democracy, as their efforts to do this have thus far been non-existent."

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ATTEMPTING TO END VIOLENCE IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND THE BASQUE COUNTRY

by Observer

Sat Apr 22, 2006 14:50

Check online this excellent article:
ATTEMPTING TO END VIOLENCE IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND THE BASQUE COUNTRY:
THE MISREPRESENTATION OF THE IRISH MODEL
ROGELIO ALONSO
Investigador Ramón y Cajal de Ciencia Política,
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
[Article accepted for publication in Terrorism and Political Violence, Volume 17, Spring 2005.
Draft: Do not quote or distribute]
SUMMARY
This article focuses on the reasons why the attempt to achieve the end of ETA’s violence in the Basque Country during the mid to late 1990s was unsuccessful when compared to the IRA’s case in Northern Ireland. It argues that the different roles played by Basque and Irish nationalism in that decade and the distortion of the Irish model by Basque nationalist parties and the terrorist organization ETA were decisive in this outcome. The radicalisation of constitutional nationalism in the Basque region, as opposed to the constitutionalisation of radical nationalism that was a key factor in the achievement of the consensus enshrined in the 1998 Belfast Agreement, contributed to the continuation of terrorism. Contrary to the spirit of this Agreement, Basque nationalists moved away from an existing consensus with non nationalist parties around the principle of full development of the Basque autonomy strengthening ETA’s will to carry on with their campaign.