Thousands of people reiterate in Bilbao their compromise towards a democratic resolution

23/06/07
Thousands of people responded yesterday in the streets of Bilbo to the national demonstration call EAE-ANV (Basque Nationalist Action) in favour of a democratic process that will bring the Basque Country to a scene of peace and democracy for all its citizenship, without the exclusion of an important sector of the population.

Apart from the president of the convoking party, Kepa Bereziartua, could also be seen the members of the Basque pro-independence left's executive Joseba Permach, Joseba Alvarez or Juan Joxe Petrikorena, the General Secretary of LAB (Basque pro-independence left trade union), Rafa Diez, or the of Ezker Abertzalea parliamentarian Nekane Erauskin, not forgetting historical members of the pro-independence left such as Txomin Ziluaga.

Also took part a numerous representation of the Friends of the Basque Country in favour of a democratic process, making clear in the streets of the Bizkaia's capital that the resolution to the Basque political conflict is day by day more reflected in the international agenda and successfully obtains the support of more political and social agents.

The Catalan Jordi Villanueva and the David Kennedy from the Irish Basque Committees showed, for example, the solidarity arrived from Catalunya, Portugal, Holland, Ireland, Corsica, Palestine, Britain and the Spanish and French states.

Villanueva emphasized the importance of dialogue, as "it is more necessary that ever", not forgetting that is essential to recognised the Basque Country's right to decide their future.

Kennedy underlined that the necessity to find a solution to the Basque political conflict is more and more present in the worldwide context, remembering that the Irish peoples solidarity with this process will always be there.

The Spanish civil guard finds a car with explosives

22/06/07
The Civil Guard found a vehicle, in the border between Portugal and the Spanish State, in whose interior was stored explosive material. The military institute attributes its property to ETA and assures to have found detonators, timers, a manual in Basque language for making bombs, and about 115 kilos of material to make explosives, like aluminium dust and ammonic nitrate, as well as documentation.

Police sources assured that the products found in the boot of the vehicle were in separated bags and without any type of activated initiation device, reason why discarded that the car "was destined to commit an attack". These sources shuffled the possibility that it was "a supplying mission".

Repression: The Canadian police arrests a Basque citizen in Quebec

21/06/07
The neighbour of Beasain Iban Apaolaza has been arrested in Quebec by the Mounted Police of Canada, according to the information given by the Spanish Home Ministry that remembered that there was a search and arrest order for a "crime of terrorism". The announcement on his arrest was facilitated, at least, with three days of delay.

They are already three the Basque citizens arrested outside the borders of the States Spanish and French since ETA ended the permanent cease-fire.

The first prisoner was Bittor Tejedor, was arrested 1st June in Vancouver, also in a Canadian police operation.

The second was Andoni Aspiazu, arrested the past 12th June in Mexico and handed over to the Spanish authorities the following day.

Batasuna has gathered 40 international organisations' support

20/06/07
Joseba Alvarez member of the Basque pro-independence left's executive, has gathered the support of more than forty political organizations who, among other issues, have denounced the imprisonment of Arnaldo Otegi.

The reason for those trips, a part from forwarding first hand the present political situation of the Basque Country and to learn in greater depth the experiences of those countries, has also been "to ask, the international community, for the necessary supports", "for the renewal of a dialogue, agreement and resolution of the conflict process" for the Basque Country.

The Basque pro-independence left situates the trips carried out by Alvarez to countries like South Africa or Ireland "places with an expanded experience in the resolution of the conflict", in that effort to take initiatives. As well as to other Countries such as Chile, Bolivia, Argentina or different countries of Europe.

The member of the national executive also talked about other initiatives as the internationalist solidarity day to "try to articulate in the future an Basque solidarity answer towards other towns instruggle". In this sense, mentioned, "now that the Basque pro-independence left returns to the institutions there will be more opportunities to do so".

European elected representatives ratify their support to a democratic resolution

19/06/07
The Gernika Network for the Self-determination, conformed by elect representatives of all Europe in defence of the free-determination right for the Basque Country, made a public declaration remembering the political character of the conflict that confronts the Basque Country with the Spanish and French states and, renew their commitment to work towards a democratic resolution. They, also, denounce the imprisonment of Arnaldo Otegi as an element that "hinders dialogue". "The Spanish State should, once and for all, end all repressive measures and to act with responsibility in a dialogue that will resolve the existing conflict".

