Talk:ETA

Anonymous comments 03:48, Jul 30, 2002

Put your text for the new page here.

-- Manuel Freire

I have been compelled to correct a couple of non-verifiable statements in the previous version (there is no proof that Government forces routinely assasinate and deport terrorists, as the last version seemed to imply) I have also included links to several related sites (all previous links looked at things from the vasque separatist point of view, Batasuna's 10%): - Amnesty International (should be a good source to find who is violating what) - Gesto por la paz (vasque organization working towards peace) - an article I found that covered government implication in GAL (i don't know wether source is very reliable or not).

Misc

I find it mildly amusing that this page is available in Catalan and Spanish, but not Basque.

Someone removed the text about ETA having been sponsored by yadda yadda, with note "not true at all"; I restored it as part of my edit conflict resolution. Does anyone have evidence one way or another? I'd say it's relevant to the article, if true. If false or unproven, but alleged, that's relevant too. Tualha 22:34, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Anonymous comments 23:55, Mar 12, 2004

nice fucking bias.

nice little insert about the bombing in march 2004 , 'worst bombing sincs blah blah blah'

course you mention Franco like he was a fucking jelly roll vendor

nevermind he killed and oppressed so many, that hundreds of thousands fled to other countries. that he was responsible in part for guernica. you know that banenr that was covered over at the UN when powell was telling us about the vials of poison powder that saddam had.

Gilipolleces

Have you ever been to Spain? I was living in Barcelona with my Spanish wife when the bomb went off on Avinguda Diagonal near Penalbres. No one was killed, but it was quite a serious explosion-- these are not children with firecrackers. ETA killed plenty when it bombed the Corte Inglés shopping center in BCN a few years before. We had friends who lost loved ones in that bombing. Those who survived suffered through a horribly harrowing experience.

No one is so foolish as to think that Franco was a good thing. None of my friends in Spain ever said that. But none of my Spanish friends has ever said that ETA was right, either. My Spanish friends have said that they are violent, selfish, misguided, and uninformed. I have heard this from Catalans, Madrileños, and Vascos. These same people lost family under Franco-- my wife's grandfather died in jail. Why should living Spaniards pay for the mistakes of their dead dictator?

I was amused, but not surprised, to see that you post anonymously.

Timothy Chen Allen 19:40, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)

Bietan jarrai

What does Bietan jarrai allude actually? I don't understand it. -- Error 01:32, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's in the article now. -- Error 22:35, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There is some redundancy between history and the attack section. -- Error 01:32, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What do "taxes" mean in "ETA finances its operations through kidnapping, extortion, robbery, arms traffic and 'taxes'"? Kent Wang 19:56, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

LOL -SV(talk)

The "revolutionary tax" (impuesto revolucionario) is a means of extortion of businessmen and artists. If they don't pay, they can be the next target. Sabbut 15:36, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What is that about arms traffic? As far as I know, when ETA engages in weapons trade is a s a buyer, not as a seller. Can you point an example of ETA getting money for weapons? --Error 02:46, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Parliament

In Spain, all Members of Parliament not belonging to Batasuna or any of the independentist political parties are required to carry a permanent escort lest they should be attacked by ETA. This also extends to all Basque city councilors of non Basque Nationalist parties and several of the Basque Nationalist officials.

Izquierda Unida, as far as I know, don't have escort and they are not independentist.

Are required by whom? This description, I think, applies to the PP and, to a lesser extent, to the PSOE. Maybe we should research the details of who requires whom to carry an escort and who does it voluntarily. — Miguel 02:16, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)

I understand it as "if they want to keep alive". They are threatened, either personally or as a group. Juan María Atutxa, the former PNV Basque minister of Internal Affairs, had to have escorts (at least for a period). I suppose that they could refuse escort. -- Error 02:57, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Given that ETA has in later years resorted to targets of opportunity, you may be right that "politicians are required to have escort if they want to stay alive", but that would be a rather strong statement to make in the article. Even to say "politicians are advised to have escort" would have implications that might not be accurate. I think what is needed is a more thorough exploration of the security situation for politicians and theire reaction to the threat. A single sentence lends itself to misunderstandings, particularly if an impersonal passive voice is used. — Miguel 05:02, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)

