Batasuna

Batasuna ("Unity" in Basque language) is a Basque nationalist political organization based mainly in Spain, declared illegal, but with a French presence (Basque Country). They were outlawed on the charges of being the political branch of ETA and funding it with public money.Batasuna (previously billing themselves as Herri Batasuna and Euskal Herritarrok) is part of the "Basque National Liberation Movement" which includes social organizations, trade unions, youth (Jarrai and Gazteriak, now merged in Haika and Segi), and women's groups (Egizan). Batasuna was judicially declared illegal and banned in Spain by a court ruling in 2003, for accusations of ties between some of its members and ETA - a terrorist Basque socialist separatist organization. Batasuna remains legal in France.

It is included in the "European Union list of terrorist persons and organizations" as a component of ETAPDFlink| [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2006/l_144/l_14420060531en00250029.pdf EU list of terrorist organizations] |43.6 KiB , 29 May 2006:*"Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (The following organisations are allegedly part of the terrorist group ETA: KAS, Xaki; Ekin, Jarrai-Haika-Segi, Gestoras Pro-amnistía, Askatasuna, Batasuna (also known as Herri Batasuna, also known as Euskal Herritarrok)] . In spite of its banning, Batasuna has organized or supported numerous rallies, public actions and several workplace strikes. Batasuna voters have been encouraged to vote for other abertzale (Basque nationalist) parties since the banning.

History and outline

The party was founded in April 1978 as Herri Batasuna "(Unity of the People)", as a coalition of leftist nationalist political groups mostly coming from Euskadiko Ezkerra advocating for "no" in the referendum to be held in December that same year regarding the then new born Spanish constitution. Its constituent parties had been called together by senior Basque nationalist Telesforo de Monzón in a 1977 meeting called "the table of Altsasu." Herri Batasuna's founding convention was held in Lekeitio, home of Santiago Brouard who was then the leader of HASI (Herriko Alderdi Sozialista Iraultzailea or Revolutionary Socialist People's Party). The party won 170,000 votes (a 13% showing in the Basque Country) in its first general election in March 1979.

On November 20, 1984, Brouard was assassinated by two members of the GAL while treating a child at his medical clinic in Bilbao. The killing is perhaps the only one performed by the GAL death squad within Spain itself.

Another well-known Herri Batasuna leader, Josu Muguruza, was also killed by members of the neo-fascist Bases Autónomas in 1989, while he was in a hotel in Madrid. He was a congressman on the Spanish Parliament when he was assassinated.

From 1998 to 2001, Batasuna assumed the name Euskal Herritarrok ("We Basque Citizens"). After the "Batasuna process", Aralar was formed as a schism in Batasuna.

The most recent public party spokesmen were Arnaldo Otegi, and Joseba Permach Gorroño. Otegi was a member of the armed groups ETA-political-military (since 1977 or before, until 1981), and ETA-military (since 1981) and served several years in prison for bank assault. He is married and has two children. After having been brought to court early this year (2005) he was set free on parole. However, on June 8 2007 Otegi was arrested on his way to a news conference in the Basque City of Donostia (San Sebastián). He has been committed to serve a 15 month sentence for allegedly "defending terrorism" (a crime in the Spanish State), at a 2003 commeration ceremony for a former ETA leader. He was released on August 30 2008, apparently not to resume his spokesman role. Permach was likewise arrested on October 5 2007 for attending a meeting of the illegalized organization.

Another important member of Batasuna is José Antonio Urrutikoetxea Bengoetxea, alias Josu Ternera, the main leader of ETA between 1987 and 1989 and accused of a number of homicides like the massacre of 21 people at Hipercor - a shopping center in Barcelona. He was imprisoned in France after 1989, released after finishing his sentence and was transferred to Spanish prisons, where he stayed for 2 more years until his release by the Constitutional Court, which stipulated that he had served his prison term in France. He was included in the Batasuna electoral ticket and elected to the Basque parliament between 1999 and 2001, where he was appointed as his party's representative in the Human Rights commission at the Basque Parliament, which, given his violent background caused a stir in the rest of parties. He disappeared when the Spanish courts reopened old charges and presented new ones about his current membership in ETA. Presently he lives in hiding and is considered one of the leaders of ETA that are pushing for negotiations.

Following the February 2006 deaths of ETA members Igor Miguel Angulo Iturrate, 32, (due to an apparent suicide by hanging) and Ricardo Sainz Olmos, 41, (by a heart attack), public commemorations of the dead prisoners were banned by Basque authorities. Amid a period of independent kale borroka street attacks on the offices of the Basque Nationalist Party and other establishment targets, Batasuna together with the union Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak convoked a day of protest and general strike on March 9. [http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2006/03/05/espana/1141557117.html] On the morning of the strike, ETA detonated several bombs near highways, with no injuries. Employers reported scant overall participation in the strike, approximately 0.5% of private sector workers, 1% of government workers and 3-4% of workers in education. A few thousands of Batasuna militants joined mass protests, while others blocked rail lines and roads and occupied municipal halls. [http://www.conflicto-vasco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1573] Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi was ordered to appear in court to answer for the bomb attacks and disruption, but delayed his appearance repeatedly on the grounds of illness.

