Spanish police arrested the leader of the political wing of the violent Basque separatist group ETA on Friday, signaling a new government crackdown after the group renounced a 15-month ceasefire earlier this week.
The police detained Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the outlawed political party Batasuna, in the northern coastal town of San Sebastian, an official from the National Court said.
Otegi was convicted last year of making comments in support of terrorism but was allowed to remain free while he was appealing the case.
His arrest is the latest in a series of moves that the Spanish and French authorities have taken against Basque separatists since Tuesday, when ETA formally ended its ceasefire. In practice, it was broken last December when ETA planted a car bomb at a Madrid airport, which killed two men and ended an attempt by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government to broker a peace deal, despite calls from ETA to maintain the truce.
Zapatero, a Socialist who has been accused of being soft on ETA by his conservative opposition and by some allies, pledged on Tuesday to clamp down on the group and its support network.
In an interview on Spanish television on Thursday, he denied that the government had eased up on ETA and said 92 members of the group had been arrested since the ceasefire began in March last year.
Pernando Barrena, a Batasuna spokesman, described Otegi's arrest as "an extremely serious move" and said at a news conference in San Sebastian that this week's measures against Basque separatists were "an invitation to repression and dark days."
On Wednesday, the government ordered Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos, an ETA member convicted of 25 killings, back to prison after he had recovered from a 114-day hunger strike.
In March, the government said it might let him serve his sentence at home because of health reasons, which drew anger from across the political spectrum and prompted hundreds of thousands to march in protest in Madrid.
The gesture to de Juana, who has already served his sentence for the murders and is in jail on charges of inciting terrorism, was part of an attempt to keep the door open to reviving peace talks, a government official privy to Zapatero's thinking said.
ETA, which has been weakened in recent years by prosecutions and police tactics, carried out only small attacks of late, without killing anyone from May 2003 until last December.
Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said on Wednesday, however, that it was "evident that circumstances have changed."
On Thursday, two men and a woman accused of belonging to ETA were arrested in a raid in southwestern France, where many of the group's operatives are in hiding.
The woman, Alaitz Areitio Azpiri, 28, is suspected of recruiting and training ETA militants. One of the men, Aitor Lorente Bilbao, 40, had served seven years for weapons possession; the other, Igartua Echeverria, 37, had fled to France after a police operation against an ETA cell, the interior ministry said.
The conservative Popular Party continued to insist last week that it would back Zapatero in the fight against ETA only if he ruled out further negotiations with the group.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS