Terrorists from the Mountains

By George Russell

Basque guerrillas fight on--and threaten Spain's democracy

In a small, mountainous corner of northern Spain, the movement still smolders. Its active members are few: about 300 at most, with another 30 or so leaders in sanctuary across the Pyrenees in France. The organization's wildly unrealistic goal of achieving independence is losing support among a once sympathetic populace. Yet, paradoxically, even as its powers seem to wane, the group remains an ominous threat. The Basque terrorists who form the Euzkadi ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty), or ETA, still have the potential to cause the overthrow of Spain's fragile, 31-month-old democracy.

Since it turned to violence in 1968, the ETA has used assassination first to fight the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, then to provoke democratic Spanish authorities into retaliating bloodily and repressing liberties in three of Spain's Basque provinces (see map). The terrorists' plan: to build popular resentment of far-off Madrid and to increase separatist yearnings among the historically disaffected Basques. In the past 13 years the ETA has killed more than 350 victims, carefully choosing as its targets police, army and political figures. One was Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, the man Franco had hand-picked as his successor. In 1973 Carrero Blanco and his automobile were blown four stories high in Madrid by an exploding land mine, a spectacular event that led to a popular folk song in Basque country with a refrain that begins, "Whoops, he goes ..."

As Spain turned toward democracy following Franco's death in 1975, the terrorists calculated that their acts would goad the military into a right-wing coup, thereby buttressing ETA'S claim that peaceful reform was impossible. The number of terrorist killings rose dramatically. And, indeed, on Feb. 23, rebellious members of the Spanish Guardia Civil took over the country's parliament and held it for 18 hours. The insurgents were backed by high-ranking army officers and had the support of shadowy right-wing financiers. The main demand of the rebels: more freedom to combat Basque terrorism.

Since the failed coup attempt, Spanish civilian politicians, led by Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, have moved far more cautiously in liberalizing one of Western Europe's most monolithic and centralized governments, and Madrid has thrown the national police into a straightforward drive against the terrorists with a good deal of success. So far this year ETA killings are down to 28, about half the 1980 rate. Last week the government announced the arrest of seven alleged ETA members in Vizcaya province and the seizure of substantial quantities of arms and ammunition. In an attempt to rebuild its popularity, the beleaguered ETA is now adopting the protest tactics of the Irish Republican Army: a group of 14 ETA prisoners last week launched a hunger strike.

The Spanish government also hoped that President Franc,ois Mitterrand's new Socialist government would track down and extradite ETA terrorists taking refuge on French soil. Previous French governments were reluctant to cooperate, fearing that some of the people requested by the Spanish might be political dissidents, not terrorists. Last week French officials continued to be wary. Gaston Defferre, the Interior Minister, has gone so far as to declare that the war against the ETA in Spain is "political." Despite continuing pressure from Madrid, the French have still not agreed to the extradition proposal.

Conservative, overwhelmingly middle class and devoutly Catholic though they are, Spain's 2.7 million Basques (out of a total population of 37 million) have always posed a problem for the country's rulers. The Basque language (spoken only by about 20% of the region's people) is unique. The Basques have always resented government from afar, a tradition that goes as far back as the 8th century, when they did not submit to the Moorish invasion that conquered most of Spain.

The Basques were among the fiercest fighters against Franco during the Spanish Civil War, so enraging the dictator that he subsequently levied special punishments against the northern provinces, including the removal of their long-cherished political autonomy. In a sense, the Basque problem, with its overlays of terrorism, bloodshed and mistrust, is the most enduring and dangerous legacy of that ugly fratricidal period.

Despite the oppression of Madrid, the Basques have flourished economically. Although stereotyped as dark-bereted shepherds who perfected the stunningly fast game of jai alai, they are in fact among Spain's successful businessmen. The dingy but bustling Basque industrial center of Bilbao (pop. about 450,000) is heavily oriented toward steelmaking and shipbuilding. The three Basque provinces are among the richest in Spain on a per capita basis.

The ETA itself has middle-class social origins. It began in the 1950s as a college study group examining the effects of Spanish domination. ETA originally was nonviolent, but during the tumultuous '60s the organization became radicalized, began robbing banks to finance its operations and for a time espoused a cloudy blend of nationalism and Marxism. The organization's violent phase began in 1968 after a member of the Guardia Civil shot an ETA member who refused to stop at a roadblock. In retaliation ETA assassinated a hated police chief, and the deadly cycle began.

