ETA's 2006 ceasefire declaration
Encyclopedia
The ETA
's 2006 "permanent ceasefire" was the period spanning between 24 March and 30 December 2006 during which, following an ETA communiqué, the Spanish government, led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
on one side, and the militant group on the other, engaged in talks as a means to agree on a formula to voluntarily disband the latter. It was terminated as a result of the 2006 Madrid Barajas International Airport bombing
.
, but it soon became clear that the attack was the work of radical Islamists
. For the next two years, there had been some conjecture whether ETA was refraining from their previous level of violence out of weakness, out of a change of heart or tactics, or because the 11 March attacks had undercut support for violent political tactics.
On 22 March 2006 ETA sent a DVD message to the Basque Network Euskal Irrati-Telebista and the journals Gara
and Berria
with a communiqué from the organization announcing what it called a "permanent ceasefire" that was broadcast over Spanish TV. According to the spokeswoman for the organisation, the "ceasefire" would begin on Friday 24 March. In their communiqué, they stated that the French and Spanish governments should cooperate and respond positively to this new situation. On 23 March, Gara published an extended version of the communiqué. The calculated ambiguity of the term "permanent" (which was a novelty when compared to previous "ceasefire" declarations) was widely discussed by most observers, even though it was mostly regarded as a positive sign of ETA's will to quit its violent activities.
(PSOE) administration) displayed an optimistic and hopeful response to the announcement, although in official statements president Zapatero called for "prudence".
PP: The People's Party
(headed by Mariano Rajoy) showed pessimism with regards to this announcement and claimed that it was only a pause for ETA, probably in the same fashion as the previous truce (declared by ETA in 1998, under president Aznar's administration). Rajoy called on the government to continue "fighting terrorism" and reject negotiations.
Basque Government
: Juan José Ibarretxe
called for the establishment of a negotiation table "without exclusions" (i.e. involving all the concerned political sectors, i.e., Batasuna, which is currently illegal).
Batasuna's position evolved from a cautious optimism into increasingly serious warnings against what they considered "a lack of resolve on the part of the Spanish government" and what they believed was "a will not to solve the conflict but to erode the Nationalist Left". The harshest of such warnings was issued in 5 December 2005, when they gave a press conference denouncing "continued repression" (in reference to the detentions of ETA members by the police) and warning that the peace process could "hardly continue in such conditions". After the Barajas bombing, Batasuna remained the only political party that considered that the "ceasefire" was still viable. An ETA communiqué released soon after the Barajas bombings stated the terrorist group's apparent will to continue negotiations. Five months later, on the 5 June 2007, ETA released a statement affirming it considered the "ceasefire" to be over, warning attacks would be resumed at midnight that same day.
The 2006–2007 ETA "ceasefire" was a period of heightened political tension in Spain. The strategic interests of the concerned political parties and the mutual recriminations between Spanish politicians of acting with hidden agendas were often at the forefront of the discussions.
On 23 September 2006 masked and armed ETA members took part in a political act in Aritxulegi (Guipuscoa
) and declared that the organization will "keep taking up arms" until achieving "independence and socialism in the Basque country". The militant claimed that "the fight is not a thing of the past. It is the present and the future". The statement was regarded by some as intended to put pressure on the talks with the Spanish government, which were announced on 17 September, and by some other analysts as a declaration of ETA's ultimate intentions, making clear that the organization will not disarm until every single one of their goals have been completely achieved. Spanish president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
stressed in the Spanish Parliament that the Spanish Government would still keep its offer for talks despite the militant's statement.
In June, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced that his government would begin negotiations with the ETA.
On 24 October 2006 a suspected ETA cell stole some 300 handguns, ammunition and spare parts in France.