In September 2008, seperatists from the party, while not condemning ETA's tactics, did say the "political-military strategy" of the latter is an "obstacle" to aspirations for Basque independence. They called for a "unifying project for the pro-independence left" which would be aimed at creating an electoral list for regional elections to be held in Spring 2009.http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=244554&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21 Basque separatists call ETA an ‘obstacle’]

Electoral participation

Batasuna's support in the elections to the parliament of the Basque Autonomous Community (under the three brands it has used, i.e., Herri Batasuna, Euskal Herritarrok and EHAK) oscillates around 15% of the total votes, its best result being the 18.33% achieved in 1990 and the lowest the 10.12% of the total votes obtained in 2001. [ [http://www9.euskadi.net/q93TodoWar/q93Desplegar.jsp Official results of elections held in the Basque Autonomous Community] ] .

In Navarre it's results in the elections to the Navarrese Foral parliament have been historically slightly less than 15% of the total votes, reaching their highest result in 1999 (15.95% of the total votes) and their lowest in 1995 (9.22% of the total votes). [ [http://www.parlamento-navarra.es/datos/elec.doc Official results of elections held in the Foral Community of Navarre] ] In this territory other Basque pro-independence left wing parties which reject violence and so remain legal - namely Batzarre and specifically, Aralar- erode Batasuna's support in a more significant way than in the Basque Autonomous Community.

Batasuna had around 140,000 voters and won 10% of the vote in the 2001 regional elections after boycotting the 2000 general election. Batasuna had representatives in the European Parliament and in the parliaments of Navarre and the provinces of the Basque Autonomous Community. It also ruled some 62 local councils [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2211696.stm] , and had members in many more. Currently, Batasuna has lost all its representatives in the Spanish Parliaments, since regaining some their seats in elections held after the banning of the party.

While the party has been barred from formally taking part in elections since 2003 (see below), it has coordinated a variety of forms of participation (or "quantifiable non-participation") in recent elections. After the May 2003 provincial and local elections, followers of the local lists protested claiming the council seats corresponding to the invalid votes (127,000, 10% of the total vote in the Basque Country).

In May 2004, a list named "Herritarren Zerrenda" ("Citizens' List") was presented in Spain and France to the European Parliament Election, 2004. Spanish tribunals rejected it, as a successor of Batasuna. However, the HZ list in France remained legal.

HZ candidates in Spain then campaigned for using the French HZ ballot also in Spain, which was to be counted as null vote.There were more than 98,000 null votes in the Basque Autonomous Country and more than 15,000 in Navarre.

HZ leaders interpret the extremely high rate of null votes, which was 12% of the total vote, to mean that most of the nulls were for HZ, since in the previous European elections the null vote was less than 1%.

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200px|thumb|Distribution_of_
in the Spanish referendum.Batasuna called for a No vote on the European Constitution proposal in the referendums to be held in Spain and in France in 2005. The Basque Country & Navarre and Catalonia were comparatively less supportive of 'yes', but approved the referendum by a narrow majority.

For the Basque elections of 2005, Batasuna presented lists of candidates but they were dismissed as illegal. After the dissolution of the Basque parliament, Batasuna lost all their remaining elected representatives. Simultaneously, lists were presented by the new political group "Aukera Guztiak" ("All the options"). The Spanish prosecutors and the parties PP and PSOE contended that "Aukera Guztiak" was actually another front for Batasuna and tried to find evidence leading to its illegalization.

The Basque Government led by the PNV-EA and the Batasuna spokesmen protested against these attempts. The issue went all the way to the Spanish Constitutional Court that confirmed the ruling of the Spanish Supreme Court, forbidding the AG lists.

Once the campaign had started, a previously unknown party named "Euskal Herrietako Alderdi Komunista" ("Communist Party of the Basque Peoples","Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas", EHAK) announced that they were ready to bring the programs of Batasuna and AG to the parliament.The party had been legally registered in 2002 but had no known activity until 2005.

Like those parties, representatives of EHAK have refused to explicitly condemn the ETA attacks but, given the fact that elections were to be held in a matter of days, the courts did not have the time to assess EHAK's compliance with the Ley de Partidos. The People's Party requested that the Spanish government conducts investigations to ban EHAK-PCTV too, though the State Legal Service ("Abogacía General del Estado") and the Attorney General's Office ("Fiscalía General del Estado") found no evidence to support legal actions against the party. Batasuna asked their supporters to vote for EHAK.

In the Basque elections of April 17, 2005, EHAK obtained 150.188 votes (12,5%), entering the Basque Parliament with nine seats (all but one being women).

panish Parliament

Batasuna stood in a number of elections for the Spanish Parliament. They first stood in 1979 obtaining their best results in the Basque autonomous community where they polled 15% and won 3 seats. [ [http://electionresources.org/es/congress.php?election=1979&community=14 1979 election results] ] In Navarre they polled almost 9% but failed to win a seat. They lost a seat in the 1982 election despite maintaining the same level of support. Their high point came in the 1986 election where they won 5 seats, including one seat in Navarre, the only occasion in which they have won a seat there. They lost their Navarre seat in the 1989 election and lost a further 2 seats in the 1996 election, which overall proved to be the party's worst performance in terms of vote share. At provincial level, their best results came in Guipúzcoa where the party topped the poll in the 1989 general election.

