Since this group has made it plain that they have no problem with mass murder...I would like to know who they are and what their aims are?
Basques are a group in NOrthern Spain around the two principal cities of Pamplona and San Sebastian. They speak "Basque" a language older than Spanish or perhaps even Latin. They have wanted independence for hundreds of years. From my one trip there, they do want some sort of independence, but it is only the extremist group the ETA or perhaps some of their followers who want civil war and violence to accomplish this. Most of the Basques seem to be for independence like the French Canadians are for a separate country. Complicating matters is that the Basque area and also Catalonia around Barcelona, which also has its own language and wants to have some sort of independence, are naturally richer than the Madrid area and most of the rest of Spain.
ETA and the Basque separatist movement have always been sort of been really enigmatic. I just don't really understand where they're coming from. I spent a decent amount of time traveling in the Basque country of both France & Spain back in the 90's so I learned a little about it. Basques are sort of an anthropological mystery, you know, apparently they and their languaage are descended from very, very early indo-european origins. Anyway, unlike other revolutionary/minority groups, Basques aren't really ghettoized or oppressed, or even segregated or discriminmated against. The average person like me could not tell the difference between a Castilian spaniard and a basque spaniard just by looking at them, and while they have a different language, there are very few, if any, basques who don't speak Castilian also, so that's not a problem. They are allowed to teach Basque in school and such, and have a limited degree of autonomous self government. They're catholic, so there's no religious issue that i'm aware of. Also, Basques aren't living in squalor in ghettos or bombed out industrial areas like Belfast or Bosnia, the Basque Country, IMO, is among the most beautiful in all of Western Europe, it's a lot like Northern Californa with the mountains and the sea. The capital of the Basque government is in San Sebastian, which is a fabulous seaside resort town in Northern Spain and one of my favorite spots in all of europe. I just don't understand how or why they can be so violent? If I had to think of an ethno-linguistic analog to the Basques, I would probably say they should be akin to the Welsh. Thnk of it, the Welsh also have their own ancient consonant laden language that they are trying to preserve and a degree of self-rule, yet they don't run around bombing trains and assassinating people. I think a lot of the cultrure of violence sort of stems from Spain's bloody history, starting way back with the Reconquista and especially stemming from the brutal treatment by Franco of the Basques. They fought with the loyalists during the Civil war (the bombing of Guernica by the Nazis at Franco's behest killed thousands of Basques) and were suppressed by Franco afterwards. I don't think they were ever able to let that go, violence begets more violence, and then hundreds of people get blown up on their way to work.
From AllRefer.com ____________________ Basques[basks] Pronunciation Key, people of N Spain and SW France. There are about 2 million Basques in the three Basque provs. and Navarre, Spain; some 250,000 in Labourd, Soule, and Lower Navarre, France; and communities of various sizes in Central and South America and other parts of the world. Many preserve their ancient language, which is unrelated to any other tongue. They have guarded their ancient customs and traditions, although they have played a prominent role in the history of Spain and France. The origin of the Basques, almost certainly the oldest surviving ethnic group in Europe, has not yet been determined, but they antedate the ancient Iberian tribes of Spain, with which they have been erroneously identified. Genetically and culturally, the Basque population has been relatively isolated and distinct, perhaps since Paleolithic times. Primarily free peasants, shepherds, fishermen, navigators, miners, and metalworkers, the Basques have also produced such figures as St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, and Francisco de Vitoria. Before Roman times, the Basque tribes, little organized politically, extended farther to the north and south than at present. But the core of the Basque country resisted Romanization and was only nominally subject to Roman rule. Christianity was slow in penetrating (3d–5th cent.). Once