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Peace is popular as Basques go to polls today
By ELIZABETH BRYANT © St. Petersburg Times, published May 13, 2001 SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain -- Six years ago, Regina Otaola quit her job as an economist for a more exciting career in Basque politics. Excitement, indeed. Today the 49-year-old member of Spain's governing Popular Party is on the hit list of the Basque terrorist group ETA. As a councilwoman for the tiny town of Eibar, she lives with round-the-clock bodyguards and occasionally finds images of dead bodies scrawled on the sidewalk outside her house. But Otaola might reap a political payback of sorts today when 1.8-million voters head to the polls in Spain's autonomous Basque region. Some opinion polls indicate that a coalition of Madrid-based Popular and Socialist parties will win a narrow majority in the 75-seat regional Parliament, sweeping Basque nationalists from power for the first time in 21 years. "I think the PP is going to win this time," Otaola said during a boisterous Popular Party rally near San Sebastian. "I speak with many people in little towns, and they are saying they don't want nationalist groups. They want freedom. They want peace. And I think it's time for the PP." That is also the message of Jaime Mayor Oreja, Spain's tough-talking former interior minister and member of the Popular Party. A Basque by birth, Oreja promises to wage war on ETA if elected regional governor. And among the rolling hills of Spanish Basque country, a yearning for peace is apparently gaining ground over long-held aspirations for independence. After years of enduring mafia-style executions, car bombs and demands for "revolutionary taxes" to pay for the ETA's separatist war, many people are fed up. "Votes for Mayor Oreja will be votes against ETA," said Fernando Iturribarria, a journalist for the Spanish Basque newspaper Pueblo Vasco. "Mayor Oreja made the fight against ETA his agenda as interior minister. But I am very pessimistic. I think if the PP wins, the violence will increase." The ETA appears to share that prognosis. Last Sunday, gunmen assassinated a local Popular Party senator as he walked to a soccer match with his son. If confirmed, the killing is the latest in 800 linked to the militant group during its 32-year campaign to establish an independent Basque nation in northern Spain and southern France. Oreja has attracted his share of controversy. Despite his promises to the contrary, critics warn that the "police candidate" is bent on diluting the region's considerable powers, which include control over fiscal and education matters, along with the official recognition of the Basque language, Euskera. Basque nationalists also argue that the Popular Party's "fascist" heritage -- the father of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was a government official under Spanish dictator Francisco Franco -- will translate into repression. "Oreja says he will defeat ETA by force," said Gema de Txabarri, a parliamentary candidate representing the region's long-dominant Basque Nationalist Party, or PNV. "But Spain has been trying to do that for almost 40 years, and they still haven't defeated the ETA." Many Basques also express ambivalence about Oreja. "Mayor Oreja is not totally connected with the reality of the Basque country," said Julen Viegas, 20, who brandished a Communist flag during a May Day rally in San Sebastian. "He has lived a long time in Madrid, and he is not able to understand the real problems of the Basque people." It is hard to escape Basque politics. Fuzzy pictures of prisoners, allegedly "tortured" by Spanish police, plaster telephone booths and church walls. The May Day celebrations ended with masked youths hurling a few flaming, gasoline-filled cans -- to the studied indifference of local residents. And each campaign day, cars roll through San Sebastian's streets blaring promises by the far-left Euskal Herritarrok, or EH party, that "a free nation is about to be born." Considered the political wing of the ETA, the socialist-oriented EH formed an uneasy alliance with the moderate Nationalists. But the pact dissolved when the ETA ended a 14-month cease-fire in 1999, forcing the Nationalists to call early elections. Today, the Nationalists' embattled chief, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, pledges he will make no new deals with the EH until it renounces violence. Despite the terrorist attacks, extremists enjoy steady support from about 15 percent of Basques. Critics scoff at the Basques' aspirations, describing them as a form of racism. The only independent Basque state in history ended in the 16th century, and the Basque flag is a century-old fabrication. In San Sebastian, Olivia Bandres thinks the Basque identity could be preserved under a "Spanish" government. Bandres is a member of Basta Ya! (Enough is Enough), a peace movement whose members stage mass demonstrations after each ETA-linked killing. Basta Ya! has endorsed the Popular and Socialist parties. "Personally, I feel good about our autonomous statute. I like the way things are," Bandres said. "I have no political conflict. The only conflict I have is with terrorism." The Basque regionKey facts about the Basque region, which holds parliamentary elections today: POPULATION: 2.1-million. LANGUAGES: Spanish and Euskera, the ancient Basque language. RELIGION: Mainly Roman Catholic, with 40 percent regular church attendance, among the highest in Spain. POLITICS: The region gained semiautonomous status in 1979 after Spain's transition to democracy with the death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco. It has a parliament, police force, school curriculum, health system and authority to levy taxes. The 75 members of parliament elected today will choose a Basque leader, or "lehendekari." ECONOMY: One of Spain's wealthiest regions with a per capita gross domestic product of $32,300 -- 22 percent higher than the national average. Chief revenue sources are banking, fishing and industry. LAND: The region includes the lush mountains and rugged coasts that run from the French border at the western end of the Pyrenees to the shoreline of Spain's northern Bay of Biscay. It has three provinces -- Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa and Alava -- with Vitoria as the regional capital. Bilbao and San Sebastian are the major economic and cultural centers.
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