ETA, an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, was an armed Basque nationalist and far-left separatist organization in the Basque Country between 1959 and 2018, with its goal being independence for the region. The group was founded in 1959 during the era of Francoist Spain, and later evolved from a pacifist group promoting traditional Basque culture to a violent paramilitary group. It engaged in a campaign of bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings throughout Spain and especially the Southern Basque Country against the regime, which was highly centralised and hostile to the expression of non-Castilian minority identities. ETA was the main group within the Basque National Liberation Movement and was the most important Basque participant in the Basque conflict.
Batasuna was a Basque nationalist political party. Based mainly in Spain, it was banned in 2003, after a court ruling declared proven that the party was financing ETA with public money.
The 2004 Madrid train bombings were a series of coordinated, nearly simultaneous bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, on the morning of 11 March 2004—three days before Spain's general elections. The explosions killed 193 people and injured around 2,050. The bombings constituted the deadliest terrorist attack carried out in the history of Spain and the deadliest in Europe since 1988. The attacks were carried out by individuals who opposed Spanish involvement in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Arnaldo Otegi Mondragón is a politician from the Basque Country who is currently General Secretary of Basque nationalist party EH Bildu. He was member of the Basque Parliament for both Herri Batasuna and Euskal Herritarrok. He was a convicted member of the banned armed separatist group organization ETA in his early years. He was one of the key negotiators during the unsuccessful peace talks in Loiola and Geneva, in 2006.
Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba was a Spanish statesman, politician and chemist who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Spain from 2010 to 2011, and previously as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993, as Minister of the Presidency from 1993 to 1996, as Minister of the Interior from 2006 to 2011 and as acting Minister of Defence between May and June 2008.
Juan María Atutxa Mendiola is a politician from the Basque Country with a nationalist ideology. A member of the Basque Nationalist Party, he was Head of the Department of Interior (1991–98) and President of the Basque Parliament (1998–2005). He currently heads the Sabino Arana foundation.
The Basque conflict, also known as the Spain–ETA conflict, was an armed and political conflict from 1959 to 2011 between Spain and the Basque National Liberation Movement, a group of social and political Basque organizations which sought independence from Spain and France. The movement was built around the separatist organization ETA, which had launched a campaign of attacks against Spanish administrations since 1959. ETA had been proscribed as a terrorist organization by the Spanish, British, French and American authorities at different moments. The conflict took place mostly on Spanish soil, although to a smaller degree it was also present in France, which was primarily used as a safe haven by ETA members. It was the longest running violent conflict in modern Western Europe. It has been sometimes referred to as "Europe's longest war".
The International Contact Group (ICG) is a group promoted by Brian Currin aiming to "expedite, facilitate and enable the achievement of political normalization in the Basque Country". The members of the Group, presented on 14 February 2011 in Bilbao, are Silvia Casale, Pierre Hazan, Raymond Kendall, Nuala O'Loan and Alberto Spektorowski.
The 2012 Basque regional election was held on Sunday, 21 October 2012, to elect the 10th Parliament of the Basque Autonomous Community. All 75 seats in the Parliament were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with a regional election in Galicia. Lehendakari Patxi López announced the parliament's dissolution half a year ahead of schedule as a result of the People's Party (PP) withdrawing their support from his government, prompting Galician president Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who had been scheduling a snap election in Galicia to be held at some point throughout late 2012, to make his decision to have a simultaneous vote.
Car bomb attacks were carried out by the armed Basque separatist group ETA in Madrid, Spain on 21 June 1993, killing 7 people and injuring a further 29. The target was an army vehicle transporting members of the army. The dead included four lieutenant colonels, a commander, a sergeant and the civilian driver of the vehicle. This was ETA's deadliest attack of 1993.
The Monbar Hotel attack was carried out by the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), a Spanish state-sponsored death squad, on 25 September 1985 in Bayonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. The targets were four members of the Basque separatist terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), whom the Spanish government believed to be senior figures in the organization, itself proscribed as a terrorist group in Spain and France. All four people were killed, with a fifth person, apparently unconnected to ETA, injured in the shooting. This represented the deadliest attack carried out by the GAL. Although two of the participants were apprehended shortly after the shooting, controversy surrounded the possible involvement of senior figures in the Spanish police.
Basque National Liberation Movement prisoners are all those people who have been imprisoned, placed on remand, or otherwise kept in custody due to their illegal activity in support of the Basque National Liberation Movement.
Etxerat is an association of family members of people who have been imprisoned or exiled because of their activity in support of the Basque National Liberation Movement. Most of those prisoners and exiles are members, or former members, of the Basque armed separatist organization ETA. Others were not members of ETA but have been jailed for collaborating with it, or have been convicted of other crimes such as belonging to illegal organizations like SEGI or Gestoras pro Amnistía, belonging to or trying to rebuild banned political parties such as Batasuna and Askatasuna, participating in Kale borroka, or for the "public glorification of terrorism". Etxerat's primary activities are to support those family members, and to campaign to defend the rights of their imprisoned and exiled relatives.
Artisans of Peace is a group of civilian activists and union members from the Northern Basque Country in France, who came to prominence during 2016 and 2017 when they worked as peace brokers in order to obtain the disarmament of the separatist group ETA through disobedience with the French government.
The International Verification Commission (IVC) for the peace process in the *Basque Country was created on 28 September 2011 to verify ETA's declaration of a definitive end of violence. Since 2011 to 2017, the Commission, together with Basque institutions and Basque civil society, worked towards achieving an orderly end of violence.
Women in ETA in Francoist Spain were few in numbers. Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) grew out of a Basque nationalist movement with roots that pre-dated the Second Spanish Republic. When Franco seized power, the new regime cracked down on Basque nationalism, imprisoned and killed many activists and made traditional women's activism difficult to continue. Basque nationalists began to stockpile weaponry following the end of World War II. ETA was created in 1952 by students in Bilbao, creating a fissure in the Basque nationalist community by the mid-1950s. Their attitude towards women was patriarchal and informed by their conservative Roman Catholicism. There would be few women in the movement in this period.
Women in the Basque Nationalist Party in Francoist Spain were involved in leadership positions from an early period. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) was founded prior to the Second Spanish Republic in Bilbao, as a conservative Roman Catholic organization. They initially tried to be neutral during the Civil War, but later more openly opposed Nationalist forces. This led to repression and investigation after the war of women PNV members, and wives and daughters of male PNV members. Emakume Abertzale Batza, PNV's women political section, was operated in exile in this early period.
Enrique Rodríguez Galindo was a Spanish brigadier general of the Civil Guard, who was sentenced to 71 years in prison in 2000 for the kidnapping and murder of the alleged ETA members José Antonio Lasa and José Ignacio Zabala in the so-called Antiterrorist Liberation Groups case.
Juan María Uriarte Goiricelaya was a Spanish Roman Catholic prelate. He was bishop of Zamora from 1991 to 2000 and San Sebastián from 2000 to 2009.
