Spain demands disarmament of separatist group

Madrid, Monday

Spain united today in attacking a ceasefire by Basque fighters ETA as totally inadequate and demanding it renounce guns and bombs forever in its battle for an independent homeland.

The government, opposition, and media reacted in unison with deep scepticism to Sunday’s video declaration of a ceasefire in the ETA campaign, blamed for the deaths of 829 people over 42 years.

Three ETA members in berets and yellow hoods, sitting at a table against the background of ETA’s symbol of a snake curling around an axe, announced the halt to attacks. In the centre of the trio, a woman fighter said ETA had decided some months ago to stop offensive violent actions.

But she did not say if the ceasefire was permanent or temporary, provoking scorn among Spanish politicians who recalled that ETA abandoned a “permanent ceasefire” in 2006.

“ETA has to renounce violence completely, forever,” said Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, the most senior member of the government to react to the ETA declaration.

The ETA statement failed to meet the demands of the Spanish government and even ETA’s own outlawed political wing Batasuna of “a definitive and unconditional abandonment of armed struggle,” he told the Spanish public television station TVE. (AFP)