We describe the facts as much in the words of the original document of the Tribunal and we will not judge the facts, the qualification of the facts or the reason why they justify, according to the Tribunal, the outlawing. We think it is important to make this document public, because all future bans will be mostly based on this ruling.

1. Batasuna refuses to take part in a committee of the parliament of the Basque autonomous region that will work on the situation of the victims of terrorism, because she finds this committee partial.

2. Arnaldo Otegi, spokesman of Batasuna, call investigative judge Balthasar Garzón “puppet at service of the Spanish state to the annulment of the Left- Abertzale (1) movement” and calls for the Basque people to react forcibly to this new aggression, after the judge made Batasuna in a decree responsible for the damage caused by street-violence and closed off the accounts of the party. Otegi called this decision “responsible for a severe and anti-democratic situation”.

3. Arnaldo Otegi takes part in a commemoration meeting for a battle in the Spanish Civil War in which he says: “We must continue to work and struggle, if we are illegal or not. We are not letting us to be made scared because we are in a process which we have to make irreversible.” Otegi says also that the Left-Abertzale movement follows a strategy of victory that “can’t be stopped by either the Guardia Civil, the ORS or the Audiencia Nacional (2)”.

4. The mayor and a member of the city council at the town of Lezo, both member of Batasuna, participate at the 13th of July 2002 in a protest against the extradition by Venezuela of a person who is suspected of ETA- membership to Spain. They carry a banner supporting the suspect and where the logo of Gestoras pro Amnistia (3) was to be seen. The mayor travelled to Venezuela a week before to persuade the authorities to stop the extradition procedure.

5. The spokesman of Batasuna in San Sebastian says at a protest in front of an office the Spanish navy in San Sebastian at the 16th of July 2002 that the action is meant to tell the authorities: “they can’t stay in the Basque Country unpunished and they have to hear that the people are on the move and won’t take a step back”.

6. Referring to a remark of the mayor of Vittoria that Batasuna refuses to condemn the attacks of ETA, the city councillor of Batasuna, Jose Enrique Bert at the 19th of July 2002 says: “[Batasuna] is not asking ETA to stop killing, but that in the Basque Country is no single form of violence and that those who use violence have to stop existing”.

7. Batasuna holds his vote for a motion by the city council of Amorebieta in which a campaign against two councillors of the political party PSE-EE (4) is condemned. The campaign was the distributing of posters with a picture of the two councillors accompanied by the text: “you shall pay for what you did”.

8. During a press conference in Ondarroa, about the situation of an in France convicted member of ETA that possible is going to be handed over to Spain, in which two members of Batasuna participate – the mayor and the chairman of the cities human rights commission – calls the sister of the prisoner him a “political refugee” and puts the mayor his situation “in the context of the repression against the Left-Abertzale movement”.

9. Batasuna is not condemning the attacks of ETA in the first week of August 2002 in Santa Pola. Spokesmen of Batasuna call the attacks the painful result of a political conflict and see the Spanish Prime Minister Aznar as first responsible for this conflict.

10. Batasuna continues the campaign of the banned Gestoras Pro-Amnistia for the return of the Basque prisoners to prisons in the Basque Country and uses the logo that was used for this campaign (5).

11. During a demonstration in San Sebastian at the 11th of August pro-ETA slogans are shouted, where the Batasuna-members take an attitude of minimal resistance of denouncement.

12. On the days of 12 and 14 August 2002 banners with the lyrics “Basque prisoners to the Basque Country” together with pictures of convicted ETA-members, hang at the town-halls of Hernani, Ondarroa and Lekeitio, ruled by Batasuna.

13. At the web-page of Euskal Herritarok (6) are pictures of a demonstration to be seen where demonstrators hold a banner with the lyric “Basque prisoners to the Basque Country” and there is also an interview with Juan Petrikorena in which he accuses the PP and the PSOE of not only attacking the Left-Abertzale movement, but also the democratic rights, and thus acting in an anti- democratic and Franquistic way. Petrikorena also mentions the situation in the Basque Country a “political conflict” and shows “the armed struggle of ETA the conflict in all her cruelty”. On the site is also a video of a demonstration where people shout pro-ETA slogans and where masked people hand out pamphlets.

14. During a press conference organised by Batasuna at the 21st of August in Bilbao, Arnaldo Otegi says the verdict of Garzón (7) results in a national emergency and that the verdict fits in the strategy of genocide of the Spanish state who wants to destroy of the Left-Abertzale movement. Otegi calls Garzón again a puppet of the state and calls on the Basque people to organise and struggle so that there won’t be ever “a Spanish fascist person who tells the Basques what to learn and how they should organise their institutes”. Otegi demands of the Basque Government that they won’t cooperate to the verdict and that if they will cooperate in the closing of the party offices this will lead to an undesirable situation. According to various media these last words are to be interpreted as a threat.

15. In an interview at the 23rd of August the parliamentarian of Batasuna Josu Urrutokoetxea says that ETA is a political organisation with their own methods and goals and “that it is not about condemning the actions of ETA. ETA stages the armed struggle not because she likes this, but because the organisation thinks it is necessary to put all means against the State”. Urrutikoetxea says also: “If all Abertzale powers would make an agreement on sovereignty the violence of ETA could stop, as they said themselves in the period during the accords of Lizarra (8)”. And Urrutikoetxea accused the Basque president of cooperating in the destruction strategy of Aznar.

