NIEUWSOVERZICHT

OVERVIEW EVENTS BASQUE COUNTRY NR 30, period the 25th of September until the 9th of October

The Basque political prisoner Luis Mitxelena Berasarte, who is doing his time in the French prison at Salon de Provence, started a hunger strike to avoid his expulsion to Spanish authorities. At the 21st of October he will be released and the chance is very high that he will be handed over to the Spanish authorities.
In the by the action group ‘Solidarios con Itoiz’ occupied village Artozki at Naffaroa, the police enters and demolishes the information bureau about the consequences of the Itoiz-project. In the village Muniain the police also starts to tear down houses, the police throws smoke bombs into the occupied houses. One person got so wounded; he had to go to hospital. Thirteen people were arrested.
The Basque political refugee José Ramón Foruria Zubialdea is expulsed by the Venezuelan authorities, without trial or extradition request, to the Spanish state at the 24th of September. Witnesses thought it was a kidnapping; officers in plain clothes took Zubialdea in the middle of the night in a car without registration. According to the Spanish High Court Zubialdea could give information about an attack on a bar in Markina at the 20th of September 1980; he is locked in at the prison of Soto del Real in Madrid. Zubialdea lived for 20 years in Venezuela.
At the 25th of September the Basque region government publishes the results of the third social lingual research; in the provinces Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, where the Basque language has an official status besides the Spanish, the amount of Basque speakers rises lightly. At Naffaroa, where the Basque language doesn’t have an official status, the amount of Basque speakers stagnates. At Ipparalde, the North of the Basque Country (the French part), the amount of Basque speakers declines rapidly and continuously.
More than 5.000 people all over the Basque Country take part in the weekly manifestations for the rights of the Basque prisoners at the 26th of September.
In the Basque parliament starts at the 26th of September the debate about the ‘plan Ibarretxe’, where the Basque president proposes a ‘free association with Spain’, a ‘double nationality’ for inhabitants of the three Autonomous provinces of the Basque Country and ‘a relationship in cooperation’ with the two other Basque provinces, Naffaroa and the French part. At the 25th of October the plan has to go into effect; it is also a reaction at the refusal of the Spanish state to hand over the remaining 37 competences of the Autonomy Statutes (‘Statutes of Gernika’) which were given to the Basque Country in 1979. The ‘free association with Spain’ is criticized by as well the radical and the more moderate indepentendists and the plan about putting the right on self determination into effect together with the Spanish state is also heavily criticized. The Partido Popular thinks that the whole plan is a ‘project of ETA’ and continues its attempts to set the Basque government off side because of her refusal to remove the fraction of the Sozialista Abertzaleak from parliament.
At the 27th of September the ‘Euskal Preso Politikoen Kolektiba’, the collective of Basque political prisoners, announces a protest campaign to defend their rights as prisoners. All Basque prisoners in the Spanish state and France start with a blockade of their cells and the refusal for recreation. They demand transport to prisons in the Basque Country and participation in the political process in the Basque Country. The following weekend they refused to receive visitors and stage a ‘sit-in’ in the prisons. Their family and friends drive in their cars in a long column from village to village to demand the transfer of the Basque political prisoners and to denounce the politics of dispersion of the Spanish state. “I will not die on the road today”, one banner read, referring to the 13 killings among visitors of political prisoners, who have to travel thousands of kilometres. The mother of Iñigo Makazaga, Rosa, spoke on behalf of the 12 prisoners who sit in 7 prisons in 6 different countries, during a manifestation at the square of the city Lasarte-Orio. Makazaga is still imprisoned in London, at the Belmarsh prison, waiting for his extradition to Spain. The Partido Popular, also represented in the Basque parliament, tried to get rid off the application for the families of the Basque prisoners; reason given that their relatives where not imprisoned in the Basque Country! Against their own Spanish and French laws almost 700 Basque political prisoners are spread over both states. The proposal of the PP was dismissed by as well as the Basque government as the Basque opposition.
It is also the day of ‘Gudari Eguna’, the ‘Day of the fighter’, a commemoration of the executions of 5 activists at the 27th of September 1975 by the Franco regime. Three of the victims were members of the Maoist group FRAP and 2 of ETA; Juan Paredes Manot (‘Txiki’) was shot dead on the way to his execution and Angel Otaegi was killed with pauses in between the shots at his execution.
