My semi-regular English language collaboration
for Borroka Garaia Da!:
Political prisoner Arkaitz Bellon dies in jail
Arkaitz Bellon, born in Elorrio 36 years
ago, died in strange circumstances in the Spanish prison of Puerto I
(Cadiz). According to the official account, he was found dead in the
afternoon in his isolation cell, for no apparent reason and without
signs of violence. However the family was denied a request to have a
trustworthy physician present in the autopsy and Arkaitz had no medical
history of relevance, being also few months away from being released,
what made the case extremely suspicious.
Nevertheless a second autopsy once the body arrived to the family
appears to have confirmed the official version of unspecified natural
causes.
Arkaitz had been sentenced to 13 years for street guerrilla
activities which caused no victims nor injuries. It is notable that,
wouldn’t he have been Basque, and therefore arbitrarily classified as
“terrorist” and “ETA member”, he would not have even gone to prison at
all, getting a nominal penalty only. Truly violent crimes such as rape
and murder usually get in Spain lower penalties than what Arkaitz got
for taking part in attacks against inanimated properties.
Protests have taken place in his hometown of Elorrio, as well as in
many other Basque towns. At least three young people were arrested in
Algorta for placing posters in solidarity with Bellon.
Arkaitz is the third Basque political prisoner who dies in prison in
less than a year. A list with photos of all prisoners died in jail since
1985 is available
at BDG!
Three Basque youths arrested after months into hiding
Goizane Pinedo and Unai Ruiz, persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition
for their political activity, were arrested on January 18th after three
months in hiding. They chained themselves to a blacony in
Vitoria-Gasteiz while a support demonstration was held in the street.
Their nonviolent give-away was responded by a massive deployment of
police forces in riot gear and masks. Other than that there were no
incidents in the arrest.
On January 26th, another victim of political persecution, Idoya
Iragorri, provoked her public arrest in her hometown of Sestao within
the activities of the Disobedience Day, which was massively participated
by police forces, both local and Spanish, in plain clothes or combat
uniform.
The police presence was already very intense in Sestao even before
the Disobedience Day but on this journey it became just massive. The
activities had to be moved because of the rainy weather but the the
information about Iragorri’s ideological persecution and disobedience to
imperialist mock justice were amply publictited in the worker town of
Greater Bilbao in spite of the weather and the overwhelming police
presence.
Eventually Idoia chained herself to the gates of the Town Hall, being braced by a multitude of citizens, including her mother.
Police then charged with brutality against the human wall, causing
the outrage and protest of many witnesses, at least one of whom was
badly beaten and then arrested (being charged as usual with the farcical
accusation of “aggression”).
Idoya Iragorri was also arrested and is expected to go to prison for no other reason than upholding her ideas.
Sources:
Naiz Info[eu] (incl. videos), Herri Kolore
[es].
Basque youths denounce the political nature of their trial
36 members of the Basque Nationalist Youth movement Segi offered a
press conference announcing that they will denounce the political nature
of their trial by the Spanish political tribunal Audiencia Nacional
(aka the Inquisition) in their final allegations on January 31st.
They have agreed on a single text, which has also gained the support of
some personalities, such as the President of the Western Basque branch
of the (Spanish nationalist) Socialist Party, Jesus Egiguren, the
attorney and former MEP Txema Montero, writer Toti Martínez de Lezea,
the bertsolariak Xabier and Miren Amuriza, rower Jose Luis Korta and climber Alex Txikon.
They also want to promote for this and other instances of
inquistorial repression the so-called “orange ambient”, in reference for
the color chosen for the human walls campaign against political repression.
They warned that in the next months more than 200 Basque citizens
will be tried by the Spanish special courts on mere political grounds.
Most likely all them will go to jail.
Source:
Berria[eu]. The full allegation can be watched
at Lekhia (in Basque only).
Basque Nationalist Left sketches “unilateral” Basque Way to Independence
Basque Nationalist Left organizations Sortu (party), LAB (union) and
Ernai (youth movement) presented their sketch of campaign towards Basque
sovereignty.
The “Basque Way” is unavoidably unilateral because the imperialist
states, Spain and France, have repeatedly shown no signs of being
willing to dialogue, as they do not want any sort of democratic solution. This forced unilateraly will unavoidably clash at some point with the Spanish and French legal frames, they reckon.
They propose that, together with the extant social majority, it is
necessary the formation of a “solid political alliance”, in likely
reference to the ambiguous position of the right-wing Basque Nationalist
Party.
They described the pillars of this strategy, to be defended, as
follows: social rights, language and culture, education system, national
symbols and territoriality (i.e. opposition to the division of the
Basque Country, as happens now).
Ongoing trial for the police-inflicted death of Iñigo Cabacas
Iñigo Cabacas, a supporter of Athletic
Bilbao football team, was killed two years ago by a rubber bullet shot
by Western Basque Autonomous Police agents in the course of a clearly
improcedent and absurdly risky charge against masses of people
peacefully celebrating the success of their team. The public outrage at
this gratuitous and murderous police violence is very high. These weeks
we are witnessing the trial for the killing, which is rather convoluted
because of the extreme overprotection that police agents enjoy under the
Spanish exceptional laws and dubious judicial system.
While the commander of the police
operation, codenamed Ugarteko, who clearly ordered the attack in spite
of the agents on the ground insisting on everything being calm, has
finally been unveiled as Jorge Aldekoa, he remains still not indicted,
while several agents are instead. In order to do this, the Western
Basque Autonomous Government keeps insistent secrecy and pretends that
Aldekoa was only one more in the operative, and even that he was just
watching the match at San Mames stadium, when he was actually the top
boss of the security operative that day in Bilbao.
