"Ten years in prison for Arnaldo Otegi is an outrageous sentence"

Brian Currin is the precise opposite of a paid assassin. South African by birth and a lawyer by trade, he is a professional conflict mediator with broad international experience spanning more than 20 years. Whether his terrain is Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, Turkey, Liberia or Madagascar, his goal is attaining peace and, indeed, preventing violent death.

But in Spain, for the most part, he is not welcome. Ever since he became involved in the Basque conflict over two-and-a-half years ago, at the request of the abertzale (radical Basque separatists who have traditionally sympathized with ETA), many people here are asking themselves: "What the hell is this man doing here?" "What right has he to tell us what to do?" and even "Does he have a hidden agenda?"

"You cannot exert police control over every house in the Basque Country"

His opinion on recent statements by jailed ETA members asking for "a definitive end to armed activity" would appear to feed the notion - quite generalized in some circles - that Currin's personal ideology matches that of the Basque left-wing separatists. "It is an essential and hugely significant step," said Currin about the prisoners' initiative. As for the 10-year jail term just handed down against Arnaldo Otegi, the unquestioned political leader of the abertzale, Currin calls it "scandalous," "unbelievable" and "counterproductive," and he considers that the ruling was clearly contaminated by political factors.

Currin spoke with EL PAÍS in San Sebastián last week, after seven days in which he traveled from South Africa to England, from England to Madagascar, from there back to South Africa and finally to Spain.

Question. What is it that defines your Spanish experience? How does it compare, say, to your experience in Northern Ireland, where you worked with all sides, including the British government?

Answer. I think the difference in Spain is that the conflict, in this case the Basque conflict, is used by both main political parties, the Popular Party (PP) and the Socialist Party (PSOE), to either win votes or make the other party lose them. That makes things very difficult because it paralyzes you, because if you make a move you know that the other side is going to hammer you.

Q. Because it is an emotional issue, apparently easy to understand for the population at large...?

A. Yes. The problem is presented in black and white, as a question of good guys and bad guys. This is very different from what I experienced in Great Britain, where the Labour Party and the Conservative Party agreed to adopt a common public position on issues of national security, and particularly Northern Ireland. Both parties argued over their differences in private, but did not criticize each other openly. If the same thing had been done in Spain, the problem would have been solved a long time ago.

Q. What is your opinion regarding the statement by ETA convicts in favor of the Gernika accord, which calls for an end to violence as an instrument of political persuasion?

A. It is something that had to be done, and obviously it is enormously significant. It is an essential step towards the construction of the necessary political context for a peace process. It will help build confidence in society that ETA prisoners are in favor of a future without violence, where conflicts are resolved through negotiation.

Q. What do you think of Arnaldo Otegi's recent conviction?

A. Ten years: it's outrageous! It's unbelievable that someone can get such a sentence for the offense he allegedly committed. And look, even supposing that he was involved in an ETA project, it is still a project whose goal is the legalization of a political group and the end of violence; moving from the past to the future. I can perfectly understand that there is a law saying any association with ETA is illegal. In such circumstances, the right thing would have been to declare him guilty, but since the project Otegi is part of points to peace and rejects violence, the logical thing would have been to condemn him to five minutes of jail and that's it. A court could have done that. Now I know very well that in this case, categorically, this was NOT a project led by ETA. I know because I have been involved in the project with Otegi since it began two-and-a-half years ago and I know that the hardest task they had was to convince ETA to endorse opting for the road toward a negotiated peace and to see the political benefits of abandoning violence.

Q. What was Otegi's role in this internal debate?

A. Otegi played a critical role from the beginning. And he demonstrated great persistence and great courage, always starting from an unequivocal belief that the old methods had failed - he himself admitted it before his people - and that it was necessary to opt for a new method that was not violence. And to do so unilaterally.

Q. What has been achieved with Otegi's jail conviction?

A. Something has been done that is very detrimental to peace. One would hope in a peace process that the government would intervene to create a political climate that would allow those who are committed to peace to achieve it in a constructive manner.

Q. But is there a "peace process?" What need is there for such a thing now that ETA's violence, in practice, has ended?

A. ETA is not the core issue. The core issue is that there are a lot of people in the Basque Country whose political aspirations are in conflict with the Spanish Constitution, which many believe was imposed on them. It is not a matter of whether one is right or not. We are talking about feelings that carry real political weight. This is what we need to try to resolve through a peace process, or negotiation, or dialogue, or whatever you want to call it.

Q. How do you interpret the Spanish government's attitude?

A. Its position is that peaceful negotiation is not the best alternative, and that the only alternative is to annihilate ETA and force it into total surrender.

Q. Is this a case of the best being the enemy of the good?

A. Yes. Look, today the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka have been completely destroyed. But, and I guarantee you this, small cells are reorganizing and 10 years from now another violent conflict will erupt. Today the Spanish government clearly has ETA very much on the defensive, but it will never manage to extract an unconditional surrender from them. It cannot exert police control over every house and every room in the Basque Country. Human nature being what it is, other tough guys will appear ready to take up the gun, and the conflict will last for several decades more until there is finally a political agreement. The police option is not sustainable in the long run. You have to swallow your pride a little bit, show some generosity and pragmatism, and be ready to make some concessions.

Q. What do you say to those who believe you have no right to get involved in these issues?

A. I understand that Spaniards should react this way. My participation here began when Batasuna asked me for advice regarding ETA prisoners. I began my participation in Ireland the same way, at the invitation of Sinn Fein. But after a while I started working with the other side as well, with the Protestant activists, and later the British government hired me to preside the commission in charge of deciding on the release, or non-release, of all the prisoners involved in political violence.

Q. And the British government paid you?

A. Yes. When I started out here, Batasuna leaders proposed that I keep a low profile in the hope that after a while the Spanish government would appoint me to a similar position. That notion (he smiles ruefully) is far, far off.