Monday, February 27, 2012

Official declaration from the Basque Nationalist Left, dismissed by other actors

Image from the presentation
It seems that for the Spanish nationalists and their lackeys of the Basque Nationalist Party (Basque regionalist Catholic conservative party) nothing is enough and are willing to push for more and more demands forever in a farce whose obvious intention is only to reignite the armed conflict in the Basque Country. 

Whatever the reactions, the Basque Nationalist Left presented yesterday in Donostia a document in four languages (Basque, Spanish, French and English) in which they share their determination for peace and fears for the lack of progress by the imperialist side. 

Some quotes:

The Peace Process is stuck for lack of political will from Madrid:

So, Abertzale Left has contributed its part to building peace in our country. It has done everything in its power to make a new time possible. This however has not meant that peace has automatically come to the Basque Country. Peace is still to be built and the unilateral end to one side violence does not bring peace. There are other forms of violence, a repression that must end. The repressive policy of the States must end in order to begin talking of a non-violent scenario and real democracy.
...

ETA has ended its armed activity. This has not brought the end of all violence.
Thus, we consider necessary the end of the current inhumane prison policy. Seriously ill prisoners and those that have completed 3/4 or 2/3 of their sentence should be released. Dispersal policy of Basque political prisoners must come to an end, transferring them to the Basque Country, as a first step on a process that do possible to them to return home. The policy of repression, police harassment and arrests against pro independence activists, as well as trials and imprisonment must finally end. The different emergency policies must end and all civil and political rights must be guaranteed to Basque citizens, most notably the urgent legalization of the political party Sortu.
...
A country in peace does not need thousands of armed people. It is necessary to start demilitarising our country.

...

No conflict in the world has ended maintaining hundreds of people imprisoned for decades.

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Proposing South-African style reconciliation by mutual recognition

There are and will be diverse opinions among our People on what happened in the past and while we must seek the truth, this whole truth will be the sum of diverse and even different truths.
...
The Abertzale Left considers that it is crucial to talk about what happened, to recover the truth about what happened. Our People need to know the truth, but they must know the whole truth about the political conflict and its consequences. Knowing it will make easier to move from a scenario of violence to a democratic scenario, and it will make us freer. It will also help reconciliation.
...

They close with an specific proposal of four points:
  1. Accepting the Mitchell Principles:
    1. Commitment to democratic and exclusively peaceful means to resolve political issues.
    2. Commitment to renounce the use of force or the threat of using it...
    3. Commitment to agree to submit to the terms of any agreement reached during multi-party negotiations and to resort to democratic and exclusively peaceful means to try to alter of any aspect of this outcome with which it may not agree.
  2. Political projects must be differentiated from democratic solutions.
  3. Acknowledging and respecting plurality in the Basque Country.
  4. Recognizing and respecting all rights, including the Right to Self-Determination

You can read the full document at Gara (PDF).

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