Spain faces long road to heal wounds after ETA surrender

By Sinikka Tarvainen Mar 1, 2012, 2:07 GMT
Madrid - 'You stole my adolescence,' an unidentified Spaniard tells an unidentified member of the Basque separatist group ETA.
'Do you know how I was left when you killed my father? You did not only kill him, but you left me completely empty. I was full of life, and now I live without strength. I am no longer myself. I am someone else.'
The meeting between the imprisoned separatist and the child of his victim - described by the daily El Mundo without giving the names of the participants - is part of a healing process that Spain is facing after ETA ended its 43-year armed campaign in October.
More than 10 such meetings have taken place, partly on the initiative of jailed ETA members trying to face up to the immense pain the group created by killing about 850 people during its campaign for a sovereign Basque state.
ETA targeted mainly army and police officers, politicians, judges and others seen as representatives of the Spanish state. But its bombings and shootings also left hundreds of ordinary people dead, such as drivers or family members of the targets, or passers-by.
Its ranks decimated by police crackdowns, its violence opposed by the overwhelming majority of the Basque region's more than 2 million residents, ETA finally ended Western Europe's last armed nationalist campaign.
Faith is now growing in Madrid that the peace is definitive, and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government is preparing to steer Spain towards normality after decades of bloodshed.
The main political parties in the Madrid parliament recently signed an agreement calling for the dissolution of ETA and for steps to heal the social divisions left by the conflict.
Officially, the government excludes making any policy changes as long as ETA still exists. But, behind the scenes, it is believed to be considering some concessions to radical separatists linked to ETA.
More than 500 ETA activists are in Spanish jails. Those who repent of their acts of terrorism could be moved to prisons closer to home, while the sentences of some who are in poor health could be relaxed, the daily El Pais reported.
At the same time, Madrid will no longer seek to ban radical separatist parties close to ETA.
The group's political wing, Batasuna, was outlawed in 2003 and its successors were prohibited. But the new radical party Bildu now governs about 100 Basque municipalities, while like-minded Amaiur entered the national parliament in the November elections. Attempts are underway to get the banned party Sortu legalized as well.
Rajoy's government, however, wants to avoid appearing lenient in order not to alienate its most conservative supporters, who stress the suffering of ETA's victims, analysts say.
Spanish mainstream political leaders do not want to lend an ear to Amaiur or Bildu, who say ETA's victims were not the only ones to suffer during the Basque conflict.
Separatists say Spanish police and judiciary exercised heavy repression upon them. They also point to the GAL, government-sponsored death squads, which killed about 20 suspected ETA members in the 1980s.
The suffering is difficult to heal. ETA has not apologized to people who lost their loved ones, and many of the victims feel they can never forgive.
'Hatred destroys you, damages you, impregnates everything. ... I realized that this hatred was destroying me,' said Inaki Garcia Arrizabalaga, whose father was shot dead by ETA. Garcia Arrizabalaga is one in the handful of victims who have met with imprisoned ETA activists.
Not all of them meet with the person who killed their relatives. Even a contact with another ETA member is thought to have a healing effect.
Few of the ETA members apologize - but most of them cannot hold the victim's gaze, according to media reports.
Yet even if ETA dissolves and a reconciliation ensues, Spain's Basque problem is far from over.
Spain has consistently refused to discuss the subject of Basque independence. But the decline of ETA has gone hand in hand with the rise of new separatist parties, such as Bildu and Amaiur, which are expected to step up their campaign for independence.
Because the parties are not violent, Spain will have fewer means to limit their influence, analysts said.
'All political ideas and projects - absolutely all - can be defended,' Amaiur spokesman Xabier Mikel Errekondo said. And that includes independence.
'ETA today is not basically a security problem. It has a political dimension which we cannot forget,' Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez said.
Source http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article_1693588.php/Spain-faces-long-road-to-heal-wounds-after-ETA-surrender