converted, the Basques remained fervent Roman Catholics, but they have retained a certain tradition of independence from the hierarchies of Spain and France. The Basques withstood domination by the Visigoths and Franks. Late in the 6th cent. they took advantage of the anarchy prevailing in the Frankish kingdom and expanded northward, occupying present-day Gascony (Lat. Vasconia), to which they gave their name. The duchy of Vasconia, formed in 601 and chronically at war with the Franks, Visigoths, and Moors, was closely associated with, and at times dominated by, Aquitaine. In 778 the Basques, who had just been reduced to nominal vassalage by Charlemagne, destroyed the Frankish rear guard at Roncesvalles, but they subsequently recognized Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, as their suzerain. The duchy of Gascony continued, but the Basques early in the 9th cent. concentrated in their present habitat and in 824 founded, at Pamplona, the kingdom of Navarre, which under Sancho III (1000–1035) united almost all the Basques. Although Castile acquired GuipUzcoa (1200), Alava (1332), and Vizcaya (1370), the Castilian kings recognized the wide democratic rights enjoyed by the Basques. Guernica was the traditional location of Basque assemblies. With the conquest (1512) of Navarre by Ferdinand the Catholic, the Basques lost their last independent stronghold. After the 16th cent., Basque prosperity declined and emigration became common, especially in the 19th cent. Basque privileges remained in force under the Spanish monarchy, but in 1873 they were abolished because of the Basques' pro-Carlist stand in the Carlist Wars. To regain autonomy, the Basques supported nearly every political movement directed against the central authority. In the civil war of 1936–39, the Basque provs., not including Navarre, defended the republican government, under which they had autonomous status; the Basques of Navarre supported the Franco forces. The Franco government, once in power, for the most part discouraged Basque political and cultural autonomy, but Basque nationalism retained its appeal to the Basques, and they continued to wage their fight for self-determination. Following Spain's return to democracy, limited autonomy was granted to the region, and in 1980 the first Basque parliament was elected. Nonetheless, terrorist activities by the Basque separatist organization, Basque Homeland and Freedom (Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna; ETA), which had begun in 1968, continued, ultimately killing about 800 people by the end of the 1990s, many of them police officers and soldiers. From 1983 to 1987 a secret government-sponsored death squad killed 27 and wounded about 30, most members of the ETA. Basque nationalism, often involving unrest and violence by and against the ETA, has continued, but Basque terrorists and a separatist party lost some popular support in the 1990s. In 1996, Spanish and French officials agreed on joint measures to crack down on the terrorist group; a cease-fire (1998–99) by the ETA failed to lead to a peace accord. In 2001, Basque nationalist candidates won more than 50% of the vote in the regional parliamentary elections, but only about 10% supported the party aligned with the ETA. In 2002 that political party, then called Batasuna, was accused of collaborating with the ETA and suspended for three years; it was permanently banned the following year. There is also strong support among French Basques for political automony.
I forgot tomention that there is a Basque neighborhood with some really good restaurants in, of all places, Boise.
This is an anomaly in the Basque Seperatist Movement. They generally make a call ahead of a bombing in order to let people get out of the way. When they do a targeted killing of a Spanish general and the like, they probably don't phone first, but there isn't significant collateral casualties. There were a reported 13 bombs used here. It doesn't compute as an ETA operation, unless they have completely changed how they do things. Very strange. My gut feeling is that it wasn't them, but another organization who took advantage of the fact that all the heat would fall on the ETA.
Yeah, Ketchum, Idaho, where Hemingway hung out all the time and eventually shot hiimself, is like the Basque/Euskal capital of the US, which makes sense since he wrote about them a good deal. If you ever go to Northern Spain and to Idaho, you'd see why. The foothills & mountains of the Pyrennees are very similar, terrain wise, to Idaho. Accordingly I think they do a lot of sheep & goat herding in both places as well.