In 1979, after a decade of bloodshed, Madrid tried to buy peace by granting amnesty to many ETA prisoners and giving the Basques a good deal of independence. The autonomy law, which did not actually go into effect until last year, established a regional parliament in the provinces with limited power over local administration, social services and commercial regulation, plus the promise of eventual control over a Basque police force.

The reforms have undercut a great deal of ETA's backing, particularly from the middle class, which is weary of the terrorist tactics. There is a grudging recognition, even among the most anti-Castilian of nonterrorist Basques, that conditions have improved decisively. Says Angel Amigo, a young writer and film maker who joined ETA in 1972, aided in a terrorist kidnaping, was captured, tortured and subsequently released: "There has been a change in the scale of values among the young since Franco's day. Under repression, all life turned on politics. War was heroism, but all that is over now. Now there is political choice. It is possible to be constructive. But if they censor my writing or ban my films, I will have no alternative but to return to arms."

A growing number of Basque businessmen are taking the courageous step of refusing to pay ETA-imposed revolutionary "taxes"--extortion payments that have long been a source of millions of dollars in terrorist revenue. Typically, an industrialist would be "invited" by ETA to visit the adjoining Basque regions of France, where levies would be collected. In the past, businessmen who did not co operate were "kidnaped" or "kneecapped" (shot in the legs). Others fled the region. Recently, however, one industrialist refused to pay up and merely sent the extortion note to the moderate Basque Nationalist Party, which controls the regional parliament. He has heard nothing since from the ETA.

As the middle class has moved away from the ETA, and Basques in general have wearied of the struggle, the terrorists have come to draw most of their support--and recruits--from the dismal industrial suburbs that dot the narrow Basque mountain valleys some 20 to 25 miles inland. One such is Renteria (pop. 18,000), which adjoins the old Spanish summer royal residence of San Sebastian. A river running through town has the sickly sweet stench of dumped industrial wastes. A pall of chemical smoke from paper, plastics and cement factories hangs over the area on all but the windiest days. The town has a medieval center with a church and central square; the impression is of a dying 19th century industrial civilization suffocating an even older culture. Says a Basque journalist: "The young get fed up with the fact they have no hope in the lousy city where they live, so they decide to lira al monte--take to the mountains and go with ETA."

Residents of Renteria speak often of a raid in 1976 when scores of police, searching for terrorists, smashed shop windows, urinated in elevators and looted stores. Says the mayor of Renteria, Xabin Olaizola: "ETA will not disappear until there are profound guarantees of rights for the Basque people. It is better to take the gamble of having ETA. It is the guarantee that we can keep fighting for our rights."

If there is one force that still unites the Basques, it is a hatred of the Guardia Civil, a paramilitary group, and the national police, who are still regarded as members of an occupying army. Indeed, not a single member of the police force in the region speaks the Basque language.

Stories of torture and casual brutality by police in the Basque country are endless. Xavier Arzallus, head of the moderate Basque Nationalist Party, cites the case of one of his party members whose home was raided by the Guardia Civil. The man was taken into the hills, threatened with a machine gun, then jailed for three days without food, water or sleep, while being tortured. Says Arzallus: "He is so frightened he refuses to bring charges." Another man, who did complain after Guardia Civil members ransacked his apartment building in a futile search for dynamite, claimed that the invaders had broken nine doors in the complex. The day after his complaint, the guards returned and broke 20 more doors.

Madrid's refusal to reform the police in the Basque country can only deepen the sense of alienation. Indeed, some conspiratorially minded Basques already believe that the ETA terrorists and the Spanish police have developed an almost symbiotic relationship, each helping the other to hold back the further progress of democracy in Spain. Says Arzallus: "I am convinced that some sectors in Madrid find ETA's existence convenient."

From time to time, frustrated Spaniards have wondered about a possible Soviet hand behind ETA. In May, Prime Minister Calvo-Sotelo spoke vaguely of the "international" dimensions of the terrorist problem. But he has not repeated that statement. The question asked more frequently by moderate politicians in Madrid is why ETA keeps trying to provoke a right-wing coup that would take back everything the Basques have gained since Franco's death. Answers a Basque nationalist in exile in France: "It would only demonstrate what they already believe, that Spain is basically fascist, that they were right all along to continue fighting and that they have the people with them."

The truth is very different. Says a former group member: "ETA is carried along by its own weight. They cannot give up the armed struggle because the families who have lost sons would feel their heroes had been betrayed." As they try to find a future, the Basque terrorists are governed by the past. --By George Russell. Reported by Lawrence Malkin/Bilbao

With reporting by Lawrence Malkin

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