Rajoy closes the door to dialogue with ETA

USPA NEWS - With ETA there has never been nor will there be concessions or impunity in the future, said on Friday the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy. The Basque terrorist organization formalized this May 4 its dissolution, seven years after the cessation of violence.

Just 24 hours before appearing before the international press and a group of verifiers chosen by the terrorist organization, ETA published on Thursday a letter dated on April 16 announcing its decision to disappear as an armed organization and dissolve all its structures. However, the documents related to their activity will be guarded by a chosen group of members of the band that will remain in hiding. According to that letter and what was staged this Friday in a house in the French Basque Country near Bayonne, ETA believes that their time has passed and the armed struggle is no longer useful for their independence target.

Representatives of the Abertzale Left and international mediators such as the lawyer in conflict resolution Brian Currin, the former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams or the Mexican leader Cuhatemoc Cardenas, supported by the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV its Spanish acronym) and the UGT Socialist union, watched a video in which the historical terrorist of ETA Josu Ternera read the statement of dissolution of the band. Then they spoke and everyone avoided referring to ETA as a terrorist organization and calling terrorism the ETA violence, and they asked for a solution to the problem of imprisoned terrorists. They affirmed that it is the Spanish Government that has to take steps in the direction of dialogue with the band because “ETA has done everything that has been said to it.“ Only the representative of the Basque nationalists got out of the script and asked the band “what has served“ the armed struggle.

“As a result of the strategic change of the entire Abertzale Left, ETA has completed the process initiated in 2010,“ the terrorist organization says in the letter it made public on Thursday. The Basque Country, he adds, now has the opportunity to achieve independence through peaceful means. However, neither the Spanish Government nor the French nor the associations of victims of terrorism share the vision of ETA. They accuse the terrorist organization of justifying their armed struggle and not repenting of the damage caused. France recalled on Thursday that ETA must surrender all its weapons and reveal the hiding places where it keeps weapons and explosives.

The Spanish Government went further and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, in a public appearance before the press, warned that ETA terrorists should be tried and pay for their crimes. “There has not been before and there will be no impunity in the future“ for the terrorists, or concessions. Rajoy said the dissolution of ETA is a reflection of his defeat and the demonstration that law and democracy have won.