On 4 November 2006 Gara newspaper published excerpts of ETA's bulletin Zutabe no.111, in which the organization pondered that "if the Spanish government doesn't fulfill its compromises and there are no visible steps, the peace process will be broken". ETA also announced that they would "make a renewed effort towards the negotiations with the Spanish government". ETA "laments that in the time elapsed since the March declaration of ceasefire (…) precious time has been wasted". They demanded from Spanish president, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero "to give a positive answer" to two central issues: (1) "to the specific demand of the fulfilment of the commitments he adopted on leaving aside repression and ceasing attacks" and (2) "he will have to commit clearly to respect the will for an [independence] process in Euskal Herria
, that is: the will of Basque citizens".
On 14 November, the Socialist Party admitted that the peace process was fraught with problems. Batasuna’s staunch refusal to condemn terrorism did not help. Also, the hunger strike
of ETA activist Iñaki de Juana Chaos
led to street hooliganism by some in Batasuna's youth branch. On 14 December, Batasuna’s Pernando Barrena said that the peace process was “going nowhere.” He accused the Socialist Party of making excessive demands to Batasuna.
On 30 December 2006, at 9:00 in the morning, after three confusing warning calls, ETA detonated a van bomb in a parking building at the Madrid
Barajas international airport. The explosion caused the collapse of the building and killed two Ecuadorian immigrants who were napping inside their cars in the parking building. At 6:00 P.M., José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
released a statement informing that the "peace process" had been discontinued.
In November 2006 ETA warned the Spanish government that the so-called "peace process" was "in crisis." The concessions sought by ETA and its political supporters (which included the relocation of ETA inmates from jails all over Spain to penitentiaries located in the Basque region and the halting of arrests and trials of ETA suspects) had not been attended.
It was reported that, before the attack, ETA reminded Rodríguez Zapatero about the 2004 Madrid train bombings (as a way to pressure the government with the possibility of an attack before upcoming elections), even though the source also states that ETA 'had nothing to do' with the attack itself.
On 4–5 January 2007, the Ertzaintza
found a cache of 350 pounds of explosives in Atxondo (Biscay). Out of these, 220 pounds were ready for immediate use (only lacking a detonator).
On 9 January 2007, newspaper Gara
published a letter on behalf of ETA, claiming responsibility for the 30 December 2006 bomb at Barajas airport in Madrid. ETA also claimed that the ceasefire was still in place despite the bombing. ETA extended their solidarity to the "collateral damage
" (the two Ecuadorian immigrants killed by the explosion), assuring that the "objective of this armed action was not to cause victims" and blamed the government for the dead, in view of the alleged lack of diligence evacuating the building. They also accused the Government and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
of creating obstacles for a democratic process.
On 21 June 2007, Spanish police found 130 kg (285 pounds) of explosives in a car parked in the town of Ayamonte
, near the Southern Portuguese border. The cache was suspected to belong to ETA, stoking fears that attacks would be imminent after the group announced the end of the "permanent ceasefire" on 5 June 2007.
On 9 October 2007, ETA members placed a bomb under the car of the bodyguard of a PSE-EE (Socialist Party of the Basque Country) council member of Galdakao
. The bodyguard, Juan Carlos Domingo Galíndez, was seriously injured.
On 1 December 2007, members of ETA shot dead two Spanish civil guards in Southern France. They are the first fatalities blamed on ETA in nearly a year. The two unarmed plainsclothes civil guard officers were in Capbreton
, France, to meet with French police about joint operations against ETA, which traditionally uses France as a base for its attacks in Spain. The civil guards entered a cafe for their breakfast where three ETA suspects were by chance. The suspects recognized them and ambushed them on the parking, fleeing then in a car, later leaving it to commandeer a second car.
At the beginning of 2008, ETA said that it would base its calls for independence on the Kosovo status.
On 21 February 2008, two former ETA leaders, José Luis Álvarez Santacristina (former responsible of ETA's politic lines) and Kepa Pikabea (former responsible of ETA's armed actions) both currently serving jail sentences, they released a joint note to the press stating that "ETA did not take into account the opinion of the majority of ETA inmates at the time of breaking the most recent truce" and that the "armed struggle is useless and an obstacle" for Basque nationalism. Days before the note was released, they had both been expelled from the ETA inmates collective.
ETA
ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...
's 2006 "permanent ceasefire" was the period spanning between 24 March and 30 December 2006 during which, following an ETA communiqué, the Spanish government, led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . He was elected for two terms as Prime Minister of Spain, in the 2004 and 2008 general elections. On 2 April 2011 he announced he will not stand for re-election in 2012...
on one side, and the militant group on the other, engaged in talks as a means to agree on a formula to voluntarily disband the latter. It was terminated as a result of the 2006 Madrid Barajas International Airport bombing
2006 Madrid Barajas International Airport bombing
The 2006 Madrid-Barajas Airport bombing occurred on December 30, 2006 when a van bomb exploded in the parking of the Terminal 4 of the Madrid-Barajas Airport in Spain, killing two and injuring 52. On January 9, 2007, the Basque nationalist and separatist organisation ETA claimed responsibility for...
.
Background and declaration
At the time of ETA's declaration, the most recent to date of its killings had been committed on 30 May 2003, whereas its last proven assassination attempt occurred on 17 February 2005. ETA had been briefly blamed for the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings
The Madrid train bombings consisted of a series of coordinated bombings against the Cercanías system of Madrid, Spain on the morning of 11 March 2004 , killing 191 people and wounding 1,800...
, but it soon became clear that the attack was the work of radical Islamists
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
. For the next two years, there had been some conjecture whether ETA was refraining from their previous level of violence out of weakness, out of a change of heart or tactics, or because the 11 March attacks had undercut support for violent political tactics.
On 22 March 2006 ETA sent a DVD message to the Basque Network Euskal Irrati-Telebista and the journals Gara
Gara
Gara is a bilingual newspaper published in the city of San Sebastián in the Basque Autonomous Community...
and Berria
Berria
Berria is the only newspaper published wholly in the Basque language and which can be read in the entirety of the Basque country. It was created after the closure of the previous Basque language newspaper, Egunkaria, by the Spanish government, after being accused of having ties with ETA...
with a communiqué from the organization announcing what it called a "permanent ceasefire" that was broadcast over Spanish TV. According to the spokeswoman for the organisation, the "ceasefire" would begin on Friday 24 March. In their communiqué, they stated that the French and Spanish governments should cooperate and respond positively to this new situation. On 23 March, Gara published an extended version of the communiqué. The calculated ambiguity of the term "permanent" (which was a novelty when compared to previous "ceasefire" declarations) was widely discussed by most observers, even though it was mostly regarded as a positive sign of ETA's will to quit its violent activities.
Reactions to the declaration
Most political parties welcomed the news of a ceasefire on the part of ETA. The government (under the Spanish Socialist Workers' PartySpanish Socialist Workers' Party
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...
(PSOE) administration) displayed an optimistic and hopeful response to the announcement, although in official statements president Zapatero called for "prudence".
PP: The People's Party
People's Party (Spain)
The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship...
(headed by Mariano Rajoy) showed pessimism with regards to this announcement and claimed that it was only a pause for ETA, probably in the same fashion as the previous truce (declared by ETA in 1998, under president Aznar's administration). Rajoy called on the government to continue "fighting terrorism" and reject negotiations.
Basque Government
Basque Government
The Basque Government is the governing body of the Basque Autonomous Community of Spain. The head of this government is the lehendakari or Basque president that is appointed by the Basque Parliament every four years...
: Juan José Ibarretxe
Juan José Ibarretxe
Juan José Ibarretxe Markuartu is a Basque politician of Spain. A leading member of the Basque Nationalist Party , he was President of Spain's Basque Country autonomous community from January 2, 1999 to May 7, 2009....
called for the establishment of a negotiation table "without exclusions" (i.e. involving all the concerned political sectors, i.e., Batasuna, which is currently illegal).
Batasuna's position evolved from a cautious optimism into increasingly serious warnings against what they considered "a lack of resolve on the part of the Spanish government" and what they believed was "a will not to solve the conflict but to erode the Nationalist Left". The harshest of such warnings was issued in 5 December 2005, when they gave a press conference denouncing "continued repression" (in reference to the detentions of ETA members by the police) and warning that the peace process could "hardly continue in such conditions". After the Barajas bombing, Batasuna remained the only political party that considered that the "ceasefire" was still viable. An ETA communiqué released soon after the Barajas bombings stated the terrorist group's apparent will to continue negotiations. Five months later, on the 5 June 2007, ETA released a statement affirming it considered the "ceasefire" to be over, warning attacks would be resumed at midnight that same day.
The 2006–2007 ETA "ceasefire" was a period of heightened political tension in Spain. The strategic interests of the concerned political parties and the mutual recriminations between Spanish politicians of acting with hidden agendas were often at the forefront of the discussions.
Negotiations and incidents during the "ceasefire"
Guipuscoa
Gipuzkoa is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country. Its capital city is Donostia-San Sebastián. It limits with the French department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques at the northeast, with the province and autonomous community of Navarre at east, Biscay at west, Álava at...
) and declared that the organization will "keep taking up arms" until achieving "independence and socialism in the Basque country". The militant claimed that "the fight is not a thing of the past. It is the present and the future". The statement was regarded by some as intended to put pressure on the talks with the Spanish government, which were announced on 17 September, and by some other analysts as a declaration of ETA's ultimate intentions, making clear that the organization will not disarm until every single one of their goals have been completely achieved. Spanish president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . He was elected for two terms as Prime Minister of Spain, in the 2004 and 2008 general elections. On 2 April 2011 he announced he will not stand for re-election in 2012...
stressed in the Spanish Parliament that the Spanish Government would still keep its offer for talks despite the militant's statement.
In June, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced that his government would begin negotiations with the ETA.
On 24 October 2006 a suspected ETA cell stole some 300 handguns, ammunition and spare parts in France.
On 4 November 2006 Gara newspaper published excerpts of ETA's bulletin Zutabe no.111, in which the organization pondered that "if the Spanish government doesn't fulfill its compromises and there are no visible steps, the peace process will be broken". ETA also announced that they would "make a renewed effort towards the negotiations with the Spanish government". ETA "laments that in the time elapsed since the March declaration of ceasefire (…) precious time has been wasted". They demanded from Spanish president, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero "to give a positive answer" to two central issues: (1) "to the specific demand of the fulfilment of the commitments he adopted on leaving aside repression and ceasing attacks" and (2) "he will have to commit clearly to respect the will for an [independence] process in Euskal Herria
Basque Country (historical territory)
The Basque Country is the name given to the home of the Basque people in the western Pyrenees that spans the border between France and Spain on the Atlantic coast....
, that is: the will of Basque citizens".
On 14 November, the Socialist Party admitted that the peace process was fraught with problems. Batasuna’s staunch refusal to condemn terrorism did not help. Also, the hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
of ETA activist Iñaki de Juana Chaos
Iñaki de Juana Chaos
José Ignacio de Juana Chaos , better known as Iñaki de Juana Chaos, is a member of the Basque separatist group ETA. He was convicted of killing 25 people in 1987 and was originally sentenced to 3,000 years in prison. As a result of complicated sentencing guidelines, he became eligible for release...
led to street hooliganism by some in Batasuna's youth branch. On 14 December, Batasuna’s Pernando Barrena said that the peace process was “going nowhere.” He accused the Socialist Party of making excessive demands to Batasuna.
End of "ceasefire"
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
Barajas international airport. The explosion caused the collapse of the building and killed two Ecuadorian immigrants who were napping inside their cars in the parking building. At 6:00 P.M., José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . He was elected for two terms as Prime Minister of Spain, in the 2004 and 2008 general elections. On 2 April 2011 he announced he will not stand for re-election in 2012...
released a statement informing that the "peace process" had been discontinued.
In November 2006 ETA warned the Spanish government that the so-called "peace process" was "in crisis." The concessions sought by ETA and its political supporters (which included the relocation of ETA inmates from jails all over Spain to penitentiaries located in the Basque region and the halting of arrests and trials of ETA suspects) had not been attended.
It was reported that, before the attack, ETA reminded Rodríguez Zapatero about the 2004 Madrid train bombings (as a way to pressure the government with the possibility of an attack before upcoming elections), even though the source also states that ETA 'had nothing to do' with the attack itself.
On 4–5 January 2007, the Ertzaintza
Ertzaintza
The Ertzaintza , is the police force of the Basque Country, one of the autonomous communities of Spain. An Ertzaintza member is an ertzaina .- Origins :...
found a cache of 350 pounds of explosives in Atxondo (Biscay). Out of these, 220 pounds were ready for immediate use (only lacking a detonator).
On 9 January 2007, newspaper Gara
Gara
Gara is a bilingual newspaper published in the city of San Sebastián in the Basque Autonomous Community...
published a letter on behalf of ETA, claiming responsibility for the 30 December 2006 bomb at Barajas airport in Madrid. ETA also claimed that the ceasefire was still in place despite the bombing. ETA extended their solidarity to the "collateral damage
Collateral damage
Collateral damage is damage to people or property that is unintended or incidental to the intended outcome. The phrase is prevalently used as an euphemism for civilian casualties of a military action.-Etymology:...
" (the two Ecuadorian immigrants killed by the explosion), assuring that the "objective of this armed action was not to cause victims" and blamed the government for the dead, in view of the alleged lack of diligence evacuating the building. They also accused the Government and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...
of creating obstacles for a democratic process.
Formal ending, subsequent ETA attacks and reactions
Despite the fact that all political parties and analysts in Spain -including those in the Basque country- and abroad considered the "ceasefire" ended with the Barajas bombing (accordingly, the negotiation tables were not resumed ever since that date) it was only weeks after, on 5 June 2007, that ETA released a communiqué through the Berria newspaper's web site formally announcing the end of the "permanent ceasefire" by midnight. ETA also announced that it would "act in all fronts in defence of Euskal Herria".On 21 June 2007, Spanish police found 130 kg (285 pounds) of explosives in a car parked in the town of Ayamonte
Ayamonte
Ayamonte is a town and municipality located in the province of Huelva, Spain. According to the 2005 census, the city has a population of 18,001 inhabitants.-Location and history:...
, near the Southern Portuguese border. The cache was suspected to belong to ETA, stoking fears that attacks would be imminent after the group announced the end of the "permanent ceasefire" on 5 June 2007.
On 9 October 2007, ETA members placed a bomb under the car of the bodyguard of a PSE-EE (Socialist Party of the Basque Country) council member of Galdakao
Galdakao
Galdakao is a town and municipality located in the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of Basque Country, northern Spain.It is located in the Greater Bilbao, in the valley of the Ibaizabal river, near the Ganguren mountain range...
. The bodyguard, Juan Carlos Domingo Galíndez, was seriously injured.
On 1 December 2007, members of ETA shot dead two Spanish civil guards in Southern France. They are the first fatalities blamed on ETA in nearly a year. The two unarmed plainsclothes civil guard officers were in Capbreton
Capbreton
Capbreton is a commune of around 7500 inhabitants in the Landes department in Aquitaine in south-western France. Located at the mouth of the Boudigau and Bourret rivers, the town is situated about 40 km to the north of Biarritz.The town is a popular holiday destination for sailers, surfers,...
, France, to meet with French police about joint operations against ETA, which traditionally uses France as a base for its attacks in Spain. The civil guards entered a cafe for their breakfast where three ETA suspects were by chance. The suspects recognized them and ambushed them on the parking, fleeing then in a car, later leaving it to commandeer a second car.
At the beginning of 2008, ETA said that it would base its calls for independence on the Kosovo status.
On 21 February 2008, two former ETA leaders, José Luis Álvarez Santacristina (former responsible of ETA's politic lines) and Kepa Pikabea (former responsible of ETA's armed actions) both currently serving jail sentences, they released a joint note to the press stating that "ETA did not take into account the opinion of the majority of ETA inmates at the time of breaking the most recent truce" and that the "armed struggle is useless and an obstacle" for Basque nationalism. Days before the note was released, they had both been expelled from the ETA inmates collective.