At the 28th of September Xarlo Etxezaharreta, 62 years old and director of the critical political magazine Kale Gorria, is arrested in the Basque town Durango. Kale Gorria (Red Way) is the successor of the in 2001 by judge Garzón closed magazine Ardi Beltza (Black Sheep, accusation ‘part of ETA’, never proven). Etxezaharreta was apprehended in his car by 4 cars with Spanish police officers on his way back from an international conference organised by the internationalist Basque organisation Askapena. Etxezaharreta worked a lot with the Basque Diaspora and worked closely with Udalbiltza, the Basque organisation of representatives. Garzón outlawed Udalbiltza at the 29th of April, all bureaus were closed and 8 people got arrested. Two days after his arrest, Etxezaharreta, who has the French nationality, is locked in at the prison of Soto del Real in Madrid; accusation is ‘membership of the armed organisation ETA’. Etxezaharreta was arrested twice before and questioned about his alleged ‘links with ETA’: In 1996 in the French part of the Basque Country and in 2001 in Uruguay. Both times he was released without any charge.
The election committee in Iruñea has declared 7 lists for the city council elections unlawful. Because of the outlawing of local election lists where ex-Batasuna members of other indepententist activist where on the lists in the elections of the 25th of May this year, it is necessary to hold new elections in some places because only outlawed lists participated in the last elections. Now the 7 lists are declared unlawful for the same reasons, because the lists are the same or people are on it that where on the lists of the 25th of May elections. But lists were declared illegal in those days because one person used to be a member of for example Herri Batasuna in the past. The unlawful declared lists appealed by the Spanish High Court.
At the 30th of October Paulo Elkoro stops his hunger strike in the prison hospital in München, after 30 days. His health condition was bad; he lost already 15 kilos. In a statement Elkoro said to hunger strike against the “blind cooperation of the German authorities with the torture state Spain” and for the “recognition of the right of self determination of the Basque Country”.
At the first of October the Public Prosecutor of the High Court of the 3 autonomous provinces in Bilbo files an arrest warrant against 3 members, Arnaldo Otegi, Jone Goirizelaia and Araitz Zubimendi, of the fraction of Sozialista Abertzaleak in the Basque parliament and against the former Batasuna deputy in the Naffaroa parliament, Pernando Barena. The accusation is “glorifying terrorism”, because of their participation in a demonstration at the 20th of September in Bilbo with the slogan ‘No Apartheid. Autodeterminazioa’, that was, according to the Public Prosecutor, “meant from the start as a honour for ETA-member Arkaitz Otazua”. Otazua was shot at the 14th of September by the Basque police Ertzaintza in the mountain pass Herrera.
The Spanish High Court decides this week that 5 decisions of the Basque parliament according the refusal of the previous orders of that same High Court to remove the fraction of the Sozialista Abertzaleak from parliament, are declared illegal. As the ultimate consequence this refusal can lead to the abolition of the Basque parliament.
At a meeting of Interpol in the Spanish resort Benidorm Spain tries, without result, to prioritise Interpols activities into the search and extradition from “persons suspected of terrorism”. At Interpols guidelines from 1984 is stated that the organisation takes no action “on matters with a political, military, religious or racial character”. Spain and the United States will now try to implement their plans in another way.
In an interview with the Basque newspaper Berria the leader of the in March this year outlawed Basque political party Batasuna, Arnaldo Otegi, calls onto the Basque armed organisation for ‘self reflection’; “We have come to a point, were ETA has to think how they can help the current situation”. Otegi points to the ‘plan Ibarretxe’, on which Batasuna is not agreeing, but will not block the debate in parliament or the discussion in the population. “If the whole of the Basque Country can decide, then there is no longer a need for an armed struggle from ETA, I’m convinced of that”, said Otegi. But the violence of “the occupying forces and the interference of the Spanish state” has to stop also.
At the 7th of October the judge in The Hague approves with the extradition of Juanra to Spain. The court says that they don’t have any fear that Juanra will be tortured by the Spanish police and say to be confident about the promise of the Spanish authorities in the extradition request, that Juanra “will be put in detention will full contact with the outside world”. The advice of the Amsterdam court to ask for guarantees to Spain for a good treatment of Juanra are not necessary according to the court in The Hague, as did Minister of Justice Donner before. For the statement of Juanra’s supportgroup, click here.
At the same day the court of Haarlem also approves the extradition request of the Spanish authorities for Alexander Akarregi. The judge misjudged himself in the country where he will extradite Akarregi to (Portugal? Oh, no, Spain it was), and gave the advice to the Minister to give “special attention” to the fact that Akarregi’s lawyer fears for torture of his client. Akarregi has two weeks to appeal at the High Court. The Basque Information Centre calls for a demonstration for the 18th of October at the prison in Alphen a/d Rijn, a bus leaves at 2 ‘o’clock at the Victoria Hotel in Amsterdam.
