Basque government leader confirms ETA disarmament move

By Alyssa McMurtry

MADRID

The Basque terror group ETA, which killed hundreds of people in a decades-long campaign for an independent state in Spain, will disarm, according to the head of the Basque autonomous government on Friday.

Inigo Urkullu, a member of the moderate Basque Nationalist Party, said the decision was initially taken on Wednesday.

“We ask for communication and seriousness from the Spanish and French governments. The objective would be a historic act that we have been waiting for, for many years,” Urkullu told a news conference.

Friday’s verification comes after Jean-Noel Etcheverry, a French Basque activist who was arrested in a December police raid, told Le Monde newspaper ETA would hand over all of its weapons by April 8.

ETA had been active mostly in Spain but also in France. The group is reported to have very few members left and has not committed any known violence since it signed a cease-fire agreement in 2011.

Since the cease-fire, the group has received several major blows. Its leader was arrested in November 2016 and several important weapons stashes have been seized in recent years.

Although several high-profile politicians expressed hopes for full disarmament, the group has been known to reverse its decisions.

An indefinite cease-fire was called in 1998 but later broke down. A permanent cease-fire was called in 2006, but nine months later an ETA bomb killed two men at Madrid’s airport.

“We hope that this time it will be a total and integral disarmament,” said Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the Basque EH-Bildu coalition.

Otegi was released from prison in 2016 after serving six years for trying to revive a political party linked to ETA.

Spain's government is also hopeful but demanded more than disarmament.

“The position of the government since December of 2011 is that ETA has to do two things: disarm and dissolve.

“The government hasn’t varied even a centimeter in its position in the last six years,” Education Minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo told a news conference.