BASQUE ETA GROUP.   Term Paper ID:30184 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Discusses the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) as both a revolutionary and evolutionary group.... More...

7 Pages / 1575 Words 6 sources, 13 Citations, MLA Format $28.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Discusses the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) as both a revolutionary and evolutionary group. Various perspectives of ETA as a terrorist organization or freedom fighters seeking independence from Spain's control. Politics, tactics & long-term goal of establishing a Basque homeland. ETA use of negotiation as well as violence. Origin of group. Paper Introduction: Assessment of the Basque group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) depends on one's political perspective. From the point of view of the group itself and its supporters, the ETA is comprised of freedom fighters, revolutionaries seeking liberty and independence from Spain's control. From the perspective of the Spanish government, the ETA is a terrorist organization willing to use whatever means are necessary to achieve its radical political goals. Such opponents of the ETA hold that the group is violent and will remain violent even when it vows to give up its violence. To other, less extreme Basque liberation organizations, the ETA is justifiable in its ultimate goals of independence, but counter-productive in its violent tactics and strategy. The reality is that all of these perspectives are correct to some degree, and the reason for this is that the ETA is an Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. To be sure, thegroup has much extremism and violence in its history, but it has alsodemonstrated an ability and willingness to alter its direction and thruston a more pragmatic basis. The U.S.State Department, for example, lists the ETA on its most dangerousterrorist list, making funding illegal, while the Irish Republican Army isnot on the list. . Wilson, 1978.Payne, Stanley. Assessment of the Basque group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) depends onone's political perspective. In doing so, however, he notes thedifference in the ways the violence of the Spanish government and ETAviolence are viewed by both Spaniards and by external forces. Thus Carerro's spectacular murder by terrorists belonging to the ETA . The ETA can point tothe fact that it was not violent in its early years, and that the tactic ofviolence was not even considered until 1962. Gilmour notes, however, that while the ETA gave up outright racism,it did not give up the notion of the superiority of the Basque culture andlanguage. . ETA finances its activities through kidnappings, robberies, and extortion. The roots of the Basque claim for independence are the ideas andideology of Sabino Arana: They endorsed the historic myths propounded by him and other propagandists: the nobility and egalitarianism of Basque society, the complete independence it had enjoyed until the nineteenth century, the conquest and occupation of a foreign power. The assassination of Franco'sright-hand man was perhaps its most "popular" political violent act, butthe primary effect was not to gain support for Basque independence. Most of the sources identify the group as radical leftists, evenMarxist, but the view is not unanimous. Itseems very unlikely, in any case, that the Spanish government would agreeto allow the Basques to separate from Spain. But ETA soon abandoned Arana's [anti-Spanish] racism, partly because some of its leaders were not of Basque origin, and partly because racist doctrines were no longer fashionable outside southern Africa (Gilmour 127). The same report holds that the ETA is primarily funded from externalsources, all with associations to communism or terrorism: Libya, Lebanon,Nicaragua, Cuba, and the Irish Republican Army ("Basque" 2). Some of itsviolence has proved more popular than others. An understanding of the ETA must include consideration of thecontradictory portraits of observers, and these contradictions are apparentfrom the very beginning of the organization. . . Activities: primarily bombings and assassinations of Spanish Government officials, especially security and military forces, politicians, and judicial figures. The underlying argument of the claim for independence from Spainis that continued domination by the Spanish government and people willeventually lead to the complete assimilation of the Basque people and thedisappearance of their culture and language. http://web.nps.navy.mil/~library/tgp/eta.htmGilmour, David. The ETA assassinated him, making itpossible that Spain in the post-Franco era would establish a more liberatedgovernment, Had he not been murdered by the ETA, he would have remained in office as guarantor of the regime's continuity for as long as two years after Franco's death. . Everything that was wrong