Word: txeroki
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...stronger, it would have been an important arrest, but not a crucial one," says sociologist Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca, ETA expert at the Juan March Institute, a Madrid-based think tank. "But there have been a lot of important arrests recently, which means that whoever replaces Txeroki won't have much experience, and that, in turn, will make them even weaker." (See Pictures of the Week...
...Beyond being yet another sign of the group's much-heralded decline, however, the arrest also could also work to the advantage of those nationalists seeking to break with ETA's violent tactics. Txeroki was the hardest of hardliners. Thirty-five years old, he moved across the border to France in 2002, and rose quickly through ETA's hierarchy. He is believed to have ordered the December 2006 bombing of a car park at Madrid's Barajas airport, which killed two people and put a definite end to the ceasefire the group had declared earlier that year. Other ETA members...
...from the beginning of his leadership, there were signs that Txeroki did not command the undissenting loyalty of his entire circle. Even the fellow hardliner, Francisco Javier Peña (alias Thierry) who represented ETA in its peace talks with the Spanish government, reportedly angered Txeroki by cutting funding to the military wing in an effort to prevent an attack prior to the start of negotiations. Arrested himself May, Thierry is also believed to have opposed the Barajas bombing on strategic grounds...
...This is not to suggest that there are pacifists lurking within ETA's midst. "The difference between Txeroki and Thierry could be that while the former believes in killing all the time, the latter only wants to do it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays," an anonymous source within the national police told El País newspaper...
...with one more violent leader behind bars, those pro-independence supporters who might consider politics rather than terror the better tactical option have a little more room to maneuver. "In the sense that these were the hardest of hardliners, " says Sánchez-Cuenca, "the absence of Txeroki and Thierry could work to the favor of those who want to work within the political system...