ETA "permanent ceasefire" to end

[Lord Zentei]

Associated Press

ETA Calls Off Year-Old Cease-Fire

By DANIEL WOOLLS 06.05.07, 12:55 PM ET

The Basque separatist organization ETA said Tuesday the cease-fire it called last year - and insisted was in force even after killing two people with a car bomb - is now formally over, setting the stage for a quick resumption of attacks.

In an angry statement, ETA said the 15-month-old truce ends at midnight Tuesday. After that, it would be "active on all fronts to defend the Basque homeland." The statement crushed hopes for a swift end to Europe's last armed political militancy group, which wants to carve out an independent homeland in northern Spain and southwest France.

The separatists accused Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of ruining a promising peace process by arresting and trying ETA members even as he talked with the group of ending the conflict. It also faulted him for the barring of most pro-independence candidates from Basque local elections.

"Zapatero's character has turned into a fascism that left parties and citizens without rights," ETA said. "Minimum democratic conditions for a negotiating process do not exist."

Zapatero had made ending the nearly 40-year-old conflict one of the main goals of his administration. Three months after the ETA cease-fire announcement, he said his government would negotiate with the group, angering the conservative opposition, who accused Zapatero of giving in to terrorism.

In a televised speech Tuesday, Zapatero said the truce had in fact already ended with the December bombing and noted that ETA has declared cease-fires before, only to resume its armed campaign.

"Now, as it did then, ETA is again making a mistake," the prime minister said, vowing to remain tough. "ETA's decision goes totally in the opposite direction of the path that Basque and Spanish society want - the path of peace."

He called on ETA to lay down its arms and expressed confidence that "sooner or later, Spanish society will achieve peace."

Conservative opposition leader Mariano Rajoy criticized the speech as ambiguous, saying Zapatero did not categorically rule out resuming talks with ETA.

"I call on him to state there will not be any more concessions or any negotiation with ETA," Rajoy said. "ETA must lose all hope of any negotiation, and ETA must know that its only destiny is defeat with the instruments of democratic rule of law."

The Socialist government had feared an ETA return to violence might be imminent since officials decided not to allow ETA's outlawed political wing, Batasuna, and associated parties from running in May 27 local elections. Officials said they were aware the move could embolden hard-liners, but felt they had no choice after the Dec. 30 bombing of a Madrid airport parking garage killed two people.

Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi blamed both ETA and the government.

"Responsibility for breaking the cease-fire lies solely and exclusively with ETA," Otegi said. "But it's also true that if the decision to end the cease-fire is ETA's, the failure and collapse of the so-called peace process also has its culprits, the Spanish government and the (region's governing) Basque Nationalist Party."

Otegi claimed, however, that there was still hope for the peace process.

Most of Spain had considered the cease-fire over when the group blew up the parking garage. But ETA had insisted the truce was still in place, indicating the two deaths were unintentional.

When ETA declared the truce, it said it was permanent and wanted a negotiated end to the nearly 40-year conflict that has left more than 800 people dead. The sides then met a number of times, but the talks made no significant progress, and Zapatero's government said after the December bombing that it would not have contact with ETA.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Oh good. For a moment there, I was almost thinking the world was going to improve somewhat. Nice to see we keep bringing on the lows.

[K. A. Pital]

I guess the ETA leaders were looking forward to a 24-style world and decided to avoid being lumped in the same basket as the Al-Quaeda loons. When they saw that, well, nothing happened, they re-opened hostilities. Simple.