SUMMARY
ETA (Euskadi ta azkatasuna: Basque Nation and Liberty) was a separatist group established on 31 July 1959. It maintained an armed rebellion against the Spanish government for nearly five decades until it announced its formal disarmament and dissolution on 2 May 2018. Although ETA operated throughout this time, the group was greatly weakened by the arrest of several of its leaders in 1992 and following this, its activity never reached the minimum threshold for inclusion within the UCDP data again. According to ETA’s final statement, its dissolution was the final step in a process, which began in 2010, intended to open a new political avenue for addressing their territorial cause.
The group was located in the Basque region situated in the north of Spain, comprising Vizcaya, Alava, Guipuzcoa and bordering Navarra, as well as parts of southwest France inhabited by the Basque population. For centuries, the Basque inhabitants of these areas had claimed their distinctiveness from others residing in Spain and France, based upon their unique language and culture. The region’s prosperity, together with its sense of cultural uniqueness, motivated Basque aspirations for political independence from the Government of Spain in Madrid.
Therefore, ETA sought to liberate these Basque-inhabited areas in order to establish an independent Basque state. The creation of ETA itself originated from the Basque Nationalist Party (BNP), which was a political organization that supported Basque autonomy but rejected the use of violence. A group of radical students formed ETA from Ekin, a sub-group of the BNP that had been expelled from BNP in 1957 because of its more extremist position towards the separatist struggle and resorting to violence. ETA adopted a left-wing orientation so another underlying ambition included creating an independent and Marxist Basque state.
ETA relied on robberies, kidnappings and “revolutionary taxes” to fund itself. It operated using a cell structure with each unit consisting of three to five members. These cells operated in isolation to each other so cell members only knew a few ETA members. Herri Batasuna was established in 1978 as a sister entity to ETA. Although Herri Batasuna denied its connection, it was widely known as the political wing for ETA. It advocated for the same separatist objectives as ETA and in one instance, even gave its campaign airtime over directly to ETA members. After the 9/11 attack in the USA in 2001, a global increase in focus on terrorism led to the Spanish government passing laws that resulted in Herri Batasuna being banned due to its connection to ETA. However, the political group reformed several times under different names, which were also subsequently banned.
There were different categories for reflecting the level of engagement that members or supporters had with ETA, ranging from those that worked full-time for the group to those that only minimally engaged with its activities. Taking this into account, it is understandable that some reports suggested that ETA had a larger base but the Spanish government claimed that the group had only 50-100 members in the early 1990s while 500 ETA members were imprisoned in Spanish jails. Experts reported similarly that ETA had approximately 50 members in 1995.
ETA leaders included Domingo Iturbe Abásolo, who was military chief during the 1980s and Urrutikoetxea Bengoetxea, who was arrested on 12 January 1989. Garikoitz "Txeroki" (Cherokee) Aspiazu was another military leader, who was convicted in 2011 for attempting to assassinate a mayor in 2002. Senior leaders Iratxe Sorzábal and David Pla were arrested in 2015, after which Mikel Irastorza took over leadership of the group until he was arrested in 2016.
Throughout the years of ETA activity, claims were made about its links to an international terrorist network and its connections with the IRA, Fatah and the Breton Liberation Front, a separatist group that fought for independence from France for the northern region of Brittany. However, no further information was found concerning the scope of these connections.
The position of France, a key player since part of the territory claimed by ETA is located in that country, shifted during the conflict. In the early years of ETA activity, the French government generally turned a blind eye to ETA activities on its side of the border as long as these did not result in separatist activity within its own country, and it was therefore accused of providing safe havens for ETA which established bases and support structures in southern France. However, this began to change in the late 1970s, and by the mid-1980s, France was cooperating with Spain in operations targeting ETA structures and leadership.
Meanwhile, there has been ample speculation about secondary support for ETA. Some have claimed that the group received support from governments such as China, Cuba, Libya and Russia (Soviet Union), but such allegations were rarely supported by any substantive evidence.
