Spain's Basques enter unfamiliar territory of peacetime politics (CS Monitor)

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Spain's Basques enter unfamiliar territory of peacetime politics

The Basque terrorist group ETA, Europe's last violent separatist movement, agreed to a cease-fire last year, paving the way for Basques to engage in the political process.

By Andrés Cala, Correspondent / January 13, 2012
Lesaka, Spain

Like most Basques in northern Spain, octogenarian Pedro Lanz has lived in a state of low-intensity war for as long as he can remember.



As a former mayor in the town of Lesaka, he faced the brutality of the Basque separatist movement, ETA. In 1975, after nine months on the job, Mr. Lanz resigned when ETA threatened to have his only daughter raped if he remained in office. Like many other Basques, he did not support the group's goal of independence or its violent methods, although he does want greater autonomy.

His was not an isolated incident of intimidation; Lesaka is also the hometown of two militants convicted in the bombing of Madrid's new airport terminal in December 2006, which killed two and ended peace negotiations with the government. But since Spain's Basque separatists abandoned their armed struggle this fall to pursue independence at the ballot box, Lanz and his fellow Basques are enjoying the absence of fear – and beginning to rebuild communities destroyed by decades of mistrust and engage in open political discourse more successfully than ever before.

The Basque foray into democracy, however fledgling, marks the end of Europe's violent separatist movements – many of which endured two world wars, a cold war, and beyond.

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