Not so fast!
"Basque separatists end armed battle for independence" October 21, 2011|By Daniel Woolls and Yesica Fisch, Associated Press
BILBAO, Spain - After killing more than 800 people across Spain during the last four decades in its drive for an independent state, the Basque separatist group ETA yesterday said it would lay down its arms - but stopped short of declaring it was defeated.
The historic announcement was made via video by three ETA members wearing trademark Basque berets and masks. At the end of the clip, they defiantly raised their fists in the air, demanding a separate Basque nation.
Once a force that terrorized the country with shootings and bombings, Europe’s last armed militant movement has been both romanticized and vilified. But it had been decimated in recent years by a wave of arrests, declining support among nationalists, and repulsion with raw violence. The announcement had long been expected.
The group has killed 829 people since the late 1960s in a campaign of bombings and shootings aimed at forcing the government to allow creation of an independent Basque homeland straddling provinces of northern Spain and southwest France.
ETA emerged during the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, who was obsessed with the idea of Spain as a unified state and suppressed Basque culture. Franco banned the ancient and linguistically unique language - which sounds nothing like Spanish or any other language - and destroyed books written in it.
Basques argued that they are culturally distinct from Spain and deserve statehood, and arrests of independence sympathizers still prompt crowds to head to the streets clapping in support. But, the wealthy and verdant region also has a large population of non-Basques who consider themselves fully Spanish and have long been opposed to the militants.
ETA’s most spectacular attack came in 1973, when the group planted a bomb on a Madrid street after weeks of tunneling, and blew up the car of then Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco. He was killed in a blast that sent the vehicle into the air and left it atop the roof of a nearby building. The group became even more violent in the 1980s, shooting hundreds of police officers and politicians, and occasionally killing civilians.
Classified as a terrorist group by Spain, the European Union, and the United States, the group has seen its power and ability to stage attacks wane during the last decade, following the Sept. 11 attacks and the 2004 Madrid train bombings by radical Islamists. It has not killed anyone for two years, and recent reports said it may have as few as 50 fighters.
The carefully choreographed process toward yesterday’s announcement began a year ago, when the group’s political supporters renounced violence. ETA then called a cease-fire, one of nearly a dozen over the years. This week, international figures such as former UN secretary general Kofi Annan attended a conference that called on ETA to lay down its weapons.
The announcement marks the first time the group has said it was willing to renounce armed struggle, a key demand by Spain. It comes as the country prepares for general elections Nov. 20, and some analysts had predicted it would be made to give the ruling Socialist Party a boost as it faces almost certain defeat amid a national unemployment rate of 21 percent, the eurozone’s highest....
Yeah, it seems the Spanish have other, more important issues at hand rather than a toothless terror group.
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Now I'm told there is still some bite?
"Among Basques, ‘restrained euphoria’ over ETA’s ceasefire" October 22, 2011|By Alvaro Barrientos and Daniel Woolls, Associated Press
SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain - The government has ruled out talks with ETA, rejecting an appeal for dialogue made by the militant group Thursday in announcing its “definitive cease of armed action.’’
Gonna need a translator.
People in this small but prosperous patch of northern Spain and elsewhere in the country feel they are experiencing a cherished slice of history after 43 years of shootings and bombings that have left 829 people dead.
ETA has raised hopes before with announcements of cease-fires, even ones it called permanent, like a truce in 2006 that ETA ended after nine months with a huge car bombing that killed two people.
But this time, ETA’s bombs and bullets - if not the organization itself or its goal of an independent Basque state - do seem to be gone for good, Basques said.
“The sky is a beautiful blue, and we are living moments of excitement and hope after recovering the peace and freedom that society wanted so badly,’’ said Miguel Angel Lujua, president of the Basque business federation Confebask. Its members had routinely received extortion demands from ETA and traveled with bodyguards. Lujua was among them.
ETA has been decimated by arrests in recent years and declining grassroots support among Basque nationalists who stomached its violent campaign in exchange for working toward the goal of independence. It had not killed anyone in Spain in two years and was reportedly down to as few as 50 fighters.
ETA’s political supporters renounced violence last year in a monumental, much-debated shift and advocated the independence movement shifting to the strictly political and peaceful realm. It wanted ETA to do the same, but ETA resisted for the time being.
In September, ETA declared a cease-fire, but more with the defiant cry of a victor than the humility of a defeated guerrilla group. It did not apologize to its victims, said nothing about giving up its weapons and reiterated that Basques have a right to decide their own future - status quo or independence, which the government rules out. Critics said ETA is really just moving a piece on a chess board.
Then why all the MSM hullabaloo?
Indeed, yesterday, a representative of ETA’s banned political wing Batasuna reiterated demands for talks on the region’s future....
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Did it boost the Socialists?
"Socialist party loses elections in Spain; Conservatives sweep into power" November 21, 2011|By Daniel Woolls, Associated Press
MADRID - Spain’s opposition conservatives swept commandingly into power and into the hot seat yesterday as voters enduring a 21.5 percent jobless rate and stagnant economy dumped the Socialists - the third time in three weeks Europe’s debt crisis has claimed a government.
Related: Markets Pick Papademos to Govern Greece
Markets Appoint Monti to Manage Italy
Voters didn't choose those switches.
As thousands of jubilant, cheering supporters waving red-and-yellow Spanish flags and blue-and-white party ones gathered outside Popular Party headquarters, their leader and future prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, thanked Spaniards for their support, then sounded a somber note of warning.
We will be serving banks first.
“It is no secret to anyone that we are going to rule in the most delicate circumstances Spain has faced in 30 years,’’ he said. “For me, there will be no enemies but unemployment, the deficit, excessive debt, economic stagnation, and anything else that keeps our country in these critical circumstances.’’
Other than promise tax cuts for small- and medium-size companies that make up more than 90 percent of all firms in Spain, Rajoy, 56, has not specified how he will tackle Spain’s unemployment nightmare.
Rajoy faces the towering task of restoring investor confidence and lowering Spain’s soaring borrowing costs with deficit-reducing measures, while not dragging an already moribund economy into a double-dip recession. It climbed out of one just last year that was prompted by the bursting of a real estate bubble....
Oh, is THAT WHY the Spanish elected him?!?!
The Popular Party won an absolute majority and resounding mandate from a deeply troubled electorate....
Rajoy said he has not promised miracles, and there will be none. But he said that the Popular Party has shown in the past that it gets things done. He appealed to Spaniards to join together and resurrect the economy....
Earlier, as he waited for Rajoy to speak, one supporter, David Cordero, said he was happy with the prospect of change so as to create jobs and protect social services like state-paid health care and education....
If you weren't getting that out of the Socialists.... (sigh).
The new numbers show Spanish voters have shifted decidedly to the right as they confront their worst economic crisis in decades and choose new leaders to pull them out of it.
As part of that mess, the country is also at the forefront of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, with the Spanish government’s borrowing costs rising last week to levels near where other eurozone countries such as Greece, Ireland, and Portugal had to request huge bailouts from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
Besides the recent changes in which Greece and Italy replaced their governments with teams made up of technocrats, Ireland and Portugal - which also required huge bailouts to avert default - also saw their governments change hands....
And yet nothing changes and the austerity programs advance.
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Related: Investors shift fears on debt to Spain, France