16. During a demonstration against the banning of Batasuna Joseba Permach, member of the board of Batasuna, called on the PNV (9) to: “resist to the spiritual dwarf and his little gang of fascists” referring to Aznar. Permach: “before they spoke about 23 reasons [to outlaw Batasuna], they spoke about 7 reasons, and they said that because their sub consciousness betrayed them. The 7 reasons are Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Naffaroa, Baxenaffaroa, Lapurdi and Zuberoa, the 7 area’s which we will take from the Spanish fascists and the French Jacobins”.

17. The city council of Zaldivia, ruled by Batasuna, calls Hodei Galarraga, died when a bomb exploded which he was transporting, the ‘favourite son’ of the village and pays for the costs of the funeral. The councillors for Batasuna in Legazpia recommend naming a prisoner of ETA, Ramon Ostoaga, to ‘favourite son’ also.

18. From the 29th of June on several incidents occur in the councils of Vittoria and Lasarta-Oria where the public order is disrupted and members of other political parties are insulted. Members of Batasuna wear T-shirts with texts that match the thoughts of ETA. At the 29th of June the mayor and all non-nationalist councillors have to flee from the balcony of the town hall for the aggression and insults of the Batasuna supporters. At the 30th of July Batasuna organises a demonstration in the same village where they demand the ending of fascism and denounce the political and media smear campaign of the mayor.

19. In the villages of Cestona, Ibarra, Motrico, Pasajes de San Juan and Zaldibia, all ruled by Batasuna, buildings of the city council are covered with posters and lyrics calling for battle against the state and which associate Aznar with fascism. The face of Aznar is drawn in a line of sight (10) and the leaders of the PP and the PSOE are compared with Nazism that is thrown into a dustbin by another person.

20. Since the implementation of the law Batasuna didn’t change and the party didn’t take a stance from ETA in any way.

The framework in which the Tribunal places the mentioned facts

The Tribunal mentions detailed the history of Batasuna, which it sees as a successor of Euskal Herritarrok and and Herri Batasuna. The Tribunal founds proven that Batasuna is subjected to ETA. The way in which the Tribunal comes to this conclusion can’t withstand a critical view for various reasons. Had this been different than it would be hard to understand why there had to be made a special law to ban Batasuna. If it would be proven that Batasuna is subjected, even part of, ETA, the party could be outlawed under normal Spanish law. Facts are however, that Spanish politicians call for years that Batasuna is part of ETA without ever given proper evidence for that assumption.

The Tribunal goes back in time to prove her thesis that Batasuna is part of ETA; to the seventies before the events of the so- called transition (11). ETA decided in 1974 that the struggle for an independent Basque Country shouldn’t only be fought on military level, but also at cultural and political level and that therefore separate organisations had to be formed. This is the main evidence of the Tribunal that Herri Batasuna in 1978, on orders of ETA, was founded. Besides that the Tribunal poses that Herri Batasuna is subjected to KAS, an in 1975 founded organisation, and thus to ETA. From the documents, which the Tribunal refers to, it is not concluded that Batasuna is subjected to KAS. For the assumption of the Tribunal that KAS was a delegate of ETA is not even given any evidence. Many of the assumptions are announced proven solely one the grounds that they are not being with spoken. The Tribunal founds proven that Batasuna is still subjected to ETA on bases of a report of the Guardia Civil, which actually only proves that the Guardia Civil is thinking that Batasuna and ETA are the same, not that it is true.

In the end we will remark that even when it is proven that Herri Batasuna was founded on initiative of ETA, this happened in a transitional period more than 25 years ago, when Spain was still a dictatorship. The founding of Herri Batasuna happened in grey past, in a very different climate and under different laws. This shouldn’t be brought in as evidence in a banning procedure in 2003.

Basque Information Centre (BIC)
PoBox 2884
3500 GW Utrecht
The Netherlands
info@baskinfo.org
www.baskinfo.org

1. The Left-Abertzale movement is the left independent movement from which Batasuna is, among other organisation, part of

2. The Audiencia Nacional is a special court which deals with cases concerning terrorism and rebellion

3. Gestoras Pro-Amnistia is outlawed by temporary measure in December 2002 by Baltasar Garzón. The logo of the organisation was designed by de sculptor Chillida and is throughout the Basque Country very well known as symbol for the movement that wants amnesty in the Basque Country

4. The Basque department of the Spanish social democratic party PSOE

5. The Tribunal is not referring to the logo of Gestoras Pro- Amnistia but to the logo for the campaign, which is a map of the Basque Country with two arrows pointing in
6. The banning where we talk about here concerns not only Batasuna but also Herria Batasuna and Euskal Herritarrok, parties that are seen by the Tribunal as predecessors of Batasuna. In the judgment the three parties are seen one unity

7. Where the judge banned the activities of Batasuna by temporary measure

8. In September 1998 the majority of the Basque political parties signed a declaration where they said that the conflict had to be solved peacefully but with respect for the self-determination of the Basque Country by means of dialogue. ETA called then a cease-fire which lasted 14 months

9. Basque National Party. Biggest and oldest political party of the Basque Country. Nationalist and Christen democratic, comparable to the leftwing of the Christen Democrats in the Netherlands

10. A graffiti often seen in the Basque Country, but not a poster of Batasuna!

11. The period in which Spain slowly step by step changed from a dictatorship into a parliamentary democracy

12. If this was different then the current governing party PP should have been for sure forbidden, because this party comes from the rightwing of the fascist Falange