Merge

ETA#Other ETA-related events and ETA#History should be merged. And those "hundreds of people" meetings should be removed unless they are milestones somehow. -- Error 22:48, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm just here to provide some copy editing and some minor POV resolutions. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I think it's important to have a good-looking article on an important organization. Let me know if I've screwed anything up, I don't want to cause any trouble. -- Eudyptes 17:22, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I was thinking that it might be good to divide the article into some more sections. I was thinking about "Founding" and "Early years" perhaps together in one section or separately in two. Eudyptes 17:25, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Missing

There is nothing about the division in ETA (m) and ETA (pm), or the assemblies. Nor on the truces and talks with Spanish governments. Nor the Burgos trial. -- Error

I'm in the process of translating and merging a lot of material from Spanish. ETA (m) and ETA (pm) are now discussed, as is the Burgos trial. Oddly, the Spanish-language article, like the English, seems to ignore how bloody the late 1970s were: I believe that period was actually the height of ETA violence — or, if you prefer, ETA (m) violence — but the article says nothing. Does someone have some sources on this? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:49, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

Got the truces, too. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:51, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

mobilario urbano

Question: the Spanish language article said that the "Comandos Y" burned "autobuses y mobilario urbano". I do not properly understand the latter phrase. If someone can translate, please add it back in, for now I'm just saying "buses". -- Jmabel | Talk 18:51, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

They also burnt ATMs. Mobiliario urbano means street lamps, benches, garbage containers,... Street furniture. -- Error 01:16, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

makes sense, no analoguous English-language word, but will edit accordingly. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:00, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

more in the translation process

In the discussion of the 1995 Democratic Alternative, after saying that the Spanish government rejected this peace offer, the Spanish-language article goes on "e intento silenciar su difusión y procesó a la mesa nacional de HB por aprovechar los espacios gratuitos de publicidad electoral para difundir la propuesta de paz, añadiendo a su anuncio algunas imágenes extraídas del video de ETA." Roughly translated "and intended to silence its diffusion into the court of public opinion [literally 'the national table'] by HB [for HB] to take advantage of the free [in the sense of 'free of cost'] spaces of electoral publicity to promulgate the peace proposal, adding to their annoucement some images taken from the ETA video." I just don't find this particular detail very useful or interesting. There is a lot that could be said about the '95 events surrounding the Democratic Alternative, and it probably deserves an article of its own, but I see no reason to single out this particular detail. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:09, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

The Mesa Nacional was the ruling committee at HB. Its members were jailed and later declared not-guilty (I think) for broadcasting this video in the costless propaganda airtime granted by public TVs. It should go at least in the HB article. -- Error 02:00, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Probably so. Do you want to take a shot at this, wherever you think it belongs? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:11, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Foreign contacts

Besides the IRA contacts, which are certainly well-documented and common knowledge, the Spanish-language article claims ETA to have had contact with FARC and to have received training in Libya, Lebanon, and Nicaragua. I am unaware of evidence for this, and have left it out, pending citation. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:02, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Similarly, our article says, "Because of its allegiance to Marxist ideas, ETA has in the past been sponsored by communist regimes such as Cuba, as well as by Libya and Lebanon." I would really like to see documentation for this. I'm not saying that it's false, I'm just saying that it's the sort of thing that merits citation. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:10, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

confusing phrase(s)

Thanks to those who've fixed my typos (and corrected my Euskadi).

Euskadi is the country. Euskara is the language. -- Error 02:03, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Which shows how badly mine needs correction. I'm very off my turf here, linguistically, though not geographically, I can pretty well read every language in the region except the one that is arguably most relevant. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:54, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by the edit, no doubt mainly a correction, that left a passage saying, "...and integrated into the political party Euskadiko Ezkerra ("Left of the Basque Country"), which years later split and fused with the Partido Socialista de Euskadi (PSE), the Basque affiliate of the national PSOE) and Eusko Alkartasuna." Would it be correct to say, "...and integrated into the political party Euskadiko Ezkerra ("Left of the Basque Country"), which years later split, part fusing with the Partido Socialista de Euskadi (PSE), the Basque affiliate of the national PSOE) and part becoming Eusko Alkartasuna"? or is it "...part fusing with Eusko Alkartasuna"? Or what? I can't tell from the wording here, nor from the article Eusko Alkartasuna. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:39, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

