Pernando Barrena's article in An Phoblacht:
BASQUE POLITICAL PRISONERS face this new year still being the real centre of the peace process in the Basque Country.
The International Peace Conference of Donostia/San Sebastian and the announcement by ETA declaring the end of armed struggle opened up a new political era that should have brought a positive government approach to the issues of political dialogue and prisoners. This never happened and the living conditions of the prisoners actually got worse.
Good news came from the Human Rights European Court of Strasbourg that last October declared void the Spanish legal framework for uncovered life sentences against Basque prisoners. It resulted in the immediate release of over 60 long-term Basque inmates before the end of the year.
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This past week has given us two very different and opposing photographs between them: on the one hand the photograph that came from the Spanish state, that of the violent aggression in response to the declaration of the EPPK and the commitment expressed in Durango by former prisoners with the solution process.
As is well known, the response of the state hasn't been other than:
- The arrest of eight members of the mediators of the EPPK.
- The raid of the offices of various lawyers of Basque political prisoners.
- The banning of the demonstration that the Tantaz Tanta initiative had called for in Bilbao in favour of human rights, solution and peace.
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This police operation requires an urgent response. Therefore, we want to make public the following considerations:
First, we want to forcefully denounce the operation carried out by the Guardia Civil.
We wish to take a moment to send a warm embrace to the arrested and their families; they have our solidarity, our consideration and our respect.
This police operation is the millionth attempt of the Popular Party to asphyxiate the peace process. We have no doubt that this operation has been organized and perpetrated by those who are afraid of peace and are conscious of the weakness of their political arguments.
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SORTU considers that the declaration of the Basque Political Prisoners Collective responding to the recommendations of the Social Forum to promote the peace process is a high level contribution to the resolution process of the Basque political conflict. Therefore, before anything we wish to underscore the valour of these conclusions to which the prisoners have come to after a process of debate and reflection made in extremely difficult conditions.
The contents of the declaration don't leave any doubt as to the commitment of the Basque political prisoners with the peace process. These contents literally affirm that:
- The prisoners recognize the suffering and damage caused as a consequence of their participation in the conflict.
- They take as their own the political scenario that came about from the decision by ETA to put an end to armed activity. They affirm themselves in the use of political and democratic methods and renounce the methods used in the past.
- The prisoners assume that in the process of their release they must use legal channels; that this reintegration will be done in a staggered way and they make a reference to individual commitments.
- And finally, they assume the responsibility derived from the consequences of their activity, including the assumption of responsibilities of each and every one of them.
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