The End of ETA?

By Michael Radu *

On October 3, during a routine police check in the small southwestern town of Salis de Bearn, French authorities arrested 20 militants of the Basque separatist-Marxist terrorist organization ETA (Euzkadi ta Askatasuna -- Basque Motherland and Freedom), including the group's two top leaders, and found an enormous cache of weapons. The arrests made were reported by media throughout Europe, but passed almost unnoticed in the United States, even though ETA is on the UN's list of terrorist organizations. Indeed, with all the talk about the war on terrorism, magnified by the presidential campaign, it appears that most Americans, including politicians and the media, forget that terrorism is not limited to Islamists but include other, sometimes older groups, whose capabilities could help the likes of the Al Qaeda nebula.

ETA is a good example. To begin with, the two leaders captured in France are among the few remaining ETA veterans left after a series of successful captures in both France and Spain during the past few years. They are Mikel Albizu Iriarte, aka Mikel Antza, the group's political leader and main strategist, and Soledad "Anboto" Iparaguirre Guenechea, his girlfriend, the leader of ETA's "legal commandos" -- in other words, the murderer-in-chief. (Indeed, she was directly linked to no less than fourteen murders in Spain).

Considering that ETA's present membership (estimated at less than 200 full-time terrorists) is getting younger and less educated by the day, the loss of these two is a serious blow to the organization. How weak and depleted the group has become is demonstrated by the fact that Antza himself was the publisher, editor, writer, and typesetter of ETA's internal bulletin, Zutabe, in the Salis de Bearn safe house.

The personal histories of Antza and Anboto, who have a child together, themselves offer a good insight into the terrorist mind and career.

Both were born in 1961 in families with ETA links, which makes them second generation etarras. A few more such individuals could continue to come forward: there is an ETA microculture in the Basque country, which is likely to continue producing a few terrorists for the foreseeable future. But they will not pose a threat to the democratic Spanish system. ETA, marginal as it increasingly is, could probably continue to exist for the indefinite future -- albeit not as a significant force.

In all events, after Anboto's first ETA terrorist boyfriend was killed in a firefight with the police, she became involved with Antza and, during their rest-and-recreation period in Cuba in the late 1990s, gave birth to their daughter. (This raises the question of Castro's role in helping ETA, which has received significant support from friendly Latin American countries that are also friendly to Havana: the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, Mexico under PRI and the intellectual elites today, Chavez' Venezuela , etc.). The pair were also sentenced, twice, in absentia, to five-year prison terms by French courts.

The capture of the huge weapons cache on the estate where the ETA leaders were caught -- hundreds of grenades, tens of thousands of cartridges, almost a ton of explosives, and, most disturbingly, two Russian-made ground to air missiles (apparently bought from Irish traffickers linked to the IRA) is alarming. Given the ETA's lack of operatives to use such weapons effectively, it suggests the potential threat such groups represent if they decide to help each other, however opportunistically. What then do the recent arrests mean for Spain, the United States, and the global war on terrorism?

To begin with, coming as they do on the heels of previous and equally significant arrests in France during the past two years, the arrests mean that the terrorist organization is now limited to a handful of thugs who know nothing but murder and theft in the name of a cause they can no longer articulate. Indeed, ETA's separatist and Marxist goal has by now been taken over, in part (the separatist part) by the largest Basque political party itself, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). For the large minority of separatist Basques (the PNV never obtained a majority of votes in the three Basque provinces, although, in alliance with the communist Left, it does form their government), ETA is not just redundant but an embarrassment.

That, however, does not herald the end of ETA -- something that has been hoped for and written of many times in the past. There will always be a few adventurers, thugs or fanatics to pick up the "cause" of Antza and his murderous companion. But there is a clear difference between a large organization with significant popular support, as ETA was during the 1980s, and a marginal group of criminals. However, as far as Madrid is concerned, separatism is now a political issue of major proportions, since it is represented now by the PNV, which doesn't have ETA's terrorist/Marxist image problem.

Paris and Madrid both congratulated themselves on their cooperation in the capture and identification of the terrorists of Salis de Bearn, and with good reason. However, that is not to say that Franco-Spanish antiterrorism cooperation has always been the case. Indeed, until the late 1980s Paris has chosen to see ETA as a group of romantic Robin Hoods fighting for a legitimate cause, and allowed ETA safe havens in France -- until, that is, it started organizing a French Basque group, Ipparetarak, seeking its own autonomy and ultimately the creation of an ETA-run Marxist state throughout the region populated by Basques, on both sides of the Pyrenees. Thus, where fifteen years ago, no ETA operatives were arrested in France, let alone extradited to Spain; today, some are delivered to the Spanish Guardia Civil in a matter of hours after their arrest on French territory. Accordingly, many ETA operations are now planned and organized from Belgium -- a country that until quite recently did not even have antiterrorism laws.

The Antza-Anboto team's use of Cuba as a haven suggests that Castro is still doing what he has always done: supporting terrorist groups on the Left, more or (lately) less openly. Judging by the reaction of the Latin American intellectual elites and leftist media, ETA still has a significant reservoir of support in countries like Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Hence, those fighting terrorism globally need to keep an eye on Havana.

The size of the cache found on October 3 indicates that ETA, depleted as it was even before the capture of its leaders, was in a position to sell or give its weapons to others. "Others," considering ETA's Leninist ideology and rabid anti-Americanism, its enthusiasm for the 9/11 attacks, and its known cooperation with terrorist groups overseas, from Colombia to northern Ireland, may mean just about anyone, including Al Qaeda. Ultimately, separatist terrorism is still just terrorism. It has a global reach and logistical system, whether it involves France, Spain, Iraq, or the United States. Therefore the arrests of Basque terrorists in an obscure township in southwestern France is no marginal event; it is a matter of national security for all of us.

* Michael Radu is co-chairman of FPRI's Center on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

Source: Foreign Policy Research Institute