EE split into Euskadiko Ezkerra, Euskal Ezkerra (EuE, "Basque Left"), and some disappointed independents like Juan Mari Bandrés. Then EE merged into PSE-EE and EuE entered the already existing EA. For some years, Basque politics were very variegated, comparing with bipartisan Spanish politics. -- Error 02:03, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, rewritten accordingly. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:02, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Open issues Oct 23, 2004

I think we've done a lot of good work on this recently. Thanks especially to Error, who is guiding me through a lot of thickets.

I wanted to point out the few concrete issues mentioned above that have not been addressed:

Anonymous comment "Izquierda Unida, as far as I know, don't have escort and they are not independentist" has not been confirmed or refuted. Well, I suppose the last clause is a given, but the part about them not having an escort has not been confirmed or refuted. If it is true, the article doesn't reflect this. Citation would be good.
The "Mesa Nacional" information needs to go in somewhere.
The issues I raised above under "Foreign Contacts" need addressing. Right now, the article is making uncited assertions in a presumably controversial area.

Also, let me add one:

This article is getting a bit long. I think we mention plenty of attacks, in context, in the main text of the article. Would anyone object to putting the partial list of attacks in an article of its own, linked from this, and probably fleshed out to be comprehensive? Or do people think it would be too one-sided to end up with an article listing ETA armed actions without context in that same article? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:11, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Paramilitary, terrorists, illegal armed group

You say poTAYto, I say poTAHto...

I say "paramilitary", Error says "illegal armed group" (which I have no problem with) someone else says "terrorists", which is a loaded word I think should be used only with an attribution of who calls them "terrorist". Not that I disagreee, but it's still a POV word.

I'm perfectly happy to drop "paramilitary" in favor of "illegal armed group", but now we are left with a red link. Error, do you think it would be misleading to link to "paramilitary" ([[paramilitary|illegal armed group]])? Or is there somewhere we can link it? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:01, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

I realize now that also Cosa Nostra is an illegal armed group. See Paramilitary#Revolutionary_and_guerilla_paramilitary_groups. illegal armed group? To me a guerrilla is a countryside thing, but that doesn't seem the English sense. --Error 02:44, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please use the word "terrorist" to refer to ETA. The support they have in the Basque Country is minimal these days. It could well be that they are the only people who do not call themselves "terrorists". Wikipedia is not going to be less "neutral" by using the word "terrorist" when referring to ETA. -- Somebody from Spain.

The ETA is a terrorist group by definition of the word terrorist. They use coersion and violence for political goals. What does "loaded word" mean? --NoPetrol 02:58, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We already say that the EU and the US consider them terrorists. That should be enough. See Wikipedia:Use of the word terrorism (policy development), Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid#Terrorist and Power word#War on Terror --Error 03:10, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

They are terrorists. Or else every terrorist group is a illegal armed group. Amagad.

Baloogan 20:37, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh, God, who cares? The facts speak for themselves. Also, for what it's worth, legally in Spain ETA members are usually charged with pertenencia a banda armada (belonging to an armed gang) o asociación de malhechores (association of wrongdoers). Their political supporters are the ones usually charged with apología del terrorismo (apology for terrorism). Then there is the Ley antiterrorista that is usually applied immediately after suspected etarras are arrested. I am not sure what the official name of the law is, though. — Miguel 05:03, 2004 Dec 5 (UTC)

restored information

I just restored a very large portion of the article, that was anonymously deleted without explanation or discussion. Least appropriate was the removal of citations. (This was separate from the factoring-out of the List of ETA attacks, which was fine.)

