27TH OF SEPTEMBER: BASQUE SOLIDER'S DAY

Gudari Eguna '06 (Soldier's Day). Every 27th of september since 1975 when volunteers Txiki and Otaegi where executed by Franco along with three spanish antifascists the Basque pro-independence movement remembers all the fighters who died in favour of Basque freedom. A national meeting took place in Aritxulegi forest, close to Donostia-San Sebastian last Saturday, where thousands of people gathered to remember and pay tribute to the 218 Basque volunteers who were killed in action during the past forty years. Three members of ETA spoke to the people from the stage and fired some bullets.

ETA´s spokesmen read the following statement:

"Euskadi Ta Askatasuna wants to greet all the activists attending this event. We do not think the Day of the Basque Soldier is a moment to look back. Far from it, taking as an example the dead fellow soldiers and learning from the covered path, this day has to do to consolidate today and tomorrow's fight and to strengthen the personal commitment to the freedom of the Basque Country. The fight is not a thing of the past. It is the present and the future.

Continuing the fight , without failing as the Basque soldiers did, will make of us a free nation. Fighting firmly the oppression of the Basque Country is an essential task to guarantee the survival of our nation.

No-one will give us anything for free, the chance of getting a Basque Country free is within our hearts and hands. We will build an independent Basque Country with our daily tasks. This is, exactly, the message ETA wants to put across today: We will keep fighting, with weapons in our hands, until we achieve independence and socialism in the Basque Country.

We have got our blood ready to give it for the Basque Country! We will succeed! Long live to the Basque soldiers! Long live to a free Basque Country! Long live to a socialist Basque Country! No surrender until we achieve independence and socialism!"

Demonstrations will take place all around the Basque Country today to pay tribute to the fallen volunteers and to call everybody to the daily struggle. This year's slogan is: "Izan zirelako izango gara" ("Because they were we will be" meaning that because of the dead generations struggle today's generation's struggle is still alive).