"If we'd had political channels, the armed struggle wouldn't have existed"

"One day my son will ask me if I have killed, and I will have to tell him the truth. But I will try to convince him not to do the same; that if he wants to rebel against injustice, never to use weapons. They leave you with wounds that never heal. I know I will take this to my grave, or beyond, if they scatter my ashes in the mountain."

These are the words of Kepa Pikabea, a leader of Basque terrorist organization ETA in the 1980s. He was arrested in France in 1994 and handed a 192-year sentence for committing around 20 murders. Now, he is serving time at the Nanclares de la Oca penitentiary (in Álava province) together with a group of other ETA convicts who now say they reject violence after their movement caused 829 deaths and injured thousands over a 43-year period.

"One day, my eldest asked me about torture, and I felt dizzy," says Ioldi

Both men agree that Basque society is screaming out for an end to terrorism

The former ETA leader offers his own personal vision of the causes and consequences of terrorism in a documentary called Al final del túnel (or, At the end of the tunnel), directed by Eterio Ortega and based on an original idea by film producer Elías Querejeta. The interviews were conducted inside and outside prison, and include the views of another ETA member who spent 16 years in jail, one victim of ETA's violence, a victim of GAL (a secret, state-sponsored group that killed 23 ETA members or sympathizers between 1983 and 1987) and a priest. The film is expected to be released in theaters next month.

ETA members doing jail time are "the consequences of the conflict" that the terrorist group was referring to when it announced a "definitive" end to armed violence last week. There are over 700 of them in Spanish and French penitentiaries, hoping that the new situation will benefit them. Many of them still have dozens of years of their sentences left, yet they now hope for an early release.

But how do these people see the past, those 43 years of terrorism? Do they justify the murders, the extortion, the death threats? The documentary was begun during the 2006 ceasefire, which was eventually broken by a new ETA attack, and it eventually premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival last September, before this new announcement of a final end to violence. The two ETA hitmen who appear in the documentary provide very different visions of the same reality. Juan Karlos Ioldi - a lawyer, a deputy for Herri Batasuna (ETA's political wing) in the Basque assembly in 1986 and a former ETA assassin who served 16 years - is convinced that the "armed struggle" was necessary: "Undoubtedly it was worth it," he says in the film. "We're about to achieve our political goals. How could it not be worth it?"

Yet the other man, Pikabea, believes that the same goals could have been achieved "without getting to where we got."

Both men agree on one thing, though: that Basque society is screaming out for an end to terrorism, and the new generations - both of them have children - deserve something better than the situation of the last 50 years.

"One day, my eldest asked me about torture, and I felt dizzy," recalls Ioldi. "If the situation we've been through had continued, I would see one of my three children in jail, no doubt about it."

Now that ETA has said it will not kill again, there is still much to do, including the oft-mentioned process of reconciliation. People in Basque villages say this process will take years. And it will also depend on how the past goes down in the history books, considering that not even two ETA members can agree on what happened.

"When events of that nature take place [ETA attacks] we don't take into account the person but what the person represents," says Ioldi to justify ETA's terrorism. "It's nothing personal. We know it causes pain. But there's the political deficit, and in that situation you say... Then you look at the other side, and see that we have suffered atrocities since the early days, and you say 'we're going to fix that.' But since there is no political will, then unfortunately these types of acts that nobody wants [ETA attacks] continue to take place," he adds somewhat uncomfortably, as he hoes the vegetable garden at the farmhouse owned by his girlfriend's family. "I know that to talk like that, knowing that the victims are out there, and their relatives, and the pain they still carry around... Losing a dear one in a traumatic way is tough for your entire life, we know out of personal experience... but, oh well."

Ioldi is convinced that killing people was a necessary evil, that there was no other option. "If we had seen political channels open, the armed struggle would not have existed. We are the first to not want it, because we suffer the consequences in the first place. But every struggle has a reason."

Yet Pikabea, who talks as he makes a ball for the Basque sport of pelota, does not share this vision: "I admit that [ETA's] political-military strategy is inhuman, it is cruel. One day we had blind faith, and we committed many acts against human dignity."

And yet even he blames the governments. "Those who fought us also applied an inhuman strategy. [...] What about the person who created GAL? There are victims on all sides. We admit the pain, and if we have to apologize, we will, but the apology has to be mutual."

Both of them answer the question of why they personally joined ETA: "Oppression, injustice," says Ioldi. "A person who does not know the reality of Euskal Herria [the greater Basque Country as viewed by nationalists, including Navarre and southern France as well as the three Basque provinces] might find this strange, but it is not so unnatural. We are normal people in our village. We are not strangers."

Pikabea comes from a farmhouse, and as a child he barely spoke Spanish. "At age 12 they sent us down to the village, to Hernani, and we were the farm boys. Everyone laughed when I mispronounced words during reading. I felt ridiculed, and that left a mark. It influenced my self-esteem for my whole life." By the early 1970s (Franco died in 1975, leading to democracy and the devolution of powers to historical regions such as the Basque Country) he had begun viewing ETA members as idols.

"Being a member during the Franco repression was a great thing. When amnestied members returned home after Franco's death, the entire village came out to greet them; everybody loved them. Then came the Transition. Those were terrible years. I went to a demonstration with a friend, there was a shootout and a kid was killed. On New Year's Eve we went to a nightclub and thought: 'Do we have the right to be here, enjoying life?' And we joined ETA."