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ETA did not outlive its founders

2021-04-11T03:57:04.204Z


The late Julen Madariaga went to the Aralar 'abertzale' party, but other members moved away from politics


On the occasion of the death of Julen Madariaga, a key figure in the founding of ETA and in its commitment to violence, Patxi Zabaleta, creator of Aralar ―the

Abertzale

party

splintered from Batasuna after the breaking of the ETA truce of 1998-99― has recalled that Aralar, born in 2001, welcomed the founders of ETA.

It happened with Madariaga and José Luis Álvarez Emparanza,

Txillardegi

.

The rest were either dead or disabled.

Aralar, a party critical of terrorism, collected part of the vote of the pro-independence left during the outlawing of Batasuna.

After the end of terrorism and the legalization of the old Batasuna in 2011, converted into Sortu, Aralar joined her and Eusko Alkartasuna to found Bildu.

Zabaleta concludes that Aralar and today Bildu, by welcoming Madariaga and Txillardegi, close the cycle that the founders of ETA began in 1959.

Zabaleta's thesis is valid for the founders of ETA.

But it cannot be generalized to all veterans of the terrorist organization because before Franco died, the founders of ETA were displaced by new generations in chains.

Many veterans withdrew from ETA as Basque democracy and self-government consolidated and the terrorist organization declined.

The practice of terrorism screeched in a democracy.

But some left before others.

The best known exception is Josu Urrutikoetxea,

Veal

, who joined ETA immediately after Madariaga, in the late sixties;

spent decades in its direction and proclaimed its dissolution in 2018.

Madariaga played a key role in founding ETA in 1959 and in fueling violence in its 1966-67 Fifth Assembly.

A decision that led to its first victims in 1968: the civil guard José Pardines and the ETA leader Xabi Etxebarrieta.

He continued with the head of the San Sebastián political-social brigade, Melitón Manzanas, and the Burgos trial of 1970 that tried that ETA, but not Madariaga, who went into exile.

Madariaga did not have a leading role in the 1970 Burgos military trial that ETA popularized on an international scale.

The 16 courts had it, especially the six to whom the Franco dictatorship requested the death penalty.

Madariaga, a veteran radical nationalist, also had ideological discrepancies with the courts, most of them young people influenced by May 68.

Their differences became clearer after Franco's death, the emergence of democracy and the amnesty.

Only three of the sixteen prosecuted in Burgos bet on Herri Batasuna and one returned to ETA politico-military.

The rest supported Euskadiko Ezkerra, left-wing state parties or withdrew.

Two of the ETA members sentenced to death in Burgos, Mario Onaindia and Eduardo Uriarte, were decisive, from Euskadiko Ezkerra, in getting the political-military ETA to dissolve in 1982. It was the expression that democracy and Basque autonomy were beginning to take hold. Euskadi.

Madariaga and Txillardegi, founders of ETA, chose Herri Batasuna, but they did not play a relevant role.

Nor in the military ETA, the ETA branch that maintained the terrorism in democracy led by José Miguel Beñarán

Argala

, Txomin Iturbe - who died in 1978 and 1987 - and Josu Ternera.

Madariaga has acknowledged that the car bomb attacks, which generated massacres, such as the Hipercor in Barcelona and the Zaragoza Civil Guard barracks in 1987, distanced him from ETA.

These massacres and the failure of the Algiers talks between the Government of Felipe González and ETA in 1989 caused serious discrepancies in ETA and its surroundings.

Joseba Urrusolo, a veteran leader of ETA after Madariaga, fixed the decline of ETA at that time.

As a militant, he perceived that his support was diminishing.

He soon left ETA.

For similar reasons, Herri Batasuna suffered a serious crisis with the expulsion of veteran Txomin Ziluaga and his followers.

Earlier, in 1986, dozens of former ETA militants during the Franco regime publicly criticized the ETA leadership for the murder of former dissident leader Dolores González

Yoyes

.

The next milestone that alienated ETA veterans occurred with the strategy of socialization of suffering, the generalization of terrorism against politicians and dissidents of

abertzalismo

, after the arrest of the ETA leadership in Bidart in 1992. The murders of the councilors of the PP, Gregorio Ordóñez and Miguel Ángel Blanco, motivated an ETA leader from the stage of the car bombs, José Luis Álvarez Santacristina,

Txelis

, to leave ETA and condemn the violence on ethical grounds.

Another, Francisco Múgica,

Pakito

, was expelled for criticizing his strategy as wrong.

Madariaga left Herri Batasuna for not condemning the attacks.

Aralar emerged from that crisis and counted on Madariaga.

The last milestone was the dissidence of the Batasuna leadership, led by Arnaldo Otegi, with a weakened and divided ETA after the breaking of the 2006 ETA truce. It demanded an end to terrorism from ETA.

It took him five years to do it.

Meanwhile, three dozen dissident veterans, some relevant ―Urrusolo, Carmen Guisasola, Iñaki Pikabea ...― organized the Nanclares road from prison, with ethical self-criticism for their participation in ETA.

Madariaga supported, from the outside, ETA's unilateral decision to abandon terrorism in which he coincided with Josu Ternera, who led, from within, its end, and with whom he had confronted in the eighties.

Josu Ternera was the most important veteran leader of ETA who, unlike the majority who were dissociating themselves, defended the validity of terrorism until the negotiation with the Zapatero government in 2005-06.

He proclaimed the end of terrorism in 2011 and the dissolution of ETA in 2018.

Many others did it before.

Some, after Franco died, like Onaindia.

Others, in the eighties, like Madariaga, or in the nineties, like Urrusolo and Txelis.

Some, like Onaindia and those from Nanclares, concluded that political violence is unjustifiable.

One conclusion, that of the abandonment of the armed struggle, reached in 1956 by the PCE, the main opponent of the Franco dictatorship.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-04-11

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