In October 2011, Spain was also experiencing an electoral autumn. The campaign bets, rallies, and political programs marked the agenda. The economic crisis occupied a good part of the conversations; however, there was one issue that ended up monopolizing the chatter: the end of ETA. That was the news that everyone wanted to share and of which this week marks 15 years.
The announcement of the definitive cessation of violence, the end of the use of weapons that had taken the lives of more than 800 people for decades, came on October 20. That day, Patxi López, then Lehendakari, discovered that one could cry and laugh at the same time.
The news was received with satisfaction, but the process that led to it was also accompanied by harsh confrontations between the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and the PP. The negotiations, the forms, and the possible counteroffers are still in question today, as DEMÓCRATA reminds popular Edurne Uriarte.
Shared Youth
Patxi López (PSOE) and Edurne Uriarte (PP) were born just a year apart, in 1959 and 1960, respectively. Both grew up in a Basque Country marked by ETA's violence, developed much of their political trajectories under the terrorist threat, and became targets of the group. Fifteen years after the announcement of the definitive cessation of armed activity, they recall for this medium how they lived through those years and the end of the violence.
López places his first conscious memories of ETA in the murders committed during the early years of democracy. At that time, he was a member of the Socialist Youth of Euskadi and attended "almost alone" the funerals of members of the State Security Forces and Corps. "Many of the agents murdered came from families in Andalusia or Extremadura," points out the current spokesperson for the Socialist Group. "This is the indelible memory I have as a young person of the terrorist group," he recounts.
Uriarte also saw how terrorist violence conditioned her personal and political trajectory. The former PP deputy, who had participated in the anti-Franco movement during her youth linked to socialism, ended up getting involved in the civic mobilization against ETA, first as a founder of the Ermua Forum and later through Basta Ya. "In this ideological evolution, the experience of seeing what ETA was was very important," she explains.
Direct Targets
The terrorist threat became a reality for both. Uriarte survived an assassination attempt in 2000 after the timer of a bomb failed. He already had protection because months earlier he had been informed that he was among ETA's targets. "All of us who raised our voices and joined that anti-terrorist social movement knew that we could be victims of an attack at any moment," he recalls.
López was also the target of an assassination attempt in 2010, when he was leading the Basque Government. That is why October 20, 2011 is marked in red in his memory. López, then lehendakari, remembers that day as a mix of joy and pain. "That day I realized that you could cry and laugh at the same time," he asserts. "I cried a lot for all the people we had left behind murdered by this terrorist gang. And at the same time I laughed with happiness hugging my wife, Begoña." It was, in his words, the "'never again' for which we had fought for so long."
For Uriarte, the end of ETA was the result of the strength of the rule of law, citizen mobilization, and the progressive loss of support for the terrorist organization, especially in the Basque Country. However, the former Popular Party deputy continues to question the negotiations of the Zapatero Government and the concessions that, in her opinion, accompanied the process. "What I regret is that the terrorists received compensation after years of persecution and murders," she states.
The political return of the left abertzale
The announcement of the definitive cessation of ETA's armed activity came on October 20, 2011, exactly one month before the general elections. In that electoral event, the left abertzale aspired to return to the Cortes Generales after more than a decade without representation. They did so through Amaiur, a coalition made up of Aralar, Eusko Alkartasuna, Alternatiba, and representatives of the left abertzale, which sought to bring the voice of Basque independence to Madrid.
Their return occurred after years of illegalizations and judicial restrictions. In 2003, the Supreme Court had agreed to the illegalization of Herri Batasuna, Euskal Herritarrok, and Batasuna considering their link to ETA to be proven, in application of the Political Parties Law.
On that November 20, 2011, the ballots granted an absolute majority to Mariano Rajoy (PP), but also confirmed the return of the left abertzale to the Carrera de San Jerónimo. Amaiur achieved seven deputies, six from the Basque Country and one from Navarra. The result opened a new stage for the institutional representation of Basque independence, which would later be articulated around EH Bildu.
With the passing of the years, EH Bildu went from being a politically isolated force by a good part of the state parties to becoming the main partner of the governments of Pedro Sánchez and to fully integrate into the institutional game.