E-Notes

Europe’s Native Terrorism

by Michael Radu

October 4, 2002

Michael Radu is Chairman of FPRI’s Center on Terrorism and Counterterrorism. This essay is one in a series based on a July 24 talk he gave to the FPRI Sponsors Forum upon his return from his June-July 2002 trip to Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Romania.

All of Britain, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and France have experienced native, middle-class Marxist/totalitarian terrorism in recent decades: Britain at the hands of the IRA since the late 1960s; in Germany, Italy, and Belgium, by the Baader-Meinhoff Gang, the Red Brigades, and the Combatant Communist Cells, respectively, during the 1970s; and in France by Action Directe during the early 1980s. All have defeated it, often with legislation tougher than the legislation they now condemn when applied to Colombia, a country facing a far more serious totalitarian threat than they ever were.

Today, it is Spain that has the dubious distinction of being the only EU member with a serious terrorist problem — albeit the Italian Red Brigades are increasingly showing signs of revival, and the IRA in Ulster, its protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, is still engaged in violence and helps others — like the Colombian communists of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)— to promote “socialist revolution.”

In Spain the Marxist/separatist Basque terrorists of the Euzkadi ta Azkatasuna (“Basque Homeland and Liberty”) — infamously known as ETA — have murdered some 800 people since ETA’s inception in the late 1960s. Those who cling to the myth that terrorism is the result of “injustice, poverty, and the lack of opportunity” should note that the overwhelming majority of ETA’s victims— the latest is a six-year-old girl in an August 4 attack— were murdered after Spain became a model democracy upon Gen. Francisco Franco’s death in 1975. As for “poverty” as a determinant of terrorism, the three Basque provinces of Alava, Vizcaya, and Guipuzcoa have Spain’s highest per capita GDP and receive massive subsidies from Madrid; with respect to “injustice”— the Basque Country (including the three provinces) government is freely elected (and the Basque Nationalist Party [PNV] is in charge of the local government), has control over education, taxation, police, etc.— everything except foreign policy and defense.

It appears that, none of this withstanding, there is a large Basque constituency (some 10 percent of regional voters), and a total of 200,000 supporters of ETA terrorism, according to Madrid professor and El Mundo columnist Felipe Sahagun. The ruling PNV has only a shaky majority, considering that most of the 40+ percent non-Basques in the region vote for the two major Spanish parties: the ruling conservatives of the Popular Party (PP) and the main opposition, the Socialist Workers Party of Spain (PSOE).

Here is the problem faced by Spain now, and by all democracies at one time or another: The “legal” face of ETA is Batasuna, which is represented in the provincial Basque parliament. Members of this “party” have been arrested for involvement in violence, and its leaders make it their principle to never condemn ETA terrorism, even when the victim is a six-year-old girl. As a party, Batasuna receives massive amounts of money from the regional and national governments— money that goes to help ETA terrorists.

The solution supported by PP and PSOE— i.e., by some 90 percent of Spanish voters— is to make Batasuna illegal, since it is simply a mouthpiece for terrorism. A vote in favor of this took place in the Spanish Parliament on August 26. The Marxist Left of the United Left abstained, though they remain in coalition with the Basque nationalists in the regional Basque government. After all, everything that weakens the Spanish “capitalists and bourgeois classes” is good for revolution; the Catalan autonomists are caught between dismay at ETA’s atrocities and fear that they could be next; and the PNV opposed Batasuna’s illegalization on various pretexts. The real reason is that the PNV and ETA/Batasuna differ only in tactics— violent or non-violent— rather than the ultimate goal, Basque independence.

That, at least, is what most Spaniards believe, and their tolerance has been sorely tested. The striking similarity in the attitudes of the conservative PP and the socialist PSOE suggests a degree of unanimity which promises violence if Basque nationalists of any stripe ever win independence. The PNV is now pushing a referendum on independence not only in the Basque region but in Navarra, Spain, where the Basques are a minority as well as in the French Basque country.