Declaration of illegality in Spain

The party denies any links to ETA. However, proponents of the party's illegalization point to a coincidence of Batasuna and ETA's strategies. A significant number of Batasuna leaders have been imprisoned because of their activities in ETA. The party has never condemned any attack by ETA. Its leadears have referred sometimes to the ETA terrorists as 'Basque soldiers' and they have even paid obeisance to them.

There have been a number of attempts to ban the party, and it has frequently changed its name as part of the effort to avoid this, being called Herri Batasuna, then becoming part of the Euskal Herritarrok coalition in the 1990s. Members of the Basque left consider the Spanish government's efforts against Batasuna and its successors to be part of an organized campaign targeting the social support for the independence movement. They point to government crackdowns against the newspaper "Egin", the radio station Herri Irratia and the network of pubs that were gathering places for the independentist left.

In 2002 there were renewed attempts by the Spanish government to ban the party. In June the parliament passed legislation that outlawed parties under certain conditions, on the grounds of their support for terrorism. In July Batasuna was fined € 24 million for vandalism and street violence in 2001. Following an ETA car bomb attack on August 4 the Spanish parliament was recalled. The party was suspended for three years by Judge Baltasar Garzón on August 27 to allow him to investigate the party links to ETA. Garzón and the government present 23 arguments for the ban, focusing on the party's refusal to condemn ETA attacks, reference to detainees as political prisoners, collaboration with other banned abertzale forces, and ETA's support in communiqués for Batasuna's political strategy. [http://www.el-mundo.es/especiales/2002/08/espana/batasuna/motivos.html]

The ban prohibits their representatives from contesting elections, holding public demonstrations or rallies and freezes their assets. On the 26th the Spanish parliament voted for an indefinite ban, 295 to 10. The party's main offices in Pamplona were closed by the police and further offices in San Sebastián, Bilbao and Vitoria-Gasteiz were targeted.

Before the prohibition effort, a dissenting minority left the party to form Aralar. While sharing aims with Batasuna, Aralar has clearly refused political violence and ETA's assassinations.

In 2003, Batasuna was declared illegal in Spain, after a reform of the law on political parties. The decision automatically cut them off from the state funding received by all legal political parties. In spite of legal text forbidding its reorganization under another name, former members planned running for the provincial and local elections of May 2003, under the names of Autodeterminaziorako Bilgunea "(AuB, Meeting Place for Self-determination)" and a plethora of local lists. Most of these lists were considered to be a front for Batasuna by the Spanish Supreme Court. This decision was confirmed by the Spanish Constitutional Court. In spite of this, AuB campaigned for invalid votes.

On December 7, 2006 the Supreme Court of Spain ruled that there should be no legal obstacle to the contact between Batasuna and other political parties.

On October 4, 2007, twenty-three top members of Batasuna were arrested as they left a secret meeting in Segura (Guipúzcoa), accused of holding an illegal political meeting; the arrests were ordered by Baltasar Garzón, a judge prominent in Spanish anti-terrorism, according to spokespersons for the National Court. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/world/europe/06spain.html?ref=europe "Basque Leaders Arrested in Spain", "The New York Times", 6 October 2007] ]

Reaction

In October 2008 demonstrations were held in Bilbao to protest a Supreme Court decision the month before to ban two Basque independence parties, Basque Nationalist Action (ANV) and Communist Party of Basque Lands (PCTV), because of ties to Batasuna. The protesters had a banner that read "Freedom for Euskal Herria." The protests was organised by left-wing Basque nationalists. ANV president, Kepa Bereziartua, and the former spokesman for Batasuna, Arnaldo Otegi, were present in the march.http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hRnwgIJi3-jWS2YjzLB2u81Zvjdg]

Status in France

Batasuna has a minor presence in the Basque French country, where it runs elections as a civic organization [ [http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Batasuna/anuncia/campana/Francia/ilegalizacion/elpepuesp/20081005elpepinac_7/Tes] ] , not like a political party. It has not reached any kind of representation at either local or regional level so farFact|date=October 2008.

In September 2008, 14 people were detained by the French police, 10 of whom were from the French-wing of the party (including their spokesman Xabi Larralde), and charged with links to ETA. They were released four days later, but it remains unclear whether the ongoing investigation would lead to an illegalization process similar to that in Spain. [ [http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Detenidos/miembros/Batasuna/Francia/elpepuesp/20080924elpepunac_1/Tes]

See also

* The major Basque party is the moderate Basque Nationalist Party "Eusko Alderdi Jeltzalea" in Basque, "Partido Nacionalista Vasco" in Spanish, hence its initials "EAJ-PNV".

References

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4010625.stm BBC news story regarding call to stop armed conflict] 14 November, 2004
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