Word: eta
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Since it turned to violence in 1968, the ETA has used assassination first to fight the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, then to provoke democratic Spanish authorities into retaliating bloodily and repressing liberties in three of Spain's Basque provinces (see map). The terrorists' plan: to build popular resentment of far-off Madrid and to increase separatist yearnings among the historically disaffected Basques. In the past 13 years the ETA has killed more than 350 victims, carefully choosing as its targets police, army and political figures. One was Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, the man Franco had hand-picked...
...Spain turned toward democracy following Franco's death in 1975, the terrorists calculated that their acts would goad the military into a right-wing coup, thereby buttressing ETA'S claim that peaceful reform was impossible. The number of terrorist killings rose dramatically. And, indeed, on Feb. 23, rebellious members of the Spanish Guardia Civil took over the country's parliament and held it for 18 hours. The insurgents were backed by high-ranking army officers and had the support of shadowy right-wing financiers. The main demand of the rebels: more freedom to combat Basque terrorism...
...Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, have moved far more cautiously in liberalizing one of Western Europe's most monolithic and centralized governments, and Madrid has thrown the national police into a straightforward drive against the terrorists with a good deal of success. So far this year ETA killings are down to 28, about half the 1980 rate. Last week the government announced the arrest of seven alleged ETA members in Vizcaya province and the seizure of substantial quantities of arms and ammunition. In an attempt to rebuild its popularity, the beleaguered ETA is now adopting the protest tactics...
...Spanish government also hoped that President François Mitterrand's new Socialist government would track down and extradite ETA terrorists taking refuge on French soil. Previous French governments were reluctant to cooperate, fearing that some of the people requested by the Spanish might be political dissidents, not terrorists. Last week French officials continued to be wary. Gaston Defferre, the Interior Minister, has gone so far as to declare that the war against the ETA in Spain is "political." Despite continuing pressure from Madrid, the French have still not agreed to the extradition proposal...
...ETA itself has middle-class social origins. It began in the 1950s as a college study group examining the effects of Spanish domination. ETA originally was nonviolent, but during the tumultuous '60s the organization became radicalized, began robbing banks to finance its operations and for a time espoused a cloudy blend of nationalism and Marxism. The organization's violent phase began in 1968 after a member of the Guardia Civil shot an ETA member who refused to stop at a roadblock. In retaliation ETA assassinated a hated police chief, and the deadly cycle began...