They, also, believe that the end of ETA's cease-fire "demonstrates that, unfortunately, from 22nd March 2006 there has been no dialogue process to resolve the roots of the conflict: territoriality and the right of self-determination".

"The creation of a peace process is not possible when these fundamental rights, that are the roots of the conflict, are denied".

As a conclusion, they summoned "our colleagues, parliamentarians and elect representatives of all Europe, to add to our network in order to promote a democratic process of peace that resolves the existing conflict in the Basque Country". And, as emphasize in their manifesto, "we are convinced that by building peace in the Basque Country we also contributed in the creation of peace in Europe".

Otegi insists that dialogue is the way forward and ANV calls to mobilize.

In the picture ANV supporters protest at council meeting in Ortuella (Bizkaia) as other hundreds did in many towns were ANV was declared illegal during the recent elections. They were asking the rest of parties to respect the results and give their seats back to ANV councillors.

Six elect representatives of the historical pro-independence left formation, among which they were the General council representative for Araba Aitor Bezares, and the head of list of Pasaia, Maider Ziganda, as well as Mayors of Bergara, Leitza, Goizueta, Ondarroa and Oiartzun described the present situation as of "maximum gravity".

In ANV's (Basque Nationalist Action, a seventy year old pro-independence party) opinion "they have not learned in all these years that the imprisonments and the repression cannot close the path that thousands and thousands of citizens are opening, we are opening, in this country". "They do not want to learn that democracy and peace are the two faces of the same cuoin, that solution and justice go hand by hand, and that the Basque Country and self-determination are the name and the surname of the solution". "The Basque pro-independence left's 719 elected representatives' main priority is and will be to boost the democratic process in all the institutions as well as to make sure those institutions are democratic and have a democratic funtioning, respecting the popular will".

Arnaldo Otegi made the same call to the dialogue from behind the walls of Martutene prison. Jone Goirizelaia, lawyer of Otegi, has insisted that "despite everything, the only way that exists is the Anoeta proposal".

Otegi wanted share with the Basque society that "it is time to take it easy and to do things not as the PSOE has done them, in the short term and with revenge in mind, but taking into account how we want the Basque Country to be in the future". It also mentioned that "it is necessary to continue bidding for daily work, dialogue, an agreement and so that in the end we can freely decide our future and that our decision is respected".

Jone Goirizelaia, lawyer of Arnaldo Otegi and member of the Basque pro-independence left, remembered that the processes against Otegi and other pro-independence militants "are against the freedom of expression right".

Government-ETA and Batasuna-PSOE negotiations in the middle of the electoral campaign.

Important delegations of Spanish Government and ETA, on the one hand, and of Batasuna and PSOE, on the other, met practically simultaneously in an European city the past 14 th, 15th and 16th. Encounter that, in all the cases, counted with presence of qualified international observers, in the last attempt to unblock the negotiation process, clogged months back, according to absolute reliable sources consulted by GARA.

These sources confirm that Batasuna's delegation was headed by Arnaldo Otegi, that was later suddenly jailed the end of the cease-fire.

The PSOE's position limited to raise the option of statutory reforms in the Basque Autonomous Community and the Leasehold Community of Navarre, with the maximum position in the possibility of being able to constitute an intergovernmental common organ between both.

The Basque delegations, on the other hand, insisted on the necessity to reach a commitment to overcome the conflict, and to stop its perpetuation. The permanent infringement of the guarantees and the principles of the process were also upon the table, especially in the ETA and the Government board. The armed organization, that was committed to dismantle its military structures if the process was culminated, insisted that the repressive mechanisms had to be deactivated to create a bilateral truce.

As Gara's information reveals, the Government fixed its priority on demanding that ETA explicitly resigned to the "response" right that the armed organization had incorporated to its permanent cease-fire. And refused to deactivate the judicial mechanisms, not even the euro-order or other arrest mechanisms, although it could take to as serious situations as the one that derived in the arrest of Jon Iurrebaso (who was accompanied of another Basque citizen in charge of his security) member of ETA's delegation.

After the contacts and meetings held in March and April between both parts did not go forward, ETA proposed to have a substantial international representation to guarantee the democratic process.