with the Basque country was the fault of Spain (except in the northern provinces where it could be attributed to France) (Gilmour 127). . and all the nationalist and non-nationalist political parties in the Basque country [but one] . Works Cited"Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA)." Terrorist Group Profiles. In fact, Gilmour notes thatsome in the ETA leadership argued for non-violence based on Gandhi'sphilosophy of resistance. . February 1998. Specifically, Payne notes that the ETA "postulates federation of allseven Basque provinces on both sides of the Pyrenees . The changes it has gone through in its forty plusyears of existence have shown the nation of Spain and the world a number ofgroup identities as it adjusts its ideology and tactics. One source basically sees the ETA as a Marxist terrorist organizationwhose principal tactic is violence, with little or no room for change ornegotiation: Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna: founded in 1959 with the aim of establishing an independent homeland based on Marxist principles. http://www.en.monde- diplomatique.fr/1998/ 2/ 8basqueMcClellan, Grant. . . government estimates to beseventy ETA commandos and their 8 killings [over decades], without muchreflection on what 15, police were doing to the Basques" (Kurlansky 298-299). The Transformation of Spain. . . The ETA, therefore, gives the government the opportunityto pretend that the ETA os responsible for the lack of negotiation. New York:H.W. . That position was overtaken by those who believednon-violence would only work against a "civilized regime," not the brutalgovernment of Franco, "which gave a man a seven year sentence for burning aSpanish flag" (Gilmour 128). Gilmour, for example, writes: ETA began as a simple nationalist movement, with the independence of the Basque country as its sole objective. Naval Postgraduate School. Ingeneral, the violent tactics seem to be alienating its own people, thosewho agree with the goals of independence but not its tactics. Dudley Knox Library. The Basque History of the World. The question of whether the group was originally Marxist is open todebate. . In November 1999, ETA broke its "unilateral and indefinite" cease-fire and began an assassination and bombing campaign that killed 23 individuals and wounded scores more by the end of 2 ("Basque" 2). (McClellan 35). was a crucial development in Spain's political evolution. To other, less extremeBasque liberation organizations, the ETA is justifiable in its ultimategoals of independence, but counter-productive in its violent tactics andstrategy. This include Basques who seekindependence but have become wearied with violence on either side. This portrait stands in stark contrast to most other sources, interms of the politics, the tactics, and the long-term goals of the ETA.Even Kurlansky, who describes the ETA in sometimes harsh terms,acknowledges a flexibility in the group's policy which the first analysisignores: "European governments accept without question the Spanishgovernment line that ETA, whose primary demand for several decades has beennegotiation, refuses to negotiate" (Kurlansky 298). The group has killed more than 8 persons since it began lethal attacks in the early 196 s. From the perspectiveof the Spanish government, the ETA is a terrorist organization willing touse whatever means are necessary to achieve its radical political goals.Such opponents of the ETA hold that the group is violent and will remainviolent even when it vows to give up its violence. It seems clear that the ETA has gained notoriety for itself andattention for its cause primarily through violent tactics. Another question is what the negotiation shouldconcern, and whether the demands of the ETA are truly negotiable from thegovernment's perspective. Loyer writes that after a wave of ETA violence against more moderateBasque leaders, Tens of thousands of people protested against these crimes. The Basques can offer the counter-argument that the Spanishgovernment has never taken and will never take seriously the Basque claimsfor independence, and that the violence it has utilized is the only tacticwhich will force the government to change its stand. . Blaming the ETA for thestalemate gives the government a way to simply ignore the issue of Basqueseparation. A number of sources suggest the members number in the hundreds,with Kurlansky going even lower. . after breakingup of the existing structure of the Spanish and French states" (Payne 242).The ETA's demands are a threat to both Spain and France, therefore, and itsviolent tactics in general have alienated not only the Spanish people butmany Basques as well (Kurlansky 3 ). From the point of view of the group itself andits supporters, the ETA is comprised of freedom fighters, revolutionariesseeking liberty and independence from Spain's control. It is true that the group came to the attention of the