In a historic step for Spain, the armed Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatsuna (ETA) is this week expected to announce a definitive end to more than four decades of violence, according to sources close to the negotiations.
With the former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan flying into the Basque country today for talks and a recent call from several hundred ETA prisoners for an end to violence, sources in the Basque country and others involved in the process say the group will make a significant announcement shortly.
Senior members of Socialist Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s government have been saying for several weeks that they expect the group to make such a move. ETA is already observing what it terms a “permanent” ceasefire, called in September last year, though it has broken previous unilateral truces that it had deemed permanent.
While it was unclear exactly what words ETA would use in its forthcoming statement, it looks set to be an irreversible step toward the end of a group that has killed more than 800 people in bomb and pistol attacks across Spain over the past 43 years.
A public appeal yesterday from Annan and fellow mediators, including Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, for ETA to embrace peace will provide the group with an excuse for declaring its readiness to abandon arms, according to sources. Radical Basque separatist political leaders would then imitate moves by Adams during the Ulster peace process when, in 2005, he appealed directly for the IRA to lay down its weapons.
ETA was expected to react quickly, though it would stop short of announcing its dissolution. It may follow the IRA’s lead by calling on its members to use exclusively peaceful means without disbanding. However, those with experience of ETA insist that the group remains unpredictable.
The dramatic new moves would come just a month before a Nov. 20 general election that looks likely to change Spain’s government, with the conservative People’s party (PP) of Mariano Rajoy predicted to win a landslide victory.
Although the PP has traditionally refused to consider any sort of dialogue with ETA, it is known to have been in contact with the group during a previous ceasefire in 1998. The hawkish PP then-Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar, whom ETA had tried to kill with a car bomb in 1995, even moved some of the group’s prisoners to jails closer to home in a good-will gesture.
Socialist Basque Regional President Patxi Lopez last month responded to a call from ETA prisoners for the group to embrace peace by proposing that those in jails around Spain be moved to Basque prisons.
Rajoy has been careful not to comment on recent signs that ETA is looking for a way out of the dead-end of terrorism. Indeed, he has hardly talked about ETA — which was an obsession for his party under Aznar — over the past four years in opposition.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese