The Spanish Army marched in Donostia, protected by the Ertzaintza 17/07/07

In the occasion of the Day of Carmen and unlike last year, that marched within the military quartering of Loyola, the three branches of the Spanish Army, as well as important representatives of the Civil Guard and the Spanish Police, along with few political representatives, marched in Donostia among the protests of the neighbours of Alde Zaharra and the pro-amnesty movement.

Although only marched a few meters, the great unfolding of the Ertzaintza (Basque autonomous police) and other bodies of the SSF (Spanish Security Force) mirrored the importance of the military act.



Batasuna sees possible to stop the HST thanks to social struggle 18/07/07

Eusebio Lasa and Joseba Permach, members of the Basque pro-independence left executive, stated in a press conference the reinforcement and strengthen of the Basque social struggle against the HST (High Speed Train). Thanks to it, they believe its paralysation to be possible.

They also underlined that the past 27th May elections were a reflection of what the affected towns feel about it "those political formations that have deceived the citizenship by trying to impose the HST have been punished". And those formations that have played "consequently" have won the elections in the affected localities.

The Basque pro-independence left clearly knows that behind this project there are enormous economic and political interests. Moreover, behind this macro-project it is clearly noticeable the "neo-liberal model" of the PNV (Basque Christian democrat party), UPN (right wing Navarre party) and PSOE (Spanish "socialist" party in government).



2 and 5 years imprisonment sentence to fourteen youth accused of collaborating with ETA 19/07/07

The National Hearing has condemned 14 people to 2 and 5 years imprisonment for "collaboration with armedorganisation". The judges have acquitted Garikoitz Urizar, Gorka Rivadulla, Asier Arriola, Sergio Regueiro and Ibon Perez, five of the youth accused. These 19 people were arrested in 2004, and denounced to have undergone tortures. Haritz Totorika, Amaia Urizar, Iker Arzeluz and Aitziber Sagarminaga have been sentenced to 5 years imprisonment. Nagore Bilbao has been the condemned to 2 years and 7 months, and Immaculada Basabe, Mikel Lizarribar, Gaizka Larrinaga, Janire Couceiro, Iñaki Peña, Sonia Martin, Igor Zearreta, Leire Urrutia and Egoitz Fernandez, to two years.



To impose a false end, to hinder a democratic framework 19/07/07

The opinion article of Josu Jon Imaz published last weekend in diverse newspapers has caused a small earthquake in the Basque political scene. The Basque pro-independence left has criticized the terms which the PNV president li3mits the possibilities of a consultation to the Basque society. This article deepens now on those critics.

Beyond the electoral results, we are staking a new departure point that is not seen like a drama in the Spanish state, a new consensus, thirty years later, without the warding of the Franco regime, aided by a true democratic transition, with the participation and the commitment of the Basque pro-independence left. A new political agreement that will regulate and qualify the mechanisms to grant the word to our town, that starting off from the current reality and being flexible in forms and accounting, will contemplate as a base and limit, the democratically expressed free will and of our country.

The PNV plays dirty once again. Preparing a new fraud to the collective opportunity to give a structural and scrupulously democratic solution to the national negation of this Country, to honestly and negotiatedly untie the knot of the conflict and all its consequences.

The PNV has postulated itself, both in the negotiation table as well as publicly, as a loyal partner for a new historical fraud. A long time ago, it signed a strategic contract: to close the doors to national independence. That is its game. In the short term, to bid for the rejection of the process as a particular interest, and in the long one, as already said Imaz: To captivate Spain as a project.

Its scheme to make of the Spanish legality principle a limit to the freely expressed will of the Basque people, to bid for an agreement with the autonomic branches of the state parties in terms of statutory reform, turning the popular consultation into a mere appendix of entertainment and accompaniment.

The Basque pro-independence left does not want to build a process of democratic solutions against the PNV. And it considers that the sensitivity and political culture of the PNV must commit itself with a decisive agreement of guarantees and vocation of durability.

We believe that the word of the Basque people is the base and the limit of a democratic resolution scene and we take the principle of legality as a guarantee and channel of the democratic expression of the popular will, never as a limit or restriction. To take the process as a statutory reform and the consultation as a legitimation of the scheme is simply not to close the wound that feeds the conflict.

The PNV would better leave the imposition of a false end of the conflict and the prevention of a democratic framework scheme aside to make an honest effort to search and build a democratic resolution from the collective. Effort that means the following exercise: To close well an historical cycle of national negation, territorial division and imposition, to close well a cycle of armed confrontation and general suffering, in order to open, with strength, from the accumulation of majority social energies and political change commitments, a scene of peace and democracy.

