ANOTHER DAY, another ETA statement. After last week's offer you can't refuse, the Basque terrorist group announced late last night a truce in its attacks against elected politicians:

The Basque separatist group ETA said Saturday it had halted attacks against "elected members of political parties," but Spanish politicians dismissed the claim.

The statement published in the radical Basque daily Gara, which is often used as a mouthpiece for the group, said that as of June 1 ETA had "closed the front" against elected politicians because of changes in Spain's political atmosphere.

These changes included the split in the anti-terrorist pact between Spain's governing Socialists and the conservative Popular Party.

It was now up to Madrid and Paris to "respond positively to the willingness shown by ETA in recent months," the statement said. The statement was published a day after the group offered dialogue to end the conflict in the northern Spanish region, but ignored demands that it disarm — vowing to fight until Spain acknowledges Basques have the right to self-determination.

Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said Friday "the only communique the government wants to comment on is the one in which ETA announces it is abandoning violence definitively, in which it announces it will stop killing, that it will stop extorting, that it is disappearing."

So I wonder now it's only plain, regular civilians -as well as law enforcement personnel- who are at risk. Great.

The article says that politicians dismissed the claim; of course, it wouldn't have been nice if a big sigh of relief was heard (if the gulf between politicians and citizens is already big now, just imagine if they didn't dismiss this "offer"), but also something's not working out here: if the truce has supposedly started on June 1, why did the home of a Socialist councilman get firebombed last Friday June 17 (link in Spanish)?

Two communiqués in 48 hours, and an attack clearly contradicting the second one... are we seeing an IRA-like split between more and less violent factions, for and against laying fown arms? Or is it all just what ETA has shown several times in the past to be masters of, a carefully administered position to drive a wedge between the different groups in front of them? Divide and conquer?


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