This file is a mirror of EUSKAL HERRIA JOURNAL by Basque Red Net.

Herri Batasuna's Political Statement
After the Suspension of the Ceasefire

The following text is an unofficial English translation from Spanish of the statement of the pro-independence Basque political coalition Herri Batasuna after ETA announced suspension of its truce. Herri Batasuna made this statement at a news conference in the Basque city of Donostia on November 29, 1999. The document text was published in Spanish in the Basque newspaper Gara on November 30.

Note: Translator's notes are in brackets

Political Statement by Herri Batasuna

Given the delicate situation facing the democratic process open during the last months and the announcement by the armed organization ETA of the suspension of the truce declared on September 18, 1998, we want, first off, to appeal to the much needed serenity and the responsibility of all the social, labor union and political agents of the Basque Country.

Therefore, as a result of this call for responsibility and in exercise of such, Herri Batasuna wants to deliver to the public opinion the following reflexions:

1. It is necessary to stress that the national democratic process open in our country must continue and ought to continue in force, and that it is our firm compromise to to double our efforts with the certainty that only a coherent and sustained development would allow us to reach a scenario of democracy and peace for our country.<P. process. This is the road on which we will continue above any difficulty.

3. But the achievements ought not to make us forget the holes which have existed fundamentally in the last six months.

It is necessary to point out that it is not our intention to evade our own, but it is of justice to recognize that, the lack of political determination, the lack of courage and the permanent temptation and utilization of ambiguous messages or with double meanings by the PNV and EA, have propitiated a worisome tendency towards the desnaturalization of the open process.

4. Taking this factor into account, and as far as our responsibility goes, Herri Batasuna again manifests its firm compromise on the open process and in that sense it wants to stress the following:

4.1. That Herri Batasuna maintains intact all the political, social and institutional compromises adopted to this moment, in the same terms.

4.2. That establishing that the lack of definition of the process is one of the factors obstructing the same, Herri Batasuna adopts the compromise to make public soon its alternative for the definition of it.

5. Herri Batasuna finally wants to manifest its absolute political contempt for the attitude of the political forces and the media which support the policy maintained during all these last years by the Spanish and the French states.

Their permanent sabotage of the process, their incapacity to make a simple exercise of political democracy, their permanent obstination in a battle against reason and common sense, makes them the creditors of our contempt.

Ripping off their costumes is worthless as it is their call to remake their [politico-military] democratic bloc; their call is a call for war, for annihilation, for imposition, a fascist call.

Basque society has won the battle for democracy and peace, for the respect to the decision that we, the Basques of Nafarroa, Zuberoa, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Lapurdi and Araba, freely and democratically adopt.

It is a matter of time and they know it.

6. In this sense, Herri Batasuna, and as a first initiative for the mobilization of Basque society, has decided to characterize and give content to the rally we were going to have in Durango on December 6, calling on all the abertzales [patriotic Basques] and progressive people of the Basque Country to participate in the rally this next Saturday in Bilbo at 5:30 under the slogan of Euskal Herria Eraikiz-Prozesu demokratikoaren Alde [building the Basque Country-in support of the democratic process].

Translation by Olatz Arkauz for Euskal Herria Journal