If you feel there is information in the article that does not belong here, please come discuss that on the talk page. Please do not just hack information out of the article without even a comment on your reasons, especially anonymously. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:58, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

The proper thing to do when removing a substantial amount of text from the article ---- even a single sentence, sometimes --- is to copy it to the talk page along with an explanation for the removal. — Miguel 04:56, 2004 Dec 5 (UTC)

Euskobarómetro

Since people keep removing the Euskobarómetro material, I have now moved it to a separate article. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:37, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Left Basque Nationalism

Over the last few days, "Left Basque Nationalism" was watered down to "Basque nationalist left politics", then to "Basque nationalisms, often with a left-wing political stance". Also, "Spanish: izquierda nacionalista vasca, Basque: Ezker abertzale, often seen in the mixed-language izquierda abertzale" was completely dropped. I think this is quite wrong. This is basically a proper noun, referring to the politics of certain specific groups. Unless I am extremely mistaken -- I am from the U.S., but I follow Spanish politics reasonably closely -- merely being a Basque nationalist on the political left is a different thing than suscribing to the rather specific political platform of Ezker abertzale.

Rather than my restoring this material myself, can someone from the Basque region (or at least nearby) please weigh in on this? Or does someone have some solid references on this (it's all uncited in the Spanish-language Wikipedia and I don't read Basque). -- Jmabel | Talk 22:45, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Aye. Ezker Abertzale and Izquierda Abertzale are being used as if they were proper nouns to mean (Herri) Batasuna people instead of the whole of the Basque Nationalist Left, much as Partido Socialista is often used to mean just the PSOE instead of any other socialist party in Spain. Herri Batasuna succeeded, to some extent, in appropiating this name, like they've almost appropiated the term abertzale, as I tried to explain in http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abertzale .--Erri4a 23:36, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You can find many examples of this usage of Izquierda Abertzale. And Ezker Abertzalea was the name of the HB groups in Spanish Congress and regional parliaments until circa 2000.--Erri4a 23:51, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

illegal

"Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or ETA, is the name of an illegal and armed Basque group that seeks " -- illegal how/ according to whom / the group itself is illegal? Is it an "illegal group"? What makes them an "illegal group"? Pedant 15:48, 2004 Dec 14 (UTC)

Don't know if this is what you are getting at, but I do think "paramilitary" is better. It is an entirely neutral term that both sides would more or less accept. It's also consistent with coverage of IRA and FARC, which feels right to me. The article then goes on to make clear the mainstream view of ETA as a terrorist organisation as indeed it should. --Cjnm 16:50, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As you can see above, I also favored "paramilitary", but people kept editing it to "terrorist" which is utterly POV. I was hoping that Error's alternative "illegal armed group" might be an acceptable compromise. They are certainly armed. They are, indeed, banned in both countries in which they have significant operations (Spain and France). I would love to see "paramilitary" restored, but I was not willing to fight an edit war over it. My main concern is that the narrative voice of the article not call them "terrorist": I believe that term is loaded enough that it should never be used without an indication of who says so. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:27, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

--Error 02:34, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As I said, ETA (m) stands for "ETA military" and ETA (pm) stood for "ETA (political-military)". They consider themselves gudari, "soldiers", like the Eusko Gudarostea of yore. So I guess they don't describe themselves as "paramilitary". But I guess that they acknowledge that they are illegal under Spanish, French, American and European jurisdictions, and they describe themselves as "the armed organization". So "illegal armed group" is both acceptable by ETA supporters and makes no doubt that they are reviled by the governments. -- Error 02:19, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Jmabel. Not worth arguing about too much - "Illegal armed group" is OK and certainly more neutral than "terrorist" - but why not say paramilitary which is a more encyclopedic term (which is why it has its own page) and slightly less awkward. And actually I'm not you're right that supporters of ETA would find "illegal armed group" a more acceptable definition than "paramilitary".--Cjnm 11:51, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Euzkadi ta Azkatasuna [zic!] is a Basque revolutionary movement of national liberation, created in the patriotical resistance, and independent of any other party, organization or organism.[...]" (1st assembly of ETA, May 1962, my translation)

"ETA, Socialist, revolutionary, Basque organization of national liberation, assumes the responsibility for the execution of María Dolores González Cataráin, Yoyes, [...]", (El País, 12 September 1986, my translation)

--Error 02:34, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Error, if that was germane, the relevance escapes me. & BTW, "...patriotic resistance..." -- Jmabel | Talk 02:44, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Not really, I checked what I have and dumped what I found. --Error 02:34, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

ETA never carried out a guerrilla war against Spanish forces

I think that some people here just deserve having ETA in their country for a while. Then they would not be so ambiguous while talking about this terrorist bunch

Look in a History book and you will find "oh surprise" that ETA NEVER carried out a guerrilla war against Spanish forces, since ETA had never power enough to attempt a guerrilla war. Since they started they armed actions they used pure terrorist tactics.

