July 16, 1998

The Basque Congress for Peace condemns the closing of the Basque newspaper EGIN and its sister radio station EGIN IRRATIA by the Spanish government, and insists that dialogue and negotiation is the only way to solve the conflict between Spain/France and the Basque Country.

In another attack to freedom of expression and information, a Spanish judge of the juryless National Court (Gen. Franco's special court renamed) on Wednesday, July 15, 1998, shut down EGIN and EGIN IRRATIA and arrested 11 members of the administrative council -- including a priest and former prisoner sentenced to 12 years in prison by the Francoist regime.

As in the dictatorship of Gen. Franco with its flagrant attacks against freedom of expression and information, more than 350 agents of the Spanish National Police in a predawn raid entered and occupied the headquarters of EGIN's newsroom in the town of Hernani (in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa) and the newspaper's offices in the cities of Irunea (Navarre), Bilbo (Bizkaia) and Gasteiz (Araba), which were sealed off under the order of the National Court judge Baltazar Garzon -- the same judge who got members of the anti-ETA death-squads known as GAL out of prison after serving five of a 100-years sentence.

Spain's Ministry of Interior Jaime Mayor Oreja said EGIN and EGIN IRRATIA were closed and ll people arrested because "EGIN is helping ETA." According to Mayor Oreja "there is proof that there are close and stable ties" between Egin and the Basque resistance organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom). EGIN published excerpts of ETA communiques (also published by Spanish newspapers), and interviews with ETA conducted by Basque and Spanish journalists, as well as interviews by foreign journalists and broadcast in European television EGIN is the only Basque newspaper that provides a forum to debate social, cultural, economic, and political issues affecting the Basque Country.

Once again, since gaining office in 1996, Spain's ruling, right-wing Popular Party (founded by Gen. Franco's minister of Interior, Manuel Fraga) has overlooked democratic freedoms to deal with the Basque dissidence as the average dictatorship would.

Last December, the entire leadership of the Basque political party Herri Batasuna was sentenced to a total of 161 years in jail for having distributed for public debate a peace proposal for a democratic solution of the conflict between Spain/France and the Basque Country.

But Spain's increasing repressive measures against Basque dissidents has not been able to stop the growing efforts from different sectors of Basque society towards dialogue and negotiations to overcome the conflict with Spain and France. The closing of EGIN and EGIN IRRATIA shows a desperate Spanish government unable to blockade the path to a peaceful solution of the conflict -- insisting in police action and refusing to emulate ongoing efforts in Ireland and Palestine and other parts of the world towards conflict resolution through negotiations.

A recent poll in the Basque Country shows 97 percent of Basques favor dialogue, and 77 percent are in favor of alternatives to police action.

Over 600 Roman Catholic priests in the Basque Country last month issued a manifesto (Opening roads to peace) calling for dialogue and debate. Last April, the president of the Madrid-based Association for Human Rights, Juan Serraller, presented a pro-dialogue document endorsed by hundreds of Spanish intellectuals. The document called for dialogue between the government and ETA irrespective of a cease-fire.

Last month the three-parties coalition forming the Basque regional government in Spain broke up on following a dispute over talks between the Basque nationalist parties. The Spanish Socialist Party withdrew from the 12-year-old coalition with the conservative Basque Nationalist Party and a minority Basque nationalist party, accusing them of having made a pact with the pro-independence political party, Herri Batasuna. Spain fears a Basque nationalist agreement in the style of Ireland's Humes-Adams accord -- an initiative that opened the path to the Stormont Accord.

Note: Egin on Thursday began to publish a makeshift edition under the name "Euskadi Informacion."

The closing of Egin/Egin, egingo dugu! Egin (week in review, from the original publication) Egin Irratia/Radio (news briefs till july 14)