Eta's Terrorist Campaign: From Violence to Politics, 1968-2015 by Rafael Leonisio & Fernando Molina & Diego Muro

Author:Rafael Leonisio & Fernando Molina & Diego Muro [Leonisio, Rafael & Molina, Fernando & Muro, Diego]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General, Political Ideologies, Nationalism & Patriotism, Terrorism
ISBN: 9781317329145
Google: 2C9EDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 31317557
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

Militants without militancy: the perpetrators after ETA’s decline

Contrary to what happened with ETA political-military in 1982, the process of self-dissolution of the group has not taken place, nor has it been formalised; nor have members of ETA shown any intention of making it happen. The main difference lies in the absence of an ethical standpoint within ETA on the usefulness of the violence it had practised. This complicates the explanation of the crimes committed over more than four decades. Some of the ETA prisoners released when the Parot doctrine was annulled later became partially or directly responsible for multiple murders.1 Such was the case of Jesús M. Zabarte, known as the ‘Butcher of Mondragón’. Zabarte spent 30 years of his life in prison, entering for the first time before the arrival of democracy. Benefiting from the 1977 Amnesty law, he returned to ETA upon his release from jail and later became involved as an instigator, accomplice or perpetrator in 17 murders. Zabarte feels that the bloodshed was justified and denies that he is a murderer, opting for the term ‘executioner’ instead. He openly demands that the Spanish state acknowledge its responsibilities because ‘it was what pushed me. I did not take this decision [to join ETA and kill]’. In terms of asking for forgiveness, Zabarte believes that it is he who has suffered the real pain for having been forced to kill – something that forms part of a larger historical process including Francoism and the obligation (imposed upon Zabarte and his peers) to sing the Francoist hymn ‘Cara al Sol’ at school (El Mundo, 21 October 2014).

The historicist justification and the self-acquittal of the crimes themselves reflect a widespread feeling among former members of ETA and the abertzale left. Hasier Arraiz, a former member of the youth organisation Jarrai and president of Sortu since 2013, felt that the past radical Basque nationalism was neither objectionable nor negotiable. On the contrary, ‘with all our errors, we stand for what we were and what we are’ (El País, 19 November 2013). Justification of the past and legitimisation of political violence as the consequence of a third party (the Spanish state) form the backbone of Sortu’s story of the past but also make up part of the discourse of the majority of formerly imprisoned ETA members.

In January 2014, the collective of imprisoned members of the terrorist group (EPPK) expressed their intention to get involved in the ‘democratic process’, which they claimed to have propelled forward. The collective viewed the Spanish and French governments as enemies of this process and urged these governments to ‘repeal every situation and measure of exception’, which meant modifying the prison policy to adapt it to the new circumstances (Gara, 5 January 2014). The statement, devoid of references to the past, was read in Durango (Biscay) by José-Antonio López ‘Kubati’. Nearly three decades earlier, ‘Kubati’ had held up his former comrade-in-arms Dolores González ‘Yoyes’ in Ordicia (Gipuzkoa) and, in front of her three-year-old son, murdered her after identifying himself as the man sent to carry out the death sentence issued by some of her former comrades.

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