Bildu looks the other way

Imprisoned members of ETA believe that the Basque terrorist organization has made a firm decision to lay down its arms, according to conversations intercepted by the police and published yesterday in EL PAÍS. But the ETA leadership is reluctant to take this step, perhaps because since its electoral success on May 22, the Basque separatist coalition Bildu has exerted no pressure to this end. Bildu even seems to be counting on ETA as a latent threat to exploit as leverage in any possible separatist negotiation, which is again in the picture as part of a program for Basque "sovereignty," and which the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) is being invited to join.

Before Bildu's legalization, its spokesmen often repeated that the abertzale (Basque separatist) left's commitment to peaceful means was irreversible. However, nothing has yet been done in line with these assertions — that is, there has been no formal demand that ETA desist from violence, and no formal acknowledgement of the suffering of its victims. This is a step backwards because elected Bildu representatives who had previously insisted on peace now say it is "premature" to participate in ceremonies of recognition of the victims. Martín Garitano, now the abertzale left's principal official voice, says it is not yet time for "reflection on the pain caused."

Bildu's argument for doing nothing is the "immobility" of the other side (the Spanish state). But it is a fallacy to assert that, for ETA to end, there must be movement on the part of both those who have supported it, and of those who have suffered its violence. Bildu is testing the government, by making any new step toward the end of ETA conditional upon lenient treatment for ETA prisoners. But another separatist party, Aralar, has answered that the end of ETA must be "unilateral" and "unconditional."

Yet some responses to Bildu's provocations have been confused. It is nonsense to say (as some jurists are opining) that Bildu's demand for repeal of the so-called Parot doctrine of stiffer prison sentences is sufficient cause for outlawing the coalition. Not everything that Bildu does or says can be answered with a demand for its outlawing with the effect of enabling them to dodge moral and political criticism of their behavior, which may be fanatical, sectarian and undemocratic, but not necessarily illegal. It is unacceptable, for example, that they consider lenient treatment of ETA prisoners a right, while holding that the time has not yet come to acknowledge the suffering caused by these very prisoners.

Their latest move has been to call on the PNV, and Aralar, to support the proposal of a sovereignty and self-determination program that would include Navarre. The same old story — with the threat of violence still latent in the background.

This offer may have some appeal to the PNV's grassroots, but PNV leaders know that to enter into such a game would be to yield the leadership role to the abertzales, usurping the PNV's traditional hegemony within the Basque nationalist movement.