Word: batasuna
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...university journalism students in Bilbao came to hear Otamendi and three other journalists decry the closure. On the other side is the Madrid government of Prime Minister José María Aznar, which regards the shuttering of Egunkaria - like last year's banning of the political party Batasuna for alleged close ties to ETA - a necessary step in its war on terrorism. No wonder many Basques feel caught between unacceptable terrorism and unacceptable repression. "We're at a great impasse," says Gorka Landáburu, a journalist who lost an eye, a thumb and three fingertips...
...will not simply look away, hope for the best and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve." And he played down the importance of U.N. weapons inspections: "A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of [Saddam Hussein's] compliance with U.N. resolutions." SPAIN Biting Batasuna Basque nationalists formed blockades around the offices of Batasuna, the political wing of the separatist group eta, as riot police enforced a court order to close down the organization that authorities say funded and assisted terrorists. Police raided offices in five cities in northern Spain's Basque region and fought crowds...
...decisions in Madrid are certainly likely to strain relations between the central government and the moderate Basque nationalist coalition that, a little over a year ago, decisively defeated the Basque subsidiaries of Spain's two major parties. In the same election, Batasuna's support was slashed by more than 40 percent, with the party drawing only 10 percent of the region's vote. The election underscored two political facts of the Basque Country - a resounding rejection by most voters of Batasuna, principally because of its inability to distance itself from ETA's violence; and at the same time a popular...
...clampdown on Batasuna, however, may have more to do with the mainstream parties' bid to anchor their electoral support elsewhere in Spain than with finding a solution to the Basque conflict. The goal of Aznar's ruling Popular Party is "to defeat ETA," according its leader in the Basque country, Jaime Mayor Oreja. That message may attract voters elsewhere in Spain, but in the Basque Country, the citizenry's main desire is a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Last May, the Catholic bishops of the Basque archdioceses published a letter calling for a negotiated solution to the conflict. The Bishops...
...Nobody's expecting Batasuna to go without a fight, and the party's most vocal leader, Arnaldo Otegi, has called on his party's supporters to resist what party spokesmen have called the government's "genocidal strategy." And in an environment of mounting attacks by militant young Batasuna supporters against "Spanish interests" and intimidation of elected officials, many in the Basque Country are bracing for intensified violence. ETA has also threatened to act against those who support the banning of the party - a stance which certainly helps Judge Garzon make his case that the political party and the terror group...