Terrorism in Europe

In 1986 Gesto por la Paz (known in English as Association for Peace in the Basque Country) was founded; they began to convene silent demonstrations in communities throughout the Basque Country the day after any violent killing, whether by ETA or by GAL. These were the first systematic demonstrations in the Basque Country against terrorist violence. Also in 1986, in Ordizia, ETA assassinated Marнa Dolores Katarain, known as "Yoyes", the former director of ETA who had abandoned armed struggle and rejoined civil society: they accused her of "desertion".

January 12, 1988 all Basque political parties except ETA-affiliated Herri Batasuna signed the Ajuria-Enea pact with the intent of ending ETA's violence. Weeks later on January 28, ETA announced a 60-day "ceasefire", later prolonged several times. A negotiation in Algeria known as the Mesa de Argel ("Algiers Table") was attempted between ETA (represented by Eugenio Etxebeste, "Antxon") and the then-current PSOE government of Spain, but no successful conclusion was reached, and ETA eventually resumed the use of violence.

During this period, the Spanish government had a policy referred to as "reinsertion", under which imprisoned ETA members who the government believed had genuinely abandoned violent intent could be freed and allowed to rejoin society. Claiming a need to prevent ETA from coercively impeding this reinsertion, the PSOE government decided that imprisoned ETA members, who previously had all been imprisoned within the Basque Country, would instead be dispersed to prisons throughout Spain, some as far from their families as in the Salto del Negro prison in the Canary Islands. France has taken a similar approach. In the event, the only clear effect of this policy was to incite social protest, especially from nationalists, over the supposed illegality of the policy itself. Much of the protest against this policy runs under the slogan "Euskal presoak - Euskal Herrira" (Basque prisoners to the Basque Country).

Another Spanish counter-terrorist law puts suspected terrorist cases under the specialized tribunal Audiencia Nacional in Madrid. Suspected terrorists are subject to a habeas corpus term longer than other suspects.

In 1992, ETA's three top leaders — military leader Francisco Mujika Garmendia ("Pakito"), political leader Josй Luis Alvarez Santacristina ("Txelis") and logistical leader Josй Marнa Arregi Erostarbe ("Fiti"), often referred to collectively as the "cupola" of ETA or as the Artapalo collective — were arrested in the French Basque town of Bidart, which led to changes in ETA's leadership and direction. After a two-month truce, ETA adopted even more radical positions. The principal consequence of the change appears to have been the creation of the "Y Groups", young people (generally minors) dedicated to so-called "kale borroka" — street struggle — and whose activities included burning buses, street lamps, benches, ATMs, garbage containers, etc. and throwing Molotov cocktails. The appearance of these groups was attributed by many to supposed weakness of ETA, which obligated them to resort to minors to maintain or augment their impact on society after arrests of leading militants, including the "cupola". ETA also began to menace leaders of other parties besides rival Basque nationalist parties. The existence of the "Y Groups" as an organized phenomenon has been contested by some supporters of Basque national liberation, who claim that this construction is merely a trumped-up excuse to give longer prison sentences to those convicted of street violence.

In 1995, the armed organization again launched a peace proposal. The so-called Democratic Alternative replaced the earlier KAS Alternative as a minimum proposal for the establishment of Euskal Herria. The Democratic Alternative offered the cessation of all armed ETA activity if the Spanish-government would recognize the Basque people as having sovereignty over Basque territory and the right to self-determination. The Spanish government ultimately rejected this peace offer.

Also in 1995 came a failed ETA car bombing attempt directed against Josй Marнa Aznar, a conservative politician who was leader of the then-opposition Partido Popular (PP) and was shortly after elected to the presidency of the government; their was also an abortive attempt in Majorca on the life of King Juan Carlos I. Still, the act with the largest social impact came the following year. July 10, 1997 PP activist Miguel Бngel Blanco was kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua and his death threatened unless the Spanish government would meet ETA's demands. Six million people demonstrated to demand his liberation, with demonstrations occurring as much in the Basque regions as elsewhere in Spain. After three days, ETA carried through their threat, unleashing massive demonstrations reflecting the ETA action with the cries of "Assassins" and "Basques yes, ETA no". This response came to be known as the "Spirit of Ermua".