And my statements are not based in national pride and my deep hate and depiction towards ETA and all the people who talks ambiguously about ETA or so, but in pure and simple semantic.

I would agree that their tactics have not been those of guerrillas. I'd favor "paramilitary".

While I personally consider ETA's tactics terrorist, I think it is a good general principle not to use the term "terrorist" in the narrative voice of Wikipedia articles: it is always a controversial term, hence sits poorly with NPOV. See Wikipedia:Words to avoid.

On the other hand this, like other articles on similar groups, certainly should indicate that governments and NGOs have condemned ETA as terrorists.

Currently the article uses the word "terror" or "terrorism" about a dozen times, which is probably about right in proportion to its length. However, I would like to see more specificity as to exactly who has callled ETA terrorist; at the moment the article is a bit vague on that, and is actually more specific with reference to who has called Batasuna terrorist. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:13, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Everyking's edit at my request

"Everyking (rv to last version by Pearle. Intervening anon edit included significant unexplained deletions. There may also have been addition of good material: someone expert should look.)" This edit by Everyking is at my request, and the comment is mine. My browser is having problems handling this page. Please, address me, not Everyking, on any issues about this edit. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:19, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

Latin America

A mention of ETA aid to the FMLN was recently and anonymously changed to say that they have aided FARC. No citation was given, either for the previous claim or for this one. Wouldn't surprise me if both are true, so I'm not reverting, but these claims of ETA involvement in Latin American revolutionary movements could use good citation. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:52, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

So....

Why hasn't anyone ever addressed the obvious question: why doesn't Spain just let the Basque have their own country? I'm certainly not an expert in Basque relations, but it seems like this avenue has never even begun to be explored.

For the same reason that the Basques want it in the first place-nationalist sentiment, SqueakBox 00:14, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

The reason the question has not been addressed is because it makes as much sense as asking why the US does not let the Texan people to have their own country. It is a mistake to assume that the majority of the people living in the basque country want their own nation. That is not the case. If it were, then the party winning the elections would be the one backing ETA, and there would be no voters of either the popular, socialist or moderate national parties, which do represent the larger majority. Most of the Basque Spaniards living in that region are happy to be where they are and who they are. There is a basque parlament, a basque constitution, basque police, basque schools, TV and radio stations and all sorts of basque-minded institutions. ETA is a minuscule group that much like the dictator they professed to fight wants to impose their view of the state with bullets, bombs, kidnappings, and extortion as their main argument. Spain is a democratic country with multiple states ("autonomias") and mechanisms in place to change everything from municipal laws to the Constitution. Abortion, Divorce, Universal Health Care, Immigration Laws, and the legalization of the comunist party come to mind as political achievements from any number of different groups. If there was a legitimate sentiment and desire for one state to break away from the rest of the nation it could be addressed via the parlamentary process. How can political dissent result in the assasination of men, women, and children?

I basically agree with the above, although the Texas analogy is a bit of an overstatement: ETA's Basque independentist views certainly have double-digit support in the region (although the majority of Basque independentists oppose ETA's tactics). I don't think a comparable number of Texans would want independence at this time (the late 19th century is another matter...) -- Jmabel | Talk 20:13, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

It's more Canada-Quebec, UK-Ulster, France-Corsica.

I'd say that there is double-digit support in the US to independize fron the Texan president. :) --Error 21:34, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You mean 10% of Texans would support independence? If you count PNV it is a lot more than 10% who would like Basque independence, and arguably the 10% do support the armed struggle for independence, SqueakBox 21:54, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

No, I mean that nowhere near 10% of Texans would support Texas independence, and comfortably over 10% or residents of the Basque Country would support Basque independence. Separate question (and not entirely relevant to the article, although none of the foregoing really is, either): do you think all PNV voters would actually vote pro-independence if it came to a referendum? My guess is that, much as there are quite a few people in Quebec who vote Bloc Quebecois in local elections but vote against independence referenda, the same would happen among PNV supporters. Do you think I'm wrong on this? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:21, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

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