The PNV continues in their old scheme. Its bid is a bet for the police route and to set the democratic resolution of the conflict aside. This way it assures the mechanisms of political hegemony and individual economy.

There are two reasons that also underlie in PNV's old and updated bid. On the one hand, it means to agree that the historical bid of resistance and struggle of the Basque pro-independence left was right before the shoddy work of thirty years ago and to live it like a drama. Well, the Basque pro-independence left neither needs the PNV to grant it the historical reason, nor wants medals nor political prices for itself. The positioning of the Basque pro-independence left is and will be the defence of a Country that considers itself a nation and that has the right to its free self-determination. Nothing else and neither nothing less.

On the other hand the PNV is scared of a democratic scene because it considers that in that framework the Basque pro-independence left is an option of popular strength, that could dispute the PNV's hegemony, and that building the Basque Country from the transforming left, with policies that will connect with social majorities can take the reins of the country towards national independence. That fear makes the PNV, at times that require great bids and hard decisions, at times of historical ambition and statistical height, to show itself meek, submissive and always by the side of the master of Madrid. Renewing its old bid of feeding the conflict.



Alvarez calls to apply 182.2 article of the Electoral Law 20/07/07

The member of the Basque pro-independence left executive, Joseba Alvarez, brought to collation that all the political parties, with the exception of Aralar, have participated in the management of the Spanish Law of Parties "usurping" , only in Gipuzkoa, to the Basque pro-independence left a total of 95 councils.

It remembered that in Gipuzkoa the Spanish courts "illegalized" 26 candidacies by, and added that as consequence 95 "usurped" seats and town halls of which "65 have already been stolen", 30 are still to be hold.

Alvarez denounced that the PNV is the political party that gains more from this mathematical operation with 23 "stolen" positions, four of them without been occupied yet, followed by EA (Basque social democrats) with "10 completed robberies and three without been completed".

He continued stating that the PSE ("Basque socialist" party) has also taken possession of 12 seats that do not correspond it, waiting to take another one, followed of the PP (spanish right wing party in the opposition) that "has already usurped" the 17 positions for which it was not chosen in the 27th May elections. EB ("Basque" left wing party) has taking 3 "illegitimate" councils.

Alvarez underlined that in Lizartza the PP governs just by 27 votes and by people who "had not even appeared in the list".

Immediately afterwards it exposed the existing difference between Lizartza and Aretxabaleta, since in this last one Aralar (Basque "left" party) has "publicly" announced that will carry out "until the end" the application of article 182,2 of the Electoral Law.

Alvarez ended denouncing that, as a result of the application of the Law of Parties, "the correlation of forces within the city councils has changed". This reality that supposes "a cheated institutional majority", emphasized, opens the way to the consummation of macro projects such as the incinerator plant, the outer port of Pasaia or the High Speed Train.



A police raid in Castelló in search of two presumed members of ETA 20/07/07

The SSF (Spanish Security Forces) are searching for two people consider members ETA in Castelló. The police operative began after one of them left a taxi when detecting a police control. Inside the vehicle, he would have left a bag with material to make bombs.

The taxi driver, surprised by this attitude, went to the Civil Guard control, to give account of what happened.

The search was extended after the taxi driver warned that the man greeted another person in the station where he took the taxi.



London postpones the Euro-order decision after admitting the arguments of the defence 21/07/07

The court of Westminister has delayed the Euro-order decision against Iñigo Albisu, Zigor Ruiz and Ana Lopez to be able to study with precision the arguments presented by the defence among them the possibility of being tortured when arriving to the Spanish state.

The judge who takes the extradition case of these three Basque political prisoners will also consider the new argumentations presented by the defence around the different abuses given within the judicial process. The decision to handing them over to the Spanish state has been therefore postponed until the next 17th August.

Madrid admits that the process "was collapsed" from beginning 22/07/07

The 29th December 2006, a day before ETA exploded a car bomb in the airport of Madrid-Barajas, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero insisted on his messages of optimism towards the dialogue process.

The Spanish Government has taken six months to publicly assume that, as both the political spokesmen of the Basque pro-independence left as well as the own armed organization expressed repeatedly, the so called "peace process" "was collapsed not long after the cease-fire", that began the 24th March 2006. "We could say that never really started; that is the truth: it never really took off", affirms the Spanish home minister. "It had a hesitant beginning and, from then on, things got complicated", added Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba.