ETA and Basque Nationalism (RLE: Terrorism & Insurgency): The Fight for Euskadi 1890-1986 by John L. Sullivan

Author:John L. Sullivan [Sullivan, John L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Terrorism
ISBN: 9781317479604
Google: TnJKCAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 55566202
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

6

The Twilight of the Dictatorship, 1974–1977

Carrero Blanco’s assassination showed that ETA-V’s organisation was stronger than ever before. So too was its claim to ETA’s heritage as its rival ETA-VI had, by merging with a ‘Spanish’ group, abandoned its claim to be the heir of ETA’s nationalist tradition. ETA-V’s leaders saw Carrero’s assassination as an exemplary illustration of the importance of the armed struggle, just as the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile, in September 1973, was taken as exposing the foolishness of those in the opposition who believed that it was unnecessary.1 Carrero’s killing confirmed the dominance of the Military Front over the other, theoretically equal Fronts. The tensions created by this dominance were soon to lead to further splits, the first of which involved most of the members of the Workers’ Front.

The leaders of the Workers’ Front had been informed of the original plan to kidnap Carrero Blanco, but not of the decision to substitute assassination for kidnapping. The assassination and the consequent police repression, directed against the whole organisation, disturbed the fragile agreement reached during the first part of ETA-V’s Sixth Assembly. At the meeting of the Biltzaar Ttip-pia (BT) held early in December, the Workers’ Front representatives had been personally insulted by representatives of the Military Front and accused of ‘Spanish’ deviations, causing the Workers’ Front leaders to demand an apology.2 The assassination of Carrero Blanco, later in the month, accentuated an already existing climate of mistrust. A rupture was perhaps inevitable as ETA-V could not find a way to combine military actions with mass activity. Before the Assembly, the Military Front representatives had suggested that those attempting to organise mass activity should not publicly identify themselves as part of ETA-V; thus they could avoid some of the repression which adherence to the organisation provoked. The proposal was not acceptable to the Workers’ Front members as, in effect, it would have transformed them into a group of sympathisers, leaving the Military Front with a monopoly of the status which the name of ETA conferred. The proposal made sense for the Military Front, whose limited need for mass support need not be organised by people in the same organisation.

The suggestion that the Military Front should become the real ETA-V was also unacceptable to people in the Political Front, and to some members of the Military Front itself. Some ETA-V leaders, including Moreno Bergareche (Pertur), saw that there would be a need for a political organisation if ETA-V’s military activities were not to benefit the PNV in the post-Franco period. In May 1974, following an angry meeting of ETA-V’s Biltzaar Ttippia (BT), the Workers’ Front broke away to form Langile Abertzale Iraultzaileen Alderdia (LAIA) (the Revolutionary Patriotic Workers’ Party).3 LAIA declared that it was impossible to transform ETA into the revolutionary party which the Basque workers needed. The Military Front’s insistence on carrying out its activities divorced from mass participation, LAIA’s members declared, had persuaded them to abandon ETA, although not to condemn armed struggle as such.4 LAIA’s

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