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Analysis: ETA's Terrorists Call It Quits

Council on Foreign Relations

Updated: March 23, 2006
Prepared by: Michael Moran

The announcement of a permanent ceasefire by the Basque separatist terror group ETA (IHT) may be the beginning of the end of a long, dark chapter of European nationalist violence. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the nationalist brand of terrorism that plagued Europe during the Cold War largely faded from the headlines. The IRA's 1994 ceasefire (BBC), which led to the breakthrough Good Friday Agreement four years later, already had removed the bloodiest of these conflicts from public view. With Spain and then Britain coming under attack from al-Qaeda cells, and Europe these days more concerned about disaffected Muslim minorities (Foreign Affairs), the threat posed by various Basques, Corsicans, or Greek communists came to be seen as almost quaint.

It never was quaint, of course. ETA killed some 800 people during its four-decade-long battle to "free" the Basque region from Spanish rule (MSNBC). There are some 2.1 million Basques in Spain, whose region has considerable autonomy and whose language enjoys official status. As with the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Fein, in Northern Ireland, ETA has a political wing, Batasuna, which in 2003 was banned from taking part in electoral politics. The more moderate Basque Nationalist Republican Party, which governs the region, favors greater autonomy from Spain but opposes ETA's violence.

ETA's statement released to Spanish media (Reuters) says its leadership has "decided to declare a permanent ceasefire from March 24, 2006." It says it has done so to spur the democratic process in the Basque region. "At the end of the process," the group says, "Basque citizens should have their say and decide on their future."

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.