ETA, says, has given up the armed fight. It wants talks with the Spanish and French governments “with the aim of addressing the resolution of the consequences of the conflict and, thus, to overcome the armed confrontation.”
Reaction in the Basque country has been, generally, euphoric. “The nightmare is over,” said Iñigo Urkullu, leader of the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), the region's biggest political party.
So is this the end of more than four decades of separatist violence in Spain's northerly Basque region? Are ETA and terrorism finally removed from the national debate?
Not yet. First of all, there is no guarantee that violence will not reappear under a different guise. People close to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's Socialist prime minister, know this well. Just as the IRA in Northern Ireland spawned small breakaway groups determined to stick to terrorism, a small but still violent “Real ETA” could appear.And ETA's declaration, although historic, mentions neither dissolution nor disarmament. It talks, instead, of how “the recognition of the Basque country and the respect for the will of the people should prevail over imposition.”