The 21 of May a new and last meeting took place between the PSOE and Batasuna, the Spanish representation did not move with respect to the political agreement, which ended the negotiations initiated after the truce declaration of 2006.

Few days later, ETA forwarded its decision to end the cease-fire, as had previously informed in the mentioned meetings.

Gara's information point out that ETA forwarded an initiative to have European states involved in the negotiations, later the armed organization proposed the constitution, in case the process was politically unblocked, of an international commission composed by those same instances to verify the development of the negotiation between ETA and the Spanish Government.

The two meetings proposal excluded the PNV for considering that the representatives of that party had become an obstacle in all the previous attempts.

The PSOE admitted that the PNV did not want to approach the proposal of four territories because it implied to lose economic power.

Repression: Since the cease-fire began the three main police forces of the south of the Basque Country –Ertzaintza, Spanish police and the Civil Guard

The French police have also arrested numerous Basque citizens both in the North of the Basque Country (under French occupation) as well as in France.

The Mexican authorities extradited the Basque citizen Andoni Aspiazu to the Spanish State and then he was imprisoned.

Bittor Tejedor was arrested the 1st of June in Vancouver. They impute him problems with its migratory documents and presumed relation with ETA.

The judge of the Spanish National Court Balthasar Garzón requested the French Gendarmerie to arrest Xabier Irastorza, Iñaki Telletxea and Markos Sagarzazu, residents in Hendaia and Donibane Lohizune, once the Court of Appeal of Pau informed the accused about the European order to be extradited, the three neighbours of Irun were jailed in the prison of Toulouse and will be soon sent to Spain's jails.

Batasuna Negotiating Commission's press conference

1- Beginning of the process

It is evident for this Commission, that the beginning of the democratic process and the creation of a real opportunity to overcome the political conflict through an agreement was possible for a long period of time thanks to the existence of a stable communication channel between representatives of the Basque pro-independence left and the PSOE (Spanish Labour Party).

This communication and exploration channel allowed both parts to understand that existed a real opportunity to overcome the political and armed confrontation and reach an agreed future democratic framework for the Basque Country.

PSOE and Batasuna understood from the beginning, that this agreed future had to be built on the one hand, from the respect to the Basque Country's plurality, and on the other from the overcoming of the structural problems that have fed the political conflict.

The beginning of the process was only possible thanks to the commitment acquired by the parts involved to understand that the political agenda for the change and peace had to be resolved by giving an agreed and democratic solution to both the territorial division problem (partition) as well as to the Basque Country's right to decide its future free and democratically, with no more limits than the free will expressed pacefully and democratically by its citizenship.

2- Development of the process

ETA's permanent truce announcement was the last link that allowed, on the base of the acquired commitments, acceding to a dialogue and negotiation scene between the Basque political forces.

It is evident nevertheless, that from the this cease-fire declaration the PSOE as the PNV have tried to denature the process, trying to transfer it to "antiterrorist" "technical" parameters that denied any political content to the dialogue process.

Meanwhile, the Basque pro-independence left has undergone and still undergoes constant police and judicial harassments which objective is to condition its political position in the negotiation being stopping it from maintaining its political and organizational activity in terms of equality with the rest of political forces.

We can affirm without being mistaken that the process is BLOCKED from the first three months after the cease-fire.

3- First initiative to break the deadlock

Having in mind the seriousness of the situation, the Basque pro-independence left forwards to the PSOE the urgent necessity to close a first political agreement (that will have to gather all the political, social and trade-union formations of the country) to settle a calendar for the beginning of the dialogue process of conversations and at the same time appraises its political agenda.

4 – Second initiative to break the deadlock

The Basque pro-independence left forwards to the PNV and the PSOE the necessity to close a commitment that will guarantee, with strategic nature, the definitive stability of the democratic process and the consequent overcoming of the conflict.

This initiative is developed during the autumn and has the following consequences:

a. – There are some movements on the method, calendar and some contents of the political agreement.

b. - No pre-agreement is reached on the commitment to guarantee a final scene in which to overcome both main knots of the conflict that will guarantee that all political projects can not only be defended but also materialized if that is the desire and the will of the Basque citizenship. THERE IS NO COMMITMENT TO GUARANTEE A FRAMEWORK THAT WILL ALLOW THE CITIZENSHIP TO FREE AND DEMOCARTICALLY DECIDE ITS POLITICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FUTURE. THE SITUATION IS BLOCKED.

5 – Third initiative to break the deadlock. The proposal.

The Basque pro-independence left perceiving that the blockade is around the lack of commitment on a final scene of equality of opportunities for the set of political projects, decides to put upon the table a proposal that will satisfy all the parts and that will draw a final scene agreed for the four territories of the South of the Basque Country.

This proposal tries to explore a common space where to encounter with the rest of political traditions existing in our country, and therefore:

- Takes off from the present political-institutional reality.

- Raises a staggered process in which each step must count on the democratic adhesion of the Basque-Navarrese citizenship.

- Raises a political status AUTONOMY.

- To start such proposal raises the necessity of democratic majorities both in the Basque Autonomous Community as well as in the Leasehold Community of Navarre.

- Brings up the regulation of mechanisms though which the Basque-Navarrese citizenship can decide its future free and democratically.

- Brings up the necessity of this process to be developed peacefully, without any kind of coercion or interference by any of the parts.

Our proposal obtained diverse answers:

- In one first stage the majority of political parties welcomed our proposal as "positive", "realist"…. The Basque pro-independence left was enormously satisfied by this considerations as if it believed that they were being honest, it was possible to reach a first agreement that approximated us to a future encounter scene. This consideration was still more important in that this agreement would also guaranteed a scene of just peace for the Basque Country.

- Unfortunately these first considerations were untrue and the parties mention tried to conceal the proposal, refuse its public discussion.

PNV (Basque Nationalist Party) AND PSOE SAYS NO TO THE PROPOSAL

Rejection that also worsen when was verified that both formation not only rejected this dialogue and this proposal but that consciously do not forward any other alternative to the negotiation table.

CURRENT SITUATION OF THE DIALOGUE PROCESS



- The present situation obeys clearly to the PNV and the PSOE's refusal to commit themselves with a political future that leaves into the hands of the Basque-Navarrese citizenship the word and the decision. This is the only and main reason that collapses the process from the beginning.



- When the political dialogue is reaching the necessary concretions that can turn it decisive, that is to say, in an agreement that brings the Basque Country into a peace scene, the PNV and the PSOE have abandoned the political dialogue dynamics.



- To refuse dialogue, to refuse the commitment towards a different future is simply to break with the possibility of reaching a decisive agreement to the political conflict. That is the great responsibility acquired today by the PSOE and the PNV.



COMMITMENTS TAKEN BY THE BASQUE PRO-INDEPENDENCE LEFT

- We want to reiterate that peace is today possible in the Basque Country.

- We want to reiterate the existence of a great opportunity to overcome the political and armed conflict that suffers our Country.

- We want to reiterate our total disposition in any circumstance or conjuncture to the dialogue, the negotiation and the Agreement.

- We want to announce that we will redouble our efforts (in the Basque Country as well as the international scope) to reconstruct the dialogue and the negotiation process with all the political forces of our country.

- We want to reiterate again that only from justice it is possible to construct a total scene of peace.

- We want to reiterate again that justice for the Basque Country means to understand that its future must depend only and exclusively on the citizens that live and work in the Basque-Navarrese territories.

EH Bai places the Basque pro-independence movement again in the electoral map

11/06/07

Legislative elections in the French state, EH Bai coalition that groups Batasuna, Abertzaleen Batasuna and EA.

With 10,781 votes and more than 8% of the votes, Euskal Herria Bai managed to become the fourth force of Ipar Euskal Herria (North of the Basque Country under French occupation), behind the great state parties - UMP (Sarkozy's Wright wing party), PS (French socialist party) and UDF-Modem (right centre party of Bayrou).

Things have changed significantly since the previous appointment where the Basque pro-independence left appeared, the European of 2004, Herritarren Zerrenda surpassed the 5,000 votes, whereas AB was stumped in the candidacy of the Green ones, like EA and PNB, obtaining very bad results.

Adding the AB votes with and "Demokrazia Euskal Herriarentzat" (Basque pro-independence left ballot papers) ones, the votes obtained by the forces that call themselves pro-independence left ascended to about 8.600. With the votes obtained by PNV-EA in that occasion, the vote defined as Basque "nationalist" reached about 10.600.

Euskal Herria Bai has managed to fully surpass the vote of the Basque pro-independence left and also, although nearly, the one of the whole Basque nationalism, even without the help of the PNV, that has harvested a new electoral failure by bidding for the "centrists" candidates of Bayrou. Bayrou, although having gained excellent results in the presidential elections, has been clamorously deflated.

The candidate from Urruña Beñat Elizondo, emphasized that the votes obtained confirm that the pro-independence electorate welcomed the new coalition. He also added, "the context of these past few days cannot be avoided; the rupture of the cease-fire and non stop repression and arrests, it was not easy". Elizondo underlined that both the candidacies of EH Bai his program have been welcomed "with interest and respect" and that the obtained results demonstrate that little by little "we are making the Basque Country to be recognized as Country".

Basque leader Arnaldo Otegi arrested in Donostia-San Sebastian

06/08/2007

Spanish police arrested the Basque outlawed movement's most prominent politician Friday so he can start serving a 15-month sentence for speech he gave in the conmemoration of the killing by death squads of prominent Basque militant Argala 25 years ago, a court official said.

His arrest came just three days after ETA broke off a cease fire it had declared in March last year.

News of the arrest came just minutes before Otegi was due to start a news conference in the Basque city of San Sebastian.

Arnaldo Otegi's arrest is a very serious attack against the process 08/06/07

The imprisonment this morning 8th June 2007 of Batasuna'a national spokesman and main member of the this party's Negotiating Commission supposes a Maximum gravity incident, that adds another element to the permanent aggression towards the Political Conflict Resolution Process maintained by the PSOE since ETA's Permanent Cease-Fire proclamation of March 2006, which has brought us to this situation.

Unfortunately, it is not new. Arnaldo Otegi began the Cease-fire in prison; and it is surely the most graphical example to explain which has been the real attitude of the PSOE during these fourteen months: constant aggression against the Basque pro-independence left, revenge penitentiary policies, breach of the agreements…

All these means that Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Government, has given way to repression in a new attempt to neutralize the Basque Pro-Independence and Socialist Left.

Before this new aggression, Batasuna wants to deliver the following message to both the Basque Country and the International Community:

- The Basque Pro-Independence and Socialist Left has achieved to have the necessity of a political agreement for the resolution of the conflict as the centre of the political debate.

- The Basque Pro-Independence and Socialist Left is going to contribute and push the political resolution forward, both here as well as in the international arena. It is therefore proposing concrete and feasible proposals such as Anoeta's proposal or the Political proposal of a new democratic framework.

- The opportunity to resolve the Basque conflict is still open and we let it fade away. We are conscious of the possibilities, as well as of the risks but we will work without scepticisms, concerning the political terms there are still objective conditions and subjective ones concerning the commitment shown by the Basque society…

- Each Basque or international political and social agent must take the responsibility to create positive surroundings that will favour a resolution process. The Basque Pro-Independence Left continues committed to this achievement.

The Basque Pro-Independence and Socialist Left summons the society to follow this route and, mainly, to demand all the social and political agents, from their performance area, to boost dynamics towards the resolution and to denounce the repressive routes.

We want to have a question interiorised: how can someone believe that the Spanish Government has enough commitment to create a different scenario when it imprisons the main interlocutors of the Basque pro-independence left, when it jails who President Zapatero himself defined as "man of peace and necessary interlocutor".

We are convinced that the Basque society is scandalized with the imprisonment of Arnaldo Otegi and we are convinced also that above all the difficulties this Country bids to create conditions in favour of a resolution process.

The Basque Pro-Independence and Socialist Left wants again to reinforce its commitment with that objective, because despite the difficulties, neither Zapatero nor the PSOE are going to sink this Country's anxieties for a resolution.

The lawyer and also member of the national executive of Batasuna Jone Goirizelaia visited Otegi ore around an hour, then explained to the press that Otegi is "in a normal module with the same conditions that the political and social prisoners" of Martutene.

She added that during the visit both commented "the situation created" as a result of his imprisonment and, immediately afterwards assured that, to her understanding, the Supreme Court's ruling is not a legal sentence, but "a political decision". Goirizelaia understands that it is a ruling "of revenge".

ETA prisoner De Juana returns to jail out of Basque Country

06/06/2007

The prisoner left Donostia Hospital in an ambulance on his way to Madrid. On Tuesday the Interior minister said De Juana was not going home after being discharged from Hospital.

The inmate Iñaki de Juana Chaos has been declared healthy again and was removed Wednesday from the hospital in the Basque city of Donostia-San Sebastian, where he had been recovering from a 114-day hunger strike.

There has been a strong police presence at the Donostia Hospital since midday.

The prisoner left hospital at about 1.30pm in a medical ambulance watched over by two local police patrols. Media waited at the main entrance to the hospital, waiting to se the prisoner leaving, but few cameras could record De Juana leaving.

On Tuesday, Interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said De Juana Chaos, released from prison on March 1 after a hunger strike that left him gravely ill, will be sent back to jail, not home, to serve out the rest of his prison term under police surveillance, a possibility that had initially been raised.

Askatasuna, the Basque political prisoners support group said this new move form the Spanish government is one of pure revenge.

Batasuna blames failure of process on Government and truce brakdown on ETA

The spokesman for outlawed leftwing nationalist Batasuna, Arnaldo Otegi, said that the responsibility for the breakdown of the ceasefire was "unique and exclusively ETA's" although he affirmed that "the failure and collapse of the so-called peace process" should be blamed on the Spanish Government and Basque Nationalist Party PNV.

Otegi spoke at a press conference in Donostia-San Sebastian alongside also party members Marije Fullaondo and Pernando Barrena, and assured that despite "the great worry" the breakdown of the truce may cause, politicians should not make citizens believe "everything is over" because "the process is still possible in this country."

Otegi noted that leftwing nationalism completely stands by its commitments to solve the conflict through dialogue, and added that truces and goodwill attempts are "part of the process, but are not the process."

Resume of the Basque pro-independence left's press conference on the end of ETA's cease-fire

0.- Today is a bad day.
1- We want to share with society the huge preoccupation for the collapse of the process.

2- About ETA's statement:

2.1. This announcement's responsibility corresponds exclusively to ETA.

2.2. The responsibility of the collapse and the lack of steps on the process clearly lay on the Spanish government and the PNV.

2.3. We have learned that peace and cease-fires can not be given for granted and that cease-fires and the end of all kind of violence are part of the process, are part of it but are not the process itself.

3-Why have we reached this situation of collapse? Three circumstances to be underlined:

3.1. Spanish government's lack of courage;

- It has not given steps towards the good direction of the process.

- Furthermore, it has boasted itself of doing less than the PP.

3.2. Lack of political dialogue in equality conditions

- If somebody had suggested, at the beginning of the process, that now a days we would continue being illegal, it would have seemed absurd: that is never the less the reality, the undemocratic situation lived these past elections it has been the last straw.


3.3. Lack of clear commitment towards a change of framework agenda in the Basque Country

- The rejection to resolve both keys of the conflict; Right to decide our future and end of partition.

- These are the reasons for the collapse and the lack of steps on the process


4.- What now? The opportunity for a process still exists: the Basque pro-independence left does not consider the process buried nor ended.

4.1. Dialogue, negotiation and agreement are now more necessary than ever.

- That is why the Spanish government, must leave aside the anti-terrorist schemes to confront the political problem and search for a solution.

4.2. The proposal for a democratic framework will continue being our offer for the resolution.

- The Basque pro-independence left has forwarded the only existing resolution proposal with which we will, from now on also, address our people.


- The Basque pro-independence left forwarded both "Now The People Now the Peace " proposal and "Autonomy for 4 provinces" proposals to firstly make the way to the process and secondly fill it with political content. So we ask: where are the other parties' proposals?

4.3. The Basque pro-independence left wants to assure the Basque Country that from now on, will work with more intensity and initiative than ever, to re-enter in a definitive resolution scenario .

- We will continue working, as up until now, with responsibility and request to all the political parties involved to do the same.

- We will get in touch with the Basque political agents as well as those in the international scope.

- Last thought: We cannot loose this opportunity! The only alternative to the process is process itself!!.

Political reactions to ETA's end of ceasefire in Ireland

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has urged the Spanish government and the Basques to do everything in their power to put their peace process back on track.

The Sinn Fein leader issued the appeal after ETA declared an end to its latest ceasefire from midnight Tuesday. The West Belfast MP, who visited Madrid and the Basque Country last year to encourage both sides to develop their process of conflict resolution, expressed disappointment at the latest development.

