Kafka in the land of the Basques: five arrested for destroying ETA's arsenal

Five people were arrested in Luhuso (Labourd) on Friday night for the "crime" of destroying the arsenal of Basque guerrilla ETA, which "definitively" abandoned armed struggled five years ago but is unable to find an interlocutor to proceed to disarmament and dissolution. 

The five arrested are Jean-Noël Etcheverry, “Txet” (nonviolent ecologist), Michel Berhocoirigoin (farmer union activist), Béatrice Molle-Haran (journalist and owner of the house where the activity took place), Michel Bergougnan (member of Irulegi) y Stéphane Etchegaray, “Etxe” (cameraman in charge of filming the police op). 

Also Michel Tubiana, Honorary President of the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme, is involved in the group of peace activists but he could not arrive to the scene of the police operation in time, so he remains free so far. 

Solidarity march in Donibane-Garazi

The team, self-named "Bakea EHn" (Peace in the Basque Country) in the Twitter account they used as improvised press office on Friday night, and renamed "Artisans for Peace" by the popular protests that have taken place yesterday, had been destroying 15% of ETA's arsenal since October 3rd, in what was intended as a first batch of a longer process, now aborted by Spanish and French police forces. 

Their equipment seems to have been a workbench with a radial saw and some other tools. 

The Artisans for Peace declared themselves as members of civil society, without any link nor subordination to ETA, who had decided to begin the disarmament process with the destruction of a first stock of weapons. 

This process, initially intended to be more open and under supervision of the international mediator group, including half a dozen global personalities, was once and again aborted by the Spanish and French states and five years have passed since ETA famously declared the definitive end to armed struggle without any progress. 

It is quite symptomatic that members of the Basque civil society eventually decided to take upon their shoulders the burden of ensuring the end of ETA in spite of the French and Spanish authorities, and even more hard to believe, truly kafkian, that these two occupant powers of our country, have stopped it via repression, repression that has not ceased anyhow in these five years. 

I presume they will be accused now of "collaboration with terrorist organization", and be labeled by the Inquisition and their parrot media as "ETA members", as so often happens when you are Basque and do not think like they command you to think. In fact we are before prisoners of conscience trying to do the job that the occupant powers, which seem to desire a return to war, are not doing not allowing others to do. 

But they will once and again repeat in a choral fashion: "what ETA must do is to disarm itself and self-dissolve". How when Madrid and Paris are doing everything to impede it? How?

See also:

• ETA declares a "permanent" cease-fire
• New ETA communication: would accept informal verification of the cease fire if that helps to overcome Spanish veto to talks
• Again on the Basque Peace Process... or whatever it is
• Former British minister to Spain: 'If they want ETA's dissolution, they must make compromises'
• ETA communication demands Spain and France to do their part for peace
• ETA communication underlines that the peace process is feeble in spite of the determined commitment on the Basque side (only)
• ETA dissolves its operational structures
• Spain attacks the verifiers of the unilateral Basque "peace process"
• 10 lies on the end of armed struggle in the Basque Country
• Some thoughts on the Spain-ETA negotiations (or lack of them)

Saudi road to nowhere: even the EP calls for isolating the theocracy

In an unprecedented resolution, the European Parliament has called for an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia in relation to its brutal military intervention in Yemen. Other issues such as the occupation of Bahrain, its horrible human rights record, the fact that it is a most cruel and totalitarian dictatorship or that it has been for decades behind Sunni Islamist terrorism everywhere, have not been included in the resolution, yet, considering the very conservative and imperialist policies that the EU institutions distill all the time, it is a remarkable vote and a sign that a growing amount of people in the West is getting most annoyed at the Islamist terror chaos unleashed in West Asia by NATO and its local allies: Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel primarily. 

As you may know the EP has, sadly enough, almost no power (only approving or not the EU budget and minor stuff like that) but it still exerts a moral influence on the EU, being the only democratic body of this sui-generis confederation. Therefore we should not undermine its importance. 

Forecast

Personally I feel that all what is happening will soon result in a dramatic socio-political crisis in Saudi Arabia: you can't rule a country of 30 million without other feedback than just police reports. Not for long in any case. The question of democracy is not merely a question of rights and freedoms but, from the rulers viewpoint, primarily one of feedback and cohesion. 

Anyhow, with such low oil prices, the money is running out and Saudia is just rushing forward to nowhere, risking even a World War with its threats of invading Syria. If this happens, the conflict in West Asia will run out of control in no time: Iran will no doubt intervene, backed by Russia and China, and that would be a major event. My opinion is that the West will doubt and finally not intervene directly, largely because there is such an exhaustion of the fictional narrative of "war on terror" and "clash of civilizations" that a lot of people even in key power positions will be tempted to let Iran do the moping instead of risking not just World War but also internal political stability to save a totally despicable regime such as the Saudi one. 

I can only imagine that, possibly, the Turkish intervention (which may be the key WW trigger) will be halted on its heels by a military coup and/or suspension of its NATO membership. 

But I'm trying to be rational-optimistic. It can also all degenerate in an uncontrolled WW-like conflict, whose result may well be the destruction of Humankind. Let's try to avoid this worst possible outcome by all means necessary. 

Against terrorism, arm the people

We have become helpless sheep. That is one of the aspects that the terror attack against random workers in France highlights. If the people would have been armed, the death toll would have been much smaller: the attackers would have been quickly eliminated by some among the citizenry. 

Instead we Europeans have become dependent on the dangerous "protection" of the armed forces (police, army). There are a couple of exceptions in Switzerland and Austria, where people does have the right to own arms (and where there are no terror attacks, incidentally), but otherwise that's the norm across Europe: citizens can't protect ourselves, we are strictly dependent on the state. 

We need to regain the right to be armed, a proud people is an armed people. Anything else is just sheep awaiting the slaughter, regardless of who is the author.