Indeed, for a very long time France, which neighbors Spain and also has a significant Basque minority, refused to cooperate with Spain, hoping to contain the ETA’s activities in Spain. When ETA started attacking French targets, Paris got tough — so much so that by now ETA “revolutionaries" are extradited to Spain within days of their arrest in France. On September 17, senior ETA leaders Juan Antonio Olarra Guridi and Ainhoa Mugica were arrested in Bordeaux in a joint French-Spanish operation. Not surprisingly, ETA has had to move its logistical rear to friendlier areas— and none is friendlier than “progressive” Belgium.

Considering the Basque nationalists’ notion that if independent they will still receive massive Spanish or Brussels subsidies, one might think that some EU statement making it clear that a secessionist Basque state will not automatically acquire EU membership could calm down the large Basque middle-class which now romantically helps the PNV or ETA. Such a statement would force them to make a clear-cut choice between money and sentimentality. There is a good chance the pocket would win among enough Basque hearts to marginalize ETA’s thugs. After all, Basques are barely a majority, if they are at all, in one of the three “Basque” provinces (Alava), and their nationalist claims to Navarra are clearly bogus.

So, what does all this mean for the U.S. war on terrorism? First, the Madrid government has so far been the most cooperative with the United States on Islamic terrorists, and with good reason: Alicante, in Spain’s southeast, is a traditional refuge for Algerian Islamic terrorists of the GIA (Islamic Armed Group), and Spain is highly dependent upon Algerian gas and oil supplies. Cooperation between Madrid and Algiers against GIA is thus natural.

Then there is Morocco, with which Spain has a long and tortuous relationship. Most of the 600,000-plus illegal aliens now in Spain are Moroccans, and Rabat still “claims” two Spanish towns in North Africa, Ceuta and Mellilla. Morocco should have no reasonable, plausible legal claim to those cities, the people of which want to be Spanish and a majority of whom are still Christian — both towns were conquered by Spain at least 400 years ago. But then, history is not the same as legal right— after all, depending on what historical point is chosen, all of Spain (and Portugal) could be claimed as Islam (that is the view of Osama bin Laden, who refers to “Al Andalus”), a claim that makes no sense at all to other than Islamic nostalgics of the eighth century.

It appears that whenever the ruler of Morocco has a problem (usually internal and lately with Islamists) he uses the claim to Ceuta/Melilla as an escape valve— that is, when Western Sahara does not serve. On matters relating to Western Sahara, Spain plays the spoiler. It opposes the obvious and rational solution — a Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty— in the name of “decolonization”— as if a pseudo-state ruled by refugee semi-Marxists from Algerian camps is something to be desired. It would be if the goal was to weaken Morocco, but that is not a goal the U.S. shares. Hence the Washington-Madrid conflict at the UN, with Spain claiming to support some right of nomadic, mostly non- Saharan tribes to “independence.” It has to do so, since Madrid has made Gibraltar an emotional issue against fellow EU member Britain. Why Gibraltar should be “Spanish” when most residents prefer to be British, and what difference it makes between two NATO and EU members, is not clear to thinking non-Spaniards; but such is the new “Europe.”

What is important here is not Spanish idiosyncrasies, or the rather peculiar problem of the EU community’s not providing Spain with significant and effective support. It is the EU’s general problem in dealing with, or even understanding, the fact that there is a problem with terrorism— domestic or other. Legalistic approaches, such as Britain’s preventive detention of suspected terrorists or the German ban on groups known to be linked to terrorism— are more often than not rejected by courts. Spain’s approach, more radical and realistic, is still limited to domestic (i.e., ETA) terrorists. Indeed, as long as existing legal parameters continue to be applied, the terrorist issue will remain intractable in Europe— just as it may in the U.S., once the legal process weighs in on the Bush administration’s post-September 11 decisions. In the American case, however, unlike in Europe, there is some awareness that the rules have to be changed to meet the new times, while in Europe as a whole, that is far from being the case.

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