"Everyone who has been involved in attempting to get aviable peace process operating in the Basque Country is disappointed at the breakdown in the process over recent months and today`s announcement from ETA ending its ceasefire," he said. "However, the lessons of the Irish peace process and indeed every conflict resolution process throughout the world tells us that it is now important to redouble efforts to put the process there back on track." "All sides should show restraint and do everything in their power to ensure that a process is put in place which can allow this conflict to be resolved peacefully through genuine dialogue and engagement."

The ETA decision was described by Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern last evening as "deeply disappointing".

"While the practical implications of today's announcement remain unclear, this is a retrograde step which can only delay the final resolution of a conflict which has scarredthe lives of so many," Mr Ahern said. "ETA's leadership and all those with influence over it should reconsider, and commit themselves to work for a resolution of all outstanding problems by purely peacefuland democratic means."

Batasuna: "The process is necessary and there are not alternatives to it."

Arnaldo Otegi assured that despite "the great worry" the breakdown of the truce may cause, politicians should not make citizens believe "everything is over" because "the process is still possible in this country."

Arnaldo Otegi, spokesman for outlawed leftwing nationalist BatasunaThe spokesman for outlawed leftwing nationalist Batasuna, Arnaldo Otegi, said that the responsibility for the breakdown of the ceasefire was "unique and exclusively ETA's" although he affirmed that "the failure and collapse of the so-called peace process" should be blamed on the Spanish Government and Basque Nationalist Party PNV.

Otegi spoke at a press conference in Donostia-San Sebastian alongside also party members Marije Fullaondo and Pernando Barrena, and assured that despite "the great worry" the breakdown of the truce may cause, politicians should not make citizens believe "everything is over" because "the process is still possible in this country."

Otegi noted that leftwing nationalism completely stands by its commitments to solve the conflict through dialogue, and added that truces and goodwill attempts are "part of the process, but are not the process."

ETA denounces that there are not conditions for a negotiation process and calls off the ceasefire

"ETA, Basque socialist revolutionary organization for national liberation, wants to announce Basque citizens:

It’s time for clarification. Euskal Herria wants to overcome its institutional division and make a way to the construction of an Independent State. Thousands of voices in favor of a political and social change, thousands of voices in favor of this country. ETA too backs a process for the liberation of the Basque people. The final stage of this process will surely be an Independent State called Euskal Herria. Nevertheless, in order to reach this stage, a unique framework is needed including Navarre, Alava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, and another that unites Lapurdi, Benafarroa and Zuberoa. With the union of the seven territories, we will construct the future of our country.

All in all, the union of the seven provinces to construct the future of our people. It’s obvious that pseudo-solutions will take nowhere. The future is in our hands and we will succeed.

The masks fell. Zapatero's character has turned into a fascism that left parties and citizens without rights. But they are not the only ones. Insulting repeatedly, unable to satisfy their desire for money, the PNV leaders lost their mask as well. Unfortunately, the liberty of people uses to have treachery as its enemy. Each time it was necessary to take important decisions to construct the future in defense of Euskal Herria, they lied. Now, in return, citizens didn’t give them blank checks to continue feeding the suffering of this people under the Spanish protection. They only succeeded in seducing those responsible of the repression against national rights, not the Basque citizens, who want to live in democracy and freedom.

We citizens suffer the lack of democracy. Instead of disappearing, the attacks against Euskal Herria increase and become worse. Spain’s Justice kept out off these antidemocratic elections thousands of citizens and the Basque leftwing movement, principal agent of the process. Euskal Herria is actually living a state of exception. The recent elections were illegitimate. Spain’s Government responded to ETA’s permanent ceasefire with arrests, torture and every type of persecution. Minimum democratic conditions for a negotiating process do not exist.

We have the key to guarantee the present and future of Euskal Herria: self-determination and territoriality, and the grains that thousands and thousands of citizens have sown will bring our country an abundant harvest.

Meanwhile, we confirm our decision to defend with arms the people who are attacked with arms.

We call all citizens to rebel against this fake and corrupt democracy and to engage themselves in the construction of a free State called Euskal Herria. Everyone from his own area and with his own possibilities. With generosity and in unity.

Finally, ETA wishes to announce that it is abandoning its permanent ceasefire and has decided to act on all fronts in defence of Euskal Herria as of midnight June 6, 2007.

In Euskal Herria, June 2007