from billmon.org __________________ Spanish Lesson In addition to being a hellish human tragedy, today's massive terrorist bombing in Madrid was also a grim reminder of how the political landscape can be transformed in an instant -- drowning even the most modest progressive hopes in a river of blood. As it happens, the attack comes just 72 hours before Spain is to go to the polls to choose its next parliament. Until today, the left-wing Socialist opposition had appeared to have at least a chance of denying the right-wing Popular Party (heirs to the old Francoist establishment) an outright majority in the Cortes. Somewhat ironically, under the circumstances, PP candidates had been reduced to comparing the election to the 1933 vote that brought Hitler to power in an effort to boost what it feared would be a low turnout among the party's supporters -- due at least in part to outgoing Prime Minister Aznar's decision to stick a boot into the Iraq quagmire. True to its Francoist roots, the PP also has been pursuing a policy of anti-terrorist repression in the Basque country that makes John Ashcroft and Dick Cheney look like a couple of bleeding-heart liberals by comparison. Opposition parties have been banned (and their leaders thrown in jail), pro-independence newspapers and a Basque-language radio station have been shut down, and hundreds of alleged members of the ETA -- the main Basque separatist terror group -- have been taken into "administrative" custody. Pleased by the apparent success of this campaign, Aznar earlier this year declared the ETA all but finished. And like our home-grown conservative authoritarians here in America, the PP has been politically flogging its anti-terrorist "success" for all it is worth. The Socialists also take a hard line against terrorism (back in the '80s, a Socialist Prime Minister created a British-style anti-terrorist hit squad to assassinate suspected ETA leaders.) But they've also been willing to discuss constitutional changes that would give the Basque country (and Catalonia, the other major region with separatist ambitions) more autonomy within Spain's federal structure. For this, of course, the Socialists have been roundly demagogued by the conservatives -- particularly after allegations surfaced that one of the party's Catalan alllies has slipped across border into France to negotiate a local cease fire with the ETA. And now this atrocity happens -- just three days before the election. Logically, you'd think the voters would hold the PP accountable both for false promises and the failure of its hard-line policies. But of course, we all know that's not how things work. Buoyed on a tide of emotional outrage, the PP can probably look forward to a massive election victory, and a solid majority in the parliament. If all this reminds you of the electoral dynamics of terrorism in another large industrialized democracy, it probably should. Dick Morris has already described the key elements of the politics of permanent war -- and how they might be applied in the United States. Now they're going to be field tested in Spain. The paranoid will no doubt leap -- if they haven't already -- to the Reichstag fire analogy (even though to this day it's not clear whether the fire, and the judicial coup that followed, were a deliberate provocation or just a brilliant piece of political improvisation on Hitler's part.) Let's face it: One of the creepiest things about the post-9/11 environment is the way it's made a whole raft of conspiracy theories harder to dismiss out of hand. But if you really think the Popular Party staged the Madrid bombing for its own political benefit -- and that the Bush crew is planning something similar here -- then you might as well head for the hills now. There is no hope. The rest of us, though, are just going to have keep plugging away, in hopes that here in America the terrorists can be thwarted between now and November, and that a viable progressive approach to anti-terrorist policy can be found -- one that avoids authoritarian (and ineffectual) police-state tactics, but also prevents the kind of bloody mayhem we saw today.
Yeah, the right before the election part, with a government unpopular for the war in Iraq, was particularly strange.
Breaking News without much info via CNN... ____________ Spain's interior minister said authorities are investigating a van found with eight detonators and an Arabic tape with Koranic teachings to determine if it is related to the bombings on commuter trains in Madrid that killed at least 190 people. The Interior Ministry said the Spanish terror group ETA remains the prime suspect.
This is so odd. It could be ETA making it look like it was Islamists? or Islamists making it look like ETA? Really weird, with the spanish govt sponsoring an unpopular war vs. Iraq and a popular one vs. ETA with the elections coming up.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,113970,00.html Thursday, March 11, 2004 MADRID, Spain — Al Qaeda (search) has reportedly claimed responsibilty for a series of bombings Thursday that left at least 190 people dead and 1,240 wounded. According to wire reports, Al-Quds Al-Arabi — a London-based Arabic newspaper — reported the terrorist organization said it was behind the the 10 bombs that rocked three Madrid train stations during the height of the morning rush hour.
Reuters beats fox: DUBAI (Reuters) - A letter purporting to come from Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the train bombings in Spain on Thursday, calling them strikes against "crusaders," a London-based Arabic newspaper said. Reuters Photo "We have succeeded in infiltrating the heart of crusader Europe and struck one of the bases of the crusader alliance," said the letter which called the attacks "Operation Death Trains." There was no way of authenticating the letter, a copy of which was faxed to Reuters' office in Dubai by the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. The letter bore the signature "Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades." The newspaper received similar letters from the same brigade claiming responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda for a November bombing of two synagogues in Turkey and the August bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.
yeah...you struck the heart...you blew up a freaking train, you freak. you killed civilians...little kids. great way to change policy, jackass. seriously...is misguided too much of an understatement? i can not imagine living my life with the kind of hate this guy must walk around with everyday. that's absolutely pitiful.
