Batasuna

Template:Politics of Spain Batasuna (Unity) is a Basque political party based mainly in Spain but with a French presence, which is presumed to be associated with the Basque separatist armed group ETA. It has been banned in Spain since 2003, ostensibly for failing to condemn the atrocities of ETA, but is not illegal in France.

Contents

1 History and outline

2 Declaration of illegality by the Spanish state

3 See also

4 External links

History and outline

The party was founded in 1978 as Herri Batasuna (People Unity), a coalition of leftist nationalist political groups following the Basque region's rejection of the new Spanish constitution.

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Herri Batasuna's logo

It is part of the Basque National Liberation Movement which includes social organizations, trade unions, youth (Jarrai and Gazteriak, now merged in Haika and Segi), and women's groups (Egizan). It had around 200,000 voters and won 10% of the vote in the 2001 regional elections after boycotting the 2000 general election. Batasuna had representatives in the European Parliament and in the parliaments of Navarre and the provinces of the Basque autonomous community. It also ruled some local councils, and had members in many more. Currently, Batasuna still has lost all its representations in the Spanish Parliaments, since renewing their composition in elections held after the banning of the party.

In 1986, the administration of Felipe González organised a referendum to keep Spain inside the NATO. Electoral rules were to count only votes in Spanish, while votes in other languages would count as null and void. Herri Batasuna resented that rule, which it considered a trap to prevent Basque nationalists from influencing the election, and called on its supporters to vote No in Spanish. When the Spanish administration changed the rules so as to count votes also in the other languages of Spain, Herri Batasuna called to vote in Basque. The vote in the referendum was to keep Spain in NATO, but the mahority of voters in the Basque Autonomous Community stood strongly against it.

The current party speakers are Arnaldo Otegi and Joseba Permach. Otegi was a member of the armed groups ETA-political-military (since 1977 or before, until 1981), and ETA-military (since 1981).

Another important member of Batasuna is Jose Antonio Urrutikoetxea, alias Josu Ternera, main leader of ETA between 1987 and 1989, and accused of a number of homicides like the massacre of 21 people at Hipercor (shopping center in Barcelona). He was imprisoned in France after 1989, released after finishing his condemned term and was transferred to Spanish prisons, where he stayed for 2 more years until his liberation by the Constitutional Court, which stipulated that he had served his prison term in France. He was elected to the Basque parliament between 1999 and 2001, but lives in hiding because the Spanish courts have decided to reopen his charges. The charges were brought back after renewed efforts in the pursuit of Basque independentists by Aznar's government after the attacks of September 11th.

Declaration of illegality by the Spanish state

The party denies any links to ETA. There have been a number of attempts to ban the party, and it has frequently changed its name as part of the effort to avoid this, being called Herri Batasuna, then becoming part of the Euskal Herritarrok coalition in the 1990s.

In 2002 there were renewed attempts by the Spanish government to ban the party. In June the parliament passed legislation that illegalised parties under certain conditions, on the ground of their support to terrorism. In July Batasuna was fined € 24 million for vandalism and street violence in 2001. Following a ETA car bomb attack on August 4 the Spanish parliament was recalled. The party was suspended for three years by Judge Baltasar Garzón on August 27 to allow him to investigate the party links to ETA. The ban refuses their representatives in elections, to hold public demonstrations or rallies and freezes their assets. On the 26th the Spanish parliament voted for an indefinite ban, 295 to 10. The party's main offices in Pamplona were closed by the police and further offices in San Sebastian, Bilbao and Vitoria were targeted.

Before the illegalization effort, a dissenting minority left the party to form Aralar. Aralar is against armed fight under the current circumstances of the Basque Country.

In 2003, Batasuna was declared illegal in Spain, after a reform of the law on political parties. In spite of legal text forbidding its reorganization under another name, former members planned running for the provincial and local elections of May 2003, under the names of Autodeterminaziorako Bilgunea (AuB, Meeting Place for Self-determination) and a plethora of local lists. Most of these lists were considered a disguise for Batasuna by the Spanish Supreme Court. This decision was confirmed by the Spanish Constitution Court in a rushed verdict. In spite of this, AuB campaigned for invalid votes.

After the election, followers of the local lists protested claiming the council seats corresponding to the invalid votes (127.000, a 10% of the total vote in the Basque Country).

In May 2003, Batasuna went into the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. In June, into the European one. In spite of this, Batasuna is today a legal party in France, and most Spanish leaders of Batasuna are free and offer their statements to press.

In May 2004, a list named Herritarren Zerrenda (Citizens' List) was presented in Spain and France to the European Parliament Election, 2004. Spanish tribunals rejected it, as a successor of Batasuna. However, the HZ list in France remained legal. HZ candidates in Spain then campaigned for using the French HZ ballot also in Spain, which was to be counted as null vote. There were more than 98,000 null votes in the Basque Autonomous Country and more than 15,000 in Navarre. Because of the high abstention, that was just 12% of the total votes. HZ leaders interpret that, since in the previous European elections the null vote was less than 1%, most of the nulls were for HZ.

On 14 November 2004, during a mass meeting in San Sebastian (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4010625.stm) the party leader Arnaldo Otegi asked for an end to the armed conflict in the region, which has been continuing for decades.

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Distribution of 'yes' votes by province in the Spanish referendum. The Basque Country & Navarre and Catalonia were comparatively less supporting of 'yes'

Batasuna called to vote No to the European Constitution proposal in the referenda to be held in Spain and in France in 2005.

For the Basque elections of 2005, Batasuna presented lists of candidates but they were dismissed as illegal. After the disassembling of the Basque parliament, Batasuna lost all their remaining elected representatives. Simultaneously, lists were presented by the new elector group Aukera Guztiak ("All the options"). The Spanish prosecutors, and the parties PP and PSOE contended that Aukera Guztiak was actually another front for Batasuna and tried to find evidence leading to its illegalization. The Basque Government and the Batasuna speakers protested these attempts. The issue went all the way to the Spanish Constitutional Court that confirmed the ruling of the Spanish Supreme Court, forbidding the AG lists.

Once the campaign had started, an unknown party named Communist Party of the Basque Territories (Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas - Euskal Herrialdeetako Alderdi Komunista) announced that they were ready to bring the programs of Batasuna and AG to the parliament. The party had been legally registered in 2002 but had no activity until now. Like those parties, representatives of EHAK-PCTV have refused to explicitly condemn the ETA attacks. The People's Party requested that the Spanish government conducts investigations to ban EHAK-PCTV too, though the State Legal Service (Abogacía General del Estado) and the Attorney General's Office (Fiscalía General del Estado) found no evidence to support legal actions against the party. Batasuna asked its supporters to vote for EHAK-PCTV.

In the Basque elections of April 17, 2005, EHAK-PCTV obtained 150.188 votes (12,5%), entering the Basque Parliament with nine seats. Aralar obtained one.