Spanishgovernment through violence, but it is also true that the ETA does continueto seek negotiation. New York: Walker, 1999.Loyer, Barbara. "Basque Nationalism Undermined by ETA." Le Monde diplomatique. Spain and Portugal: Democratic Beginnings. For example, before the death of Franco, the dictator's right-hand man Prime Minister Carrero Blanco was on the verge of solidifying theperpetuation of Franco's policies. The number of ETA members is far smaller than its impact andnotoriety. It was not until 1966-67 that the ETAofficially approved violence as a tactic, and in 1967 the assassination ofCarerro set ETA policy on a road upon which it still remains. Kurlansky also points out that while the Spanish government claims torefuse to negotiate with the ETA because of its violent tactics, that samegovernment has never "showed interest in negotiating with the nonviolentBasque nationalists who represent the largest portion of Basques"(Kurlansky 3 ). Reno: U of Nevada P, 1975.----------------------- 1 . Basque Nationalism. As for the Spanish people themselves, "the first thing[they] think of as Basque is what the . As McClellan notes, the man who followed Carerro in the office ofprime Minister was "a weaker and less effective figure who lacked Carerro'sability to rally the old guard against change" (McClellan 35). The problem with the use of violence as a meansof gaining attention for the cause of a group is that even when the groupchanges tactics and demonstrates a flexibility and openness to negotiation,the original perception of the group as a terrorist organization willremain. It is unlikely, in the view of this reader, that Spain will evergrant independence to the Basques, with or without ETA violence.Nevertheless, the ETA should consider abandoning its violent tactics, forsuch tactics seem to have lost the group not only any Spanish support itmight have ever had, but also much of its support even among the Basquepeople themselves. While it is true that the ETA has engaged in violence, assassination,and terrorist activities, not all of the ETA's violence has provenunpopular. were represented in the demonstrations against terrorism (Loyer 2). The role of the ETA remains a complex facet in the complex issue ofBasque separatist politics in Spain. 1-8. London: Quartet, 1985.Kurlansky, Mark. The only point on which thesources agree is the ultimate goal of the ETA, which is the establishmentof an independent Basque homeland on territory which is now a part ofSpain. . One can argue, as most Spaniards andeven most Basques now do, that the violence of the ETA, especially againstsome of its own people in the government (Kurlansky 3 1), is now counter-productive, if it ever was productive, aside from vaulting the Basqueclaims to the forefront of Spanish attention. The reality is that all of these perspectives are correct to somedegree, and the reason for this is that the ETA is an evolutionary as wellas a revolutionary group. like Arana, it was anti-marxist and had little interest in social change. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

Many of our Papers can be Downloaded From This Site!

PLEASE READ THIS, IT IS IMPORTANT!

Office hours are Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 5 pm (PST). You may place orders for custom research over the phone during office hours. E-mail requests can be made to our graduate and undergraduate department any time, and will be reviewed during office hours. You may also contact customer service any time through e-mail, and we will review your message during business hours. A great many papers can be downloaded right from this site, but not all of them. If you would like to know if a particular paper is downloadable, just look in the description for: "Available for Internet Download: Y" or "Available for Internet Download: N" If you wish to purchase a paper which is NOT available for immediate download, you will need to make other shipping arrangements. Also, please be aware that these orders are processed Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm (PST). If you place your order after 4:45pm on Friday, it will not be processed until the following Monday morning. We charge $8 per page for all of our pre-written reports, plus shipping (and tax for California residents). However, the highest cost of any ONE report is $136, or 17 pages. Please, take a moment. Make sure you have chosen the report you want or need BEFORE you complete your order. If you are not sure, allow us to help you. We do not offer refunds or exchanges, so it is important for you to let us answer your questions during office hours. Reports which are e-mailed or downloaded are in Microsoft Word format. We are making more reports available for e-mail delivery faster than we can update our listings. Please call to check on the status of particular reports. There are many other shipping options which are listed on the Checkout page.