What is ETA?

ETA is one of the oldest terrorist organisation in the world, which was formed in
1959. ETA is a leftist group that conducts terrorist attacks to win independence for a
Basque state in northern Spain and southwestern France. ETA stands for Euskadi ta
Askatasuna, which means "Basque Fatherland and Liberty" in the Basque language.
Francisco Franco's suppression of the Basque language and culture.
More moderate Basque nationalist organizations,
including the Basque Nationalist Party, the Partido
Nacionalista Vasco, were denounced as collaborators
by ETA, which evolved by the 1960s into a
revolutionary Marxist group. In 2003, the Spanish
Supreme Court banned the Batasuna political party,
which was considered the political arm of ETA,
and successive efforts by Spanish governments to
negotiate with ETA have failed.






Who are the Basques?

The Basques are a culturally distinct Christian
group that straddles the mountainous region
between modern-day Spain and France.
According to a census from 2001, there are between 2 million and 3 million people
living in Spain's Basque regions. The Basques have never had their own independent
state, but have enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy over the centuries under Spanish
and French rule.
About half of the residents of the three Spanish Basque provincesVizcaya,
Guipuzco, and Alavaspeak fluent Basque or understand some of the language.
Basque nationalists include other areas with smaller Basque-speaking minorities
including the Spanish province of Navarre and the French departments of Labourd,
Basse-Navarra, and Soulein their vision of a Basque homeland.



Who and what does ETA target?
Many of ETA's victims are government officials. The group's first known victim was
a police chief who was killed in 1968. In 1973, ETA operatives killed Franco's apparent
successor, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, by planting an underground bomb below his
habitual parking spot outside a Madrid church. In 1995, an ETA car bomb almost
killed Jose Maria Aznar, then the leader of the conservative Popular Party, who later
served as Spain's prime minister. The same year, investigators disrupted a plot to
assassinate King Juan Carlos. More recently, in March 2008, ETA killed a former city
councilman in northern Spain two days before an election.
The Spanish government estimates that ETA has killed over 800 people and carried
out over 1,600 terrorist attacks. Some of ETA's victims are civilians, though the group
usually phones in warning of their attacks before the attacks occur.
ETA has consistently targeted Spain's tourist attractions, most recently by
bombing buses along Spain's tourist-packed Costa del Sol. According to a report from
the newspaper El Pas, attacks by ETA cost the Spanish government nearly $11 billion
from 1994 to 2003.






Structure.

ETA has changed its internal structure on several occasions, commonly for security reasons.
The group used to have a very hierarchical organization with a leading figure at the top,
delegating into three substructures: the logistical, military and political sections. Reports from
Spanish and French police point towards significant changes in ETA's structures in recent years.
ETA has divided the three substructures into a total of eleven. The change was a response to
recent captures, and possible infiltration, by the different law enforcement agencies. ETA's
intention is to disperse its members and reduce the impact of detentions.
The leading committee is formed by 7 to 11 individuals, and ETA's internal documentation
refers to it as Zuba, an abbreviation of Zuzendaritza Batzordea (directorial committee). There is
another committee named Zuba-hitu that functions as an advisory committee. The eleven
different substructures are: logistics, politics, international relations with fraternal
organisations, military operations, reserves, prisoner support, expropriation, information,
recruitment, negotiation, and treasury.
ETA's armed operations are organized in different taldes ("groups") or commandos, generally
composed of three to five members, whose objective is to conduct attacks in a specific
geographic zone. The taldes are coordinated by the cpula militar ("military cupola"). To supply
the taldes, support groups maintain safe houses and zulos (small rooms concealed in forests,
garrets or underground, used to store arms, explosives or, sometimes, kidnapped people; the
Basque word zulo literally means "hole"). The small cellars used to hide the people kidnapped
are named by ETA and ETA's supporters "people's jails". Currently the most common
commandos are itinerant, not linked to any specific area, and thus are more difficult to capture.


