Spanish minister says Eta's offer of a truce can not be trusted

Published on Monday 6 September 2010 17:30

Spain cannot trust this weekend's truce announcement by armed Basque separatist group Eta and will continue to pursue its members, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said yesterday, in the Spansih government's first offiical response to the move.

• Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba

He suggested the ceasefire announcement on Sunday could well be an attempt by Eta to legitimise its political arm, Batasuna, ahead of municipal elections in 2011.

However, Batasuna must break with Eta or have them disarm before this can happen, the Interior Minister said. "It could well be a step-by-step strategy. (Batasuna] have to get the message: either they break definitively with Eta or they convince Eta to definitively stop its violence.

Eta has killed more than 850 people in its attempt to carve out an independent state in northern Spain and south-west France.

However, the group has recently been crippled by arrests of its members and a rise in support among Basques for a democratic solution to the independence movement.

"The announcement clearly intends to hide their weakness, because if they do not hide their weakness, the calls within their own grassroots support for them to disarm will grow," the Interior Minister said.

"This message (for Eta to disarm] has taken on more urgency ahead of local elections next year, which presents the political wing with an opportunity to shore up their power and prevent it from being depleted entirely.

They are looking into the abyss," said Inigo Gurruchaga, co-author of a 2009 book Talking to Terrorists - Making Peace in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country.

Eta has broken ceasefires several times in the past, most recently in 2006 when a truce was ended by a deadly bomb attack at Madrid's airport.

Previous ceasefires have been seen by analysts as attempts by the organisation to regroup with a view to launching further attacks.

"It looks more like a breathing spell of indeterminate duration rather than something indicative of an actual readiness to engage in (a real peace process]," said Francois Heisbourg ofthe Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research.

The three masked Eta members who announced the ceasefire in a video did not say whether the truce was permanent or why they had decided to stop the attacks.

Mr Rubalcaba said he viewed the term "truce" as dead, because the terrorist organisation had broken ceasefires three times before, notably with the Madrid airport attack.

"There's no incentive in talking to Eta, when previous such attempts only gave it a measure of traction."The thinking is 'why bring these people in now, when they're on their knees?' said John Bew, a lecturer at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King's College, University of London.