Spanish Unionist parties, together with
the conservative regionalist EAJ-PNV have blocked a comission to
investigate the case in the Gasteiz Parliament, as well as a request for
Aldekoa declaring in it.
Navarre: corrupt government may collapse
Basque worker union LAB
demanded the resignation of the government of Yolanda Barcina (UPN,
right wing Spanish unionist) after yet another corruption scandal hit
it, in this case arbitrary tax favors to companies with ties with the
government.
The mutual support of
both major unionist parties have kept Navarre under their control for
decades but all opinion polls confirm that such a period is over and
that, after the massive corruption scandals that afflict the Old Kingdom
under their rule, alternative forces leaning to the left and pro-Basque
positions are set to win as soon as elections are held. However the
regional elections are not scheduled until 2015.
President Barcina
declared her intention of calling snap elections, however a call from
Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy, dissuaded her from making such a risky move.
There is widespread concern in Madrid about the likely radical change
that Navarre will endure as soon as new elections are held. However the
center-left unionist party PSN-PSOE, which has so far supported Barcina
with their passivity, has already announced a non-confidence vote, so it
is still possible that early elections will be held anyhow in May.
Sleeping in cash machine rooms in demand of a hospice
Elect officers and grassroots activists
of EH Bildu slept in cash machine rooms, as many homeless people have
to, in demand of a district hospice for the homeless in the Left Bank of
the Bilbao Estuary. The action meant to draw political attention when
this issue is going to be debated in the four municipal councils of the
working class district (Santurtzi, Portugalete, Sestao and Barakaldo).
The law demands that every municipality
with more than 20,000 inhabitants must have such a facilities so nobody
is obligued to sleep in the streets. However it is systematically
ignored. In the Left Bank only Barakaldo offers such a basic
humanitarian service exclusively for the winter months.
The activists acknowledged to be well
aware that the problem is much deeper than the lack of a hospice, being
one of social exclusion and inequality generated by the Capitalist
system, but for the time being this basic paliative is an urgent need.
When the issue was finally to be
discussed in the monthly plenaries of the various towns, the officialist
parties (unionists plus EAJ-PNV) blocked it systematically with all
kind of tricks.
Only in Barakaldo, six homeless people have died while sleeping in the streets this winter.
Compulsory social services for welfare recipients
The Western Basque Government (EAJ-PNV)
has announced that they intend to establish a compulsory social service
for those people who are perceiving the Income Guarantee Rent (most
basic welfare) because of unemployment and dire need.
The putschist government of Lopez
initiated this reactionary reform of welfare services in the Western
Basque Country by transferring them to the Basque unemployment agency
Lanbide, which has been hardly able to cope because of understaffing and
more than dubious practices, which have left thousands unable to access
the public payment of about €600. The current conservative EAJ
government is continuing with the same plan of dismantling the welfare
system and making it more and more Thatcherite in spite of growing
unemployment and all kind of desperate situations caused by the systemic
crisis of Capitalism.
Their last project is to force all
recipients into social compulsory services of some sort. This has been
denounced by all kind of social movements, as well as labor unions. A
major concern is that these forced workers will take much needed jobs,
being forced to work for almost nothing like slaves.
Violent storms shatter the Basque coast
A most violent series of storms, unheard
of except for the oldest ones, caused much havoc in several coastal
towns of the Basque Country. Most affected was Donostia (San Sebastian),
whose Old Quarter was flooded by the storm surge and whose harbor,
established as port for Navarre in 1181, saw the loss of several ships.
Baiona, Zumaia, Bermeo and other towns
were also affected. In Bermeo the wall protecting the fishermen’s
lounges was demolished by the storm, and these were damaged twice by the
waves.
A cargo ship was wrecked at Angelu
(Anglet), being broken in two as the waves threw it against the coast.
Luckily all sailors could be rescued alive.
A Senegalese sailor, who was swallowed by a sudden wave at the dock of Ondarroa is so far the only mortal victim.
Controversy on the Iruñea-Veleia findings continues
The results of a technical test on the
controversial findings ordered by tribunals were leaked to right-wing
newspaper El Correo. These found widespread evidence of modern alloys in
the inscriptions. However the matter is much more complicated than a
shallow read allows.
 |
| Detail of one piece before and after the DFA mystery manipulation |
Prior to this leak, supporters of the
authenticity of the findings, which include texts in ancient Basque as
well as in Vulgar Latin, etc. had reported that the pieces, under
custody of the provincial government of Araba (DFA, part in the
dispute), had been severely affected by some sortof aggressive cleaning.
After the leaks, they held a press
conference in which they reported contradictions between the earlier
Madariaga report, which found no such evidence of modern materials, and
the new one (still formally unpublished). They attributed these
differences to mishandling of the pieces by the provincial authorities,
active supporters of the falsification hypothesis.
Later it was known that the DFA had
secretly made some very aggressive tests on many of the pieces, whose
results are not publicly known.
While the supporters of the falsification
hypothesis have full control of the evidence (the extraordinary
findings), the accused archaeologists Eliseo Gil and Idoia Filloy have
never been allowed even to look at them. On all these grounds they
demand acquittal because of indefension.
Since the controversy began five years
ago, many new studies have been published in support of the authenticity
of the findings and not a single one in support of the falsification
hypothesis.
Sources: Berria
[eu] (
link 1,
link 2) Ama Ata
[es/eu] (
link 1,
link 2,
link 3 – incl. video of the press conference,
link 4,
link 5,
link 6,
link 7,
link 8,
link 9,
link 10).