Has ETA carried out attacks since the 9/11 attacks?
Yes. Since 9/11, ETA has been implicated in dozens of attacks, though many of
them were minor and caused no injuries. Most of the attacks were preceded by a
warning call, allowing people to evacuate before the explosion. Some experts say
that ETA has been quieter than usual since 9/11 because of successful law
enforcement measures.
Soon after 9/11, ETA set off car bombs in Vitoria and Madrid, injuring one hundred
people but missing the government official targeted in the attacks. In March 2002,
Spanish officials defused a bomb in the Bilbao Stock Exchange after receiving a tip
under the name of ETA. Two months later, ETA took responsibility for two bombs that
exploded outside the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium of Real Madrid, injuring seventeen
people.
In December 2003, the Spanish police said they foiled an ETA plot to detonate two
bombs in a Madrid train station. The detained ETA members reportedly told Spanish
officials they had placed two additional bombs beneath railway lines in Aragn, one
of which blew up a day early but injured nobody. For the next three years, ETA kept
the conflict at a constant simmer, frequently bombing tourist and police targets but
causing few injuries.


The '3/11' Attacks.
In March 2004, on the eve of the Spanish national election, bombs planted on
commuter trains in the Spanish capital killed two-hundred people and injured
hundreds of others. Aznar's conservative government, which had taken criticism for
sending Spanish troops to Iraq as part of the American-led invasion, quickly blamed
ETA for the bombings. When it quickly emerged that al-Qaeda, in fact, was behind the
attacks, support for the government plummeted. Aznar's conservative Popular Party
lost power to a government which, having argued that Spain's participation in the Iraq
War would cause it to be targeted by al-Qaeda, quickly withdrew those forces.
Within two years, talks between the new Socialist government and ETA led the
group to announce a "permanent cease-fire" and pledge negotiations modeled on the
Good Friday process which brought peace to Northern Ireland. The violence seemed
to ebb. But in December 2006, ETA burst back into the spotlight when it set off a car
bomb in a parking area at a new airport terminal in Madrid, killing two and injuring
nineteen. This was the first lethal attack from the group in over three years. By June
2007, ETA had formally withdrawn from its cease-fire.
The following month, ETA was blamed for a large explosion that occurred outside a
police barracks in the Basque country town of Durango. Since then, ETA has continued
to conduct frequent, low-intensity bombings in Spain.

Have there been recent efforts to draw ETA into the political process?
Yes. In June 2005 the Spanish Parliament voted to restart talks if ETA disarmed; the
group said it was willing to talk but not to disarm. More than 250,000 people
demonstrated before the vote, urging the government against negotiating with ETA.
In March 2006, ETA announced a "permanent cease-fire" to take effect March 24.
In a statement delivered though the Basque media, ETA explained: "The object of this
decision is to drive the democratic process." The group also called on all Basque
citizens to participate in the political process in order to construct "a peace built on
justice." In a reversal of his earlier position, Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero agreed to begin negotiations with ETA despite the group's continued refusal
to disarm. Spain's conservative opposition party, the Popular Party, withdrew its
support for peace talks, and demonstrators gathered in Madrid in June 2006 to
protest the negotiations.
In December 2006, however, a car bomb leveled a parking garage at Madrid's
international airport, killing two men. A phone call to authorities in advance of the
attack acknowledged ETA's responsibility for the bombing. In June 2007, ETA
announced an end to the cease-fire amid reports that the group was planning attacks
for later in the summer. Sporadic attacks did occur throughout the following year.
Though ETA's strength has waned over the years, experts warn the separatists can still
prove disruptive and lethal.

Does ETA have ties to al-Qaeda?
No. ETA's secular nationalist agenda has nothing to do with the Islamist
fundamentalism of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, and experts say there is no
credible evidence of any systematic cooperation between ETA and al-Qaeda.
Al-Qaeda cells have been discovered in Spain, however.
In November 2001, Spanish authorities arrested eight men suspected of being al-
Qaeda operatives involved in the September 11 attacks. One of these men reportedly
had past links with ETA's unofficial political wing, Batasuna, which the Spanish
Supreme Court banned in March 2003.
In September 2003, Spanish judge
Baltasar Garzon said the September
11 attacks were partially planned
in Spain.






Cotelea Tatiana

Group 203, IR.