At the 8th of October in all Basque provinces 34 are arrested, most of them youngsters. The operation started shortly after midnight on orders of the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón and his French colleague Laurence Le Vert. Angel Acebes, the Spanish Minister of Internal Affairs said that the arrested people are being accused of “involvement with recruiting of members for ETA, the gathering of information for their activities and infrastructure work”. Eleven people were arrested in Gipuzkoa (Bittor Garzia, Itsaso Garmendia, the sisters Miren, Arantza en Karemele Etxebeste, Aitziber Ezkerra, Alberto Gonzalez, Nagore Loez de Luzuriaga, Naiara Landazabal, Eneko Sorzabal and Karlos Martin), 8 in Naffaroa (Jordi Purti, Eneko Arebalo, the brothers Joseba and Eneko Compain, Angel Elcid Tejada, Ekain Gerra Solaguren, Garikoitz Mendioroz Lazarraga and Saioa Azpilikueta), 8 in Bizkaia (Iker Casanova, Arantza Martin, Jabier Gil Rosado, Haizea Perez, Gorka Iriarte, Egoitz Mastiada, Galder Bilbao and Iugatz Banioneitia), 3 in Lapurdi (Maika Arizaga, Emile Martin and Malvina Rekalde) and one in Behe Naffaroa as in Araba. In Bordeaux and Zaragoza two people were arrested. Thirty-eight houses were searched. According to the French police none of the 5 arrested under their jurisdiction has had a previous conviction. The Basque Information Centre wonders when, after the ‘repressive recognition’ of the existence of the Basque Country (in all Basque provinces police operations were conducted), the right on self-determination will follow.
At the 10th of October Theo van Boven, the United Nations special reporter on torture, ends his visit to Spain and the Basque Country with a press conference in Madrid. Yesterday he got first hand information on torture of Martxelo Otamendi, Joan Mari Torrealdai and Txema Auzmendi, who were tortured during their incommunicado detention after the police operation against the Basque Daily Egunkaria. Van Boven also saw the wounds of Unai Romano and Juan Carlos Subijana after ‘treatment’ by the Guardia Civil. He also spoke with the Basque Minister of Internal Affairs Javier Belza, the Basque Minister of Justice Joseba Azkarraga and the Basque group against torture TAT, Elkarri, a social movement for dialogue in the Basque Country and Etxerat, the group of family members of Basque political prisoners. In March next year the results of Van Boven will be published in an official report.

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OVERVIEW EVENTS BASQUE COUNTRY NR 30, period the 25th of September until the 9th of October
The Basque political prisoner Luis Mitxelena Berasarte, who is doing his time in the French prison at Salon de Provence, started a hunger strike to avoid his expulsion to Spanish authorities. At the 21st of October he will be released and the chance is very high that he will be handed over to the Spanish authorities. In the by the action group ‘Solidarios con Itoiz’ occupied village Artozki at Naffaroa, the police enters and demolishes the information bureau about the consequences of the Itoiz-project. In the village Muniain the police also starts to tear down houses, the police throws smoke bombs into the occupied houses. One person got so wounded; he had to go to hospital. Thirteen people were arrested. The Basque political refugee José Ramón Foruria Zubialdea is expulsed by the Venezuelan authorities, without trial or extradition request, to the Spanish state at the 24th of September. Witnesses thought it was a kidnapping; officers in plain clothes took Zubialdea in the middle of the night in a car without registration. According to the Spanish High Court Zubialdea could give information about an attack on a bar in Markina at the 20th of September 1980; he is locked in at the prison of Soto del Real in Madrid. Zubialdea lived for 20 years in Venezuela. At the 25th of September the Basque region government publishes the results of the third social lingual research; in the provinces Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, where the Basque language has an official status besides the Spanish, the amount of Basque speakers rises lightly. At Naffaroa, where the Basque language doesn’t have an official status, the amount of Basque speakers stagnates. At Ipparalde, the North of the Basque Country (the French part), the amount of Basque speakers declines rapidly and continuously. More than 5.000 people all over the Basque Country take part in the weekly manifestations for the rights of the Basque prisoners at the 26th of September. In the Basque parliament starts at the 26th of September the debate about the ‘plan Ibarretxe’, where the Basque president proposes a ‘free association with Spain’, a ‘double nationality’ for inhabitants of the three Autonomous provinces of the Basque Country and ‘a relationship in cooperation’ with the two other Basque provinces, Naffaroa and the French part. At the 25th of October the plan has to go into effect; it is also a reaction at the refusal of the Spanish state to hand over the remaining 37 competences of the Autonomy Statutes (‘Statutes of Gernika’) which were given to the Basque Country in 1979. The ‘free association with Spain’ is criticized by as well the radical and the more