After the Good Friday Accord marked the beginning of the end of violent hostilities in Northern Ireland, and given that the Ajuria-Enea pact had failed to bring peace to the Basque Country, the Lizarra/Estella Pact brought together political parties, unions, and other Basque groups in hopes again of changing the political situation. Shortly after, September 18, 1998, ETA declared a unilateral truce or ceasefire, and began a process of dialogue with Spain's PP government. The dialogue continued for some time, but ETA resumed assassinations in 2000, accusing the government of being "inflexible" and of "not wanting dialogue". The communique that declared the end of the truce cited the failure of the process initiated in the Lizarra/Estella Pact to achieve political change as the reason for the return to violence. The Spanish government, from the highest levels, accused ETA of having declared a false truce in order to rearm. Later came acts of violence such as the November 6, 2001 car bomb in Madrid, which injured 65, and attacks on soccer stadiums and tourist destinations.

The September 11, 2001 attacks appeared to have dealt a hard blow to ETA, owing to the toughening of antiterrorist measures (such as the freezing of bank accounts), the increase in international police coordination, and the end of the toleration some countries had, up until then, extended to ETA. In addition, in 2002 the Basque nationalist youth movement Jarrai was outlawed and the law of parties was changed outlawing Herri Batasuna, the "political arm" of ETA (although even before the change in law, Batasuna had been largely paralyzed and under judicial investigation by judge Baltasar Garzуn).

With ever-increasing frequency, attempted ETA actions have been frustrated by Spanish security forces. On Christmas Eve 2003, in San Sebastiбn and in Hernani, National Police arrested two ETA members who had left dynamite in a railroad car prepared explode in Chamartнn Station in Madrid. On March 1, 2004, in a place between Alcalб de Henares and Madrid, a light truck with 536 kg of explosives was left to cause a massacre, but was prevented by the action of the Guardia Civil.

Recent events

On February 18, 2004, ETA publicly stated that a ceasefire only in Catalonia had been in effect since January 1, based on "a desire to unite the ties between the Basque and Catalan peoples." Some claimed that this ceasefire was based on a secret pact with Josep-Lluнs Carod-Rovira, leader of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, "Republican Left of Catalonia"). Carod-Rovira, despite admitting to having met with ETA in France in December denied having reached any accord, saying that the meeting was an attempt to drive ETA away from violence, and ended with no results. This, during an electoral campaign, became a scandal, and endangered the recent tripartite Catalan government, formed by ERC (ERC), Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds-Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (ICV-EUiA) and the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC). The opposition then accused Aznar of being behind the leak to the media of the intelligence report detailing the meeting and Aznar refused to clarify whether he knew about this meeting before the leaking. Aznar was also questioned as to why the ETA members who attended that meeting were not detained.

Also in 2004, ETA was initially suspected of being the authors of a series of ten bombings only a few days before the national elections, which targeted three locations along Madrid's suburban train lines on the morning of March 11, 2004, killing 192 civilians (see 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks). This theory was officially endorsed by Josй Marнa Aznar's government, despite the police quickly gathering evidence pointing towards Islamic terrorism. Many Spanish citizens took this rush to judgment as an offence towards the victims of the attacks and towards the Spanish people; this was generally seen as a decisive factor in the electoral result which overturned Aznar's government (see Spanish legislative election, 2004). The authorship of this attack, the largest European terror incident in terms of lives lost since the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 flight bombing, has been finally ascribed to Islamist terrorists by the Spanish police.

On September 27, 2004, ETA militants sent a videotape to Gara, a Basque newspaper based in Guipъzcoa, in which the militants stated that ETA would continue to fight for Basque self-determination and that ETA would "respond with arms at the ready to those who deny us through the force of arms." This videotape represented ETA's first major public statement since the March 11 attacks. During the weekend preceding the videotape release, the group claimed responsibility for a series of bombings that hampered electricity transmission between France and Spain.

On October 3, 2004, French police launched an operation against ETA's logistical apparatus, making 21 arrests, among them the couple who functioned as top ETA leaders, Mikel Albizu Iriarte ("Mikel Antza") and Soledad Iparragirre ("Anboto"). They found four zulos (caches) with a vast quantity of armaments, much greater than had been estimated to be at ETA's disposal; they also managed to turn up information about ETA's printing an internal newsletter, but nothing leading to any major bank account or other horde of money. The operation was considered one of the most successful since Bidart in 1992. As of October 2004, it appears that these measures will result in ETA leadership moving into different hands; it is too soon to evaluate the consequences. Spain has solicited the extradition of Mikel Antza y Amboto via a Euroorden.

On December 4, 2004, Five minor bombs exploded in Madrid. An ETA spokesman said that ETA was behind this, and local police authorities found that all the bombs was set to go off 06:30pm local time.

On December 6, 2004, Spanish Constitution Day, ETA detonated seven bombs in bars, cafes and town squares across Spain.

On December 12, 2004, the Real Madrid Santiago Bernabйu football Stadium was evacuated due to a phoned-in bomb threat in name of ETA. The bomb—expected to blow up at 9:00 p.m.—didn't explode, and the 69,000 spectators of the match under way at the time of the call were safely evacuated by the Spanish Police at 8:45 p.m.

On February 8, 2005, a car bomb, which carried 30 Kg of cloratite, exploded in Madrid outside a convention center. At least 43 people were injured and no one killed.

On February 27, 2005, a small bomb exploded at a resort hotel in Villajoyosa after a telephonic warning. The building was evacuated and no one was injured. The explosion damaged only a small house near the residence's swimming pool.

1.7 Terrorism in Northern Ireland. IRA

1.7.1 The Irish Problem

The Troubles is a generic term used to describe a period of sporadic communal violence involving paramilitary organisations, the police, the British Army and others in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s. (Another term, common among British commentators is the "Irish Problem", though this is seen as pejorative by many Irish people as it seems to absolve Britain of any blame for the conflict and portray it as a neutral party.) It could also be described as a many-sided conflict, a guerrilla war or even a civil war.

The origins of the Troubles are complex. What is clear is that its origins lie in the century long debate over whether Ireland, or part of Ireland, should be part of the United Kingdom. In 1920, after widespread political violence, the Government of Ireland Act partitioned the island of Ireland into two separate states, one of which was Northern Ireland. According to the majority of unionists, Northern Ireland, which remained a self governing region of the United Kingdom, was governed in accordance with "democratic" principles, the rule of law and in accordance with the will of a majority within its borders to remain part of the United Kingdom. Nationalists however saw the partition of Ireland as an illegal and immoral division of the island of Ireland against their will, and argued that the Northern Ireland state was neither legitimate nor democratic, but created with a deliberately designed unionist majority. Each side had their own soundbites to describe their perspective. Unionist Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Lord Brookborough talked of a "Protestant state for a Protestant people", while a later Republic of Ireland taoiseach (prime minister) Charles Haughey called Northern Ireland a "a failed political entity".

The 'four communities'

Four overlapping segments exist within Northern Ireland. The majority of the unionist community are generally called Unionists and commit to supporting political parties like the Ulster Unionist Party (known for part of the 1970s and 1980s as the Official Unionist Party) or the more militant protestant Democratic Unionist Party. The larger segment of the nationalist catholic community are generally called simply Nationalist and supported at various times the Nationalist Party and since the 1970s the Social Democratic and Labour Party. Both communities had smaller, more radical elements who supported at various times what one IRA strategist called the "armalite and the ballot box" (ie, a combination of electoral politics and violence when necessary). More radical elements within the unionist community came to be called Loyalists while radical nationalists came to be described as Republicans. Each of the radical groups produced their own paramilitary organisations like the Provisional IRA, Official IRA, Continuity IRA, Real IRA, Irish National Liberation Army etc (all republican), and the Ulster Defence Association, Ulster Freedom Fighters, Red Hand Commandos etc (loyalist). Most such groups had their own political organisations, while some of the groups had overlapping memberships. While the various political movements claimed to speak on behalf of the 'majority of the people', electoral votes throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s returned majorities for Nationalist and Unionist parties at the expense of Republican and Loyalist ones, though the latter two did achieve occasional successes, notably the election of MPs in the constituencies of West Belfast and Fermanagh & South Tyrone. At its electoral highpoint during the troubles, in the 1981 Republic of Ireland general election, it won two seats out of one hundred and sixty six in parliament. Sinn Fйin's major electoral successes only followed the ceasefire of the IRA in the 1990s.

Religion and class

For the most part a clear divide exists in terms of religion and some times a left-right divide between the various communities. Most though not all protestants are unionists, while most though not all catholics are nationalists. While the mainstream organisations representing Nationalists and Unionists tended to be quite conservative, more politically and religious radical groups associated with Republicans and Loyalists, with the leading republican organisation in the 1960s, the Official IRA and its party, Sinn Fйin adopting a marxist perspective of the 'Irish problem', defining it in terms of "class struggle", they arguing for the creation of an 'Irish socialist republic'. Loyalists in the 1970s even advocated forms of an "independent ulster" which they compared to the apartheid-style regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa, in which one community's dominance could be ensured.

