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| Monday, 15 November 2004 |
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Banned Basque party expected to call for end to armed separatism MADRID, Sunday (AFP) Batasuna, the banned political mouthpiece of armed Basque separatist group ETA, was expected to appeal Sunday for an end to a violent conflict that has left more than 800 people dead over the past four decades. But a blast against a Spanish military mountain refuge in the Spanish Pyrenees mountains initially blamed on ETA raised questions over whether all separatists in the northern Spanish region were ready to renounce their armed struggle. According to excerpts from a party statement quoted by Basque radio station Euskadi on Saturday, Batasuna will on Sunday stress its determination to "move definitively beyond armed political conflict" in the Basque country. It will call on its partisans to "abandon past methods" in their campaign for independence, in order to build "a lasting and stable peace plan". The document will stress that the "political reponsibility of the entire Basque nationalist left" is to "take the conflict, right here and now, from the street to the negotiating table," Euskadi radio reported. Batasuna spokesman Arnaldo Otegi is to outline the party's new position in the northern town of San Sebastian on Sunday, and has already signalled that hardline Basque nationalists are ready to lay down their arms. There have been increasing signs that many Basques feel that ETA's violent campaign for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and parts of southern France has run its course. |
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