moderate indepentendists and the plan about putting the right on self determination into effect together with the Spanish state is also heavily criticized. The Partido Popular thinks that the whole plan is a ‘project of ETA’ and continues its attempts to set the Basque government off side because of her refusal to remove the fraction of the Sozialista Abertzaleak from parliament. At the 27th of September the ‘Euskal Preso Politikoen Kolektiba’, the collective of Basque political prisoners, announces a protest campaign to defend their rights as prisoners. All Basque prisoners in the Spanish state and France start with a blockade of their cells and the refusal for recreation. They demand transport to prisons in the Basque Country and participation in the political process in the Basque Country. The following weekend they refused to receive visitors and stage a ‘sit-in’ in the prisons. Their family and friends drive in their cars in a long column from village to village to demand the transfer of the Basque political prisoners and to denounce the politics of dispersion of the Spanish state. “I will not die on the road today”, one banner read, referring to the 13 killings among visitors of political prisoners, who have to travel thousands of kilometres. The mother of Iñigo Makazaga, Rosa, spoke on behalf of the 12 prisoners who sit in 7 prisons in 6 different countries, during a manifestation at the square of the city Lasarte-Orio. Makazaga is still imprisoned in London, at the Belmarsh prison, waiting for his extradition to Spain. The Partido Popular, also represented in the Basque parliament, tried to get rid off the application for the families of the Basque prisoners; reason given that their relatives where not imprisoned in the Basque Country! Against their own Spanish and French laws almost 700 Basque political prisoners are spread over both states. The proposal of the PP was dismissed by as well as the Basque government as the Basque opposition. It is also the day of ‘Gudari Eguna’, the ‘Day of the fighter’, a commemoration of the executions of 5 activists at the 27th of September 1975 by the Franco regime. Three of the victims were members of the Maoist group FRAP and 2 of ETA; Juan Paredes Manot (‘Txiki’) was shot dead on the way to his execution and Angel Otaegi was killed with pauses in between the shots at his execution. At the 28th of September Xarlo Etxezaharreta, 62 years old and director of the critical political magazine Kale Gorria, is arrested in the Basque town Durango. Kale Gorria (Red Way) is the successor of the in 2001 by judge Garzón closed magazine Ardi Beltza (Black Sheep, accusation ‘part of ETA’, never proven). Etxezaharreta was apprehended in his car by 4 cars with Spanish police officers on his way back from an international conference organised by the internationalist Basque organisation Askapena. Etxezaharreta worked a lot with the Basque Diaspora and worked closely with Udalbiltza, the Basque organisation of representatives. Garzón outlawed Udalbiltza at the 29th of April, all bureaus were closed and 8 people got arrested. Two days after his arrest, Etxezaharreta, who has the French nationality, is locked in at the prison of Soto del Real in Madrid; accusation is ‘membership of the armed organisation ETA’. Etxezaharreta was arrested twice before and questioned about his alleged ‘links with ETA’: In 1996 in the French part of the Basque Country and in 2001 in Uruguay. Both times he was released without any charge. The election committee in Iruñea has declared 7 lists for the city council elections unlawful. Because of the outlawing of local election lists where ex-Batasuna members of other indepententist activist where on the lists in the elections of the 25th of May this year, it is necessary to hold new elections in some places because only outlawed lists participated in the last elections. Now the 7 lists are declared unlawful for the same reasons, because the lists are the same or people are on it that where on the lists of the 25th of May elections. But lists were declared illegal in those days because one person used to be a member of for example Herri Batasuna in the past. The unlawful declared lists appealed by the Spanish High Court. At the 30th of October Paulo Elkoro stops his hunger strike in the prison hospital in München, after 30 days. His health condition was bad; he lost already 15 kilos. In a statement Elkoro said to hunger strike against the “blind cooperation of the German authorities with the torture state Spain” and for the “recognition of the right of self determination of the Basque Country”. At the first of October the Public Prosecutor of the High Court of the 3 autonomous provinces in Bilbo files an arrest warrant against 3 members, Arnaldo Otegi, Jone Goirizelaia and Araitz Zubimendi, of the fraction of Sozialista Abertzaleak in the Basque parliament and against the former Batasuna deputy in the Naffaroa parliament, Pernando Barena. The accusation is “glorifying terrorism”, because of their participation in a demonstration at the 20th of September in Bilbo with the slogan ‘No Apartheid. Autodeterminazioa’, that was, according to the Public Prosecutor, “meant from the start as a honour for ETA-member Arkaitz Otazua”. Otazua was shot