Except for Unionists, all other segments argued that the Northern Ireland of the 1960s needed change. Moderate nationalists in the Civil Rights movement, under figures like John Hume, Gerry Fitt and Austin Currie advocated an end to the gerrymandering of local government wards to ensure Protestant victories on minority votes, and the end to discrimination over access to council housing. They pressed for wide reforms, whereas Unionists saw "concessions" as part of a process whereby nationalists would bring down Northern Ireland and force Irish unity. Republicans adopted a more violent approach to force more radical change, while Loyalists stepped up their violence to oppose it.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the police force in Northern Ireland, was largely though not totally Protestant for a complex series of reasons. Catholics did not join in the numbers expected by the British when the force was first created. Those that did reported a 'hostile to Catholics' working environment, in which Unionist and Protestant organisations like the Orange Order and the Ulster Unionist Party had undue influence. Those Catholics who did join were often targeted by the various IRAs. Yet some Catholic police officers did play a part in the constabulary. One served as Chief Constable, while the leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, Mark Durkan is himself the son of a Catholic RUC man.

The lack of Catholic officers was augmented by the role of constabulary played in policing, which involved as is generally the case with policing the maintenance of the status quo. The result was that critics of the unionist and loyalist communities saw the police force as the "unionist police force for a unionist state". Unlike its sister police force in the South, An Garda Sнochбna, which was mainly composed of ex-IRA men, the RUC failed to establish cross community trust, with each community blaming the other or the RUC for failings in policing.

A policing review, part of the Good Friday Agreement, has led to some reforms of policing, including more rigorous accountability, measures to increase the number of Catholic officers, and the renaming of the RUC to the Police Service of Northern Ireland to avoid using the word "Royal".

IRA

There are several paramilitary groups which claim or have claimed the title Irish Republican Army (IRA) and advocate a unitary Irish state with no ties to the United Kingdom. All claim descent from the original "Irish Republican Army", the "army" of the Irish Republic declared by Dбil Йireann in 1919. Most Irish people dispute the claims of more recently created organizations that insist that they are the only legitimate descendants of the original IRA, often referred to as the "Old IRA".

-the Old IRA

-The Official IRA, the remainder of the IRA after the Provisional IRA seceded in 1969, now apparently inactive in the military sense.

-The Provisional IRA (PIRA), founded in 1969 and best known for paramilitary campaigns during the 1970s-1990s

-The 'Real' IRA, a 1990s breakaway from the PIRA

-The Continuity IRA, another 1990s breakaway from the PIRA

a) The Old IRA

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) has its roots in Ireland's struggle for independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the early twentieth century. It is important to differentiate between what is termed the 'Old IRA' and the 'Official IRA' from the Provisional IRA (PIRA), a splinter-group which formed in the late 1960s in the wake of institutionalized anti-Catholic discrimination, riots and murders (mainly in Belfast and Derry).

The Irish Republican Army first emerged as the army of the Irish Republic that had been declared at the Easter Rising of 1916 and affirmed by the First Dail in January 1919. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizens Army which had existed in the second decade of the twentieth century and which had played a part in the Easter Rising.

The Irish Defence Forces, the Official and Provisional IRA and the 'Continuity' and 'Real IRA' all lay claim to the title Уglaigh na hЙireann (in the Irish language, Irish Volunteers.) Michael Collins took an active role in reorganizing the IRA. Its formation and its subsequent development were inextricably intertwined and interrelated with the subsequent political history of Ireland and Northern Ireland and any consideration of the IRA therefore needs to be set firmly in context.

In 1914 the long-running Irish nationalist demand for home rule had finally been conceded by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland government, subject to two provisos: that it would not come into being until the end of the First World War, and that the six northern counties of Ireland were to be temporarily excluded from the control of a home rule parliament in Dublin. The latter demand had resulted from a campaign of physical disobedience by northern unionists, producing a fear in Britain that the concession of home rule would lead to a civil war between nationalists and unionists.

For a minority of nationalists, the home rule conceded was judged to be too little, too late. In the Easter Rising of 1916, these nationalists staged a rebellion against British rule in Dublin and in some other isolated areas. Weapons had been supplied by Germany, under the auspices of a leading human rights campaigner, Sir Roger Casement. However the plot had been discovered and the weapons were lost when the ship carrying them was scuttled rather than allowed to be captured.

The rebellion was largely centered on Dublin. The leaders seized the Dublin General Post Office (GPO), raising a green flag bearing the legend 'Irish Republic', and proclaiming independence for Ireland. Though Republican history often claimed that the Rising and its leaders had public support, in reality there were widespread calls for the execution of the ringleaders, coming from the major Irish nationalist daily newspaper, the 'Irish Independent' and local authorities. Dubliners not only cooperated with the British troops sent to quell the uprising, but undermined the Republicans as well. Many people spat and threw stones at them as they were marched towards the transport ships that would take them to the Welsh internment camps.

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