at the 14th of September by the Basque police Ertzaintza in the mountain pass Herrera. The Spanish High Court decides this week that 5 decisions of the Basque parliament according the refusal of the previous orders of that same High Court to remove the fraction of the Sozialista Abertzaleak from parliament, are declared illegal. As the ultimate consequence this refusal can lead to the abolition of the Basque parliament. At a meeting of Interpol in the Spanish resort Benidorm Spain tries, without result, to prioritise Interpols activities into the search and extradition from “persons suspected of terrorism”. At Interpols guidelines from 1984 is stated that the organisation takes no action “on matters with a political, military, religious or racial character”. Spain and the United States will now try to implement their plans in another way. In an interview with the Basque newspaper Berria the leader of the in March this year outlawed Basque political party Batasuna, Arnaldo Otegi, calls onto the Basque armed organisation for ‘self reflection’; “We have come to a point, were ETA has to think how they can help the current situation”. Otegi points to the ‘plan Ibarretxe’, on which Batasuna is not agreeing, but will not block the debate in parliament or the discussion in the population. “If the whole of the Basque Country can decide, then there is no longer a need for an armed struggle from ETA, I’m convinced of that”, said Otegi. But the violence of “the occupying forces and the interference of the Spanish state” has to stop also. At the 7th of October the judge in The Hague approves with the extradition of Juanra to Spain. The court says that they don’t have any fear that Juanra will be tortured by the Spanish police and say to be confident about the promise of the Spanish authorities in the extradition request, that Juanra “will be put in detention will full contact with the outside world”. The advice of the Amsterdam court to ask for guarantees to Spain for a good treatment of Juanra are not necessary according to the court in The Hague, as did Minister of Justice Donner before. For the statement of Juanra’s supportgroup, click here. At the same day the court of Haarlem also approves the extradition request of the Spanish authorities for Alexander Akarregi. The judge misjudged himself in the country where he will extradite Akarregi to (Portugal? Oh, no, Spain it was), and gave the advice to the Minister to give “special attention” to the fact that Akarregi’s lawyer fears for torture of his client. Akarregi has two weeks to appeal at the High Court. The Basque Information Centre calls for a demonstration for the 18th of October at the prison in Alphen a/d Rijn, a bus leaves at 2 ‘o’clock at the Victoria Hotel in Amsterdam. At the 8th of October in all Basque provinces 34 are arrested, most of them youngsters. The operation started shortly after midnight on orders of the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón and his French colleague Laurence Le Vert. Angel Acebes, the Spanish Minister of Internal Affairs said that the arrested people are being accused of “involvement with recruiting of members for ETA, the gathering of information for their activities and infrastructure work”. Eleven people were arrested in Gipuzkoa (Bittor Garzia, Itsaso Garmendia, the sisters Miren, Arantza en Karemele Etxebeste, Aitziber Ezkerra, Alberto Gonzalez, Nagore Loez de Luzuriaga, Naiara Landazabal, Eneko Sorzabal and Karlos Martin), 8 in Naffaroa (Jordi Purti, Eneko Arebalo, the brothers Joseba and Eneko Compain, Angel Elcid Tejada, Ekain Gerra Solaguren, Garikoitz Mendioroz Lazarraga and Saioa Azpilikueta), 8 in Bizkaia (Iker Casanova, Arantza Martin, Jabier Gil Rosado, Haizea Perez, Gorka Iriarte, Egoitz Mastiada, Galder Bilbao and Iugatz Banioneitia), 3 in Lapurdi (Maika Arizaga, Emile Martin and Malvina Rekalde) and one in Behe Naffaroa as in Araba. In Bordeaux and Zaragoza two people were arrested. Thirty-eight houses were searched. According to the French police none of the 5 arrested under their jurisdiction has had a previous conviction. The Basque Information Centre wonders when, after the ‘repressive recognition’ of the existence of the Basque Country (in all Basque provinces police operations were conducted), the right on self-determination will follow. At the 10th of October Theo van Boven, the United Nations special reporter on torture, ends his visit to Spain and the Basque Country with a press conference in Madrid. Yesterday he got first hand information on torture of Martxelo Otamendi, Joan Mari Torrealdai and Txema Auzmendi, who were tortured during their incommunicado detention after the police operation against the Basque Daily Egunkaria. Van Boven also saw the wounds of Unai Romano and Juan Carlos Subijana after ‘treatment’ by the Guardia Civil. He also spoke with the Basque Minister of Internal Affairs Javier Belza, the Basque Minister of Justice Joseba Azkarraga and the Basque group against torture TAT, Elkarri, a social movement for dialogue in the Basque Country and Etxerat, the group of family members of Basque political prisoners. In March next year the results of Van Boven will be published in an official report.
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