The World According to the Basques Violence Escalates |
|
In 1980 the Basque country had a government, flag, and road signs, but the violence continued to escalate within ETA and the Basque Nationalistic Party continued to demand more independence, much to the confusion and frustration of Spain. As Spain was transforming into a democracy, ETA violence continued to escalate. From 1978 – 1980 ETA killed over 80 citizens. Violence was breaking out on both sides and hit the pinnacle when the Basque- Spanish battalion gunned downed a local bar that was known to be populated by Basque Nationalists. It was hypothesized to have been supported by the Spanish state.
In response, José María Ryan, an engineer at the Lemóniz
power plant was kidnapped by ETA in what was a highly publicized incident.
The Basques were acting out against the nuclear power plant that Spain
wished to build in Spain for two reasons: the Basques were adamantly
against the use of nuclear power and they felt like Spain was trying
to control Basque energy which was supposed to be under their own domain
of control. Three days later Ryan was found dead, outraging the majority
of the Basque population. Madrid responded in the way it has always proven
to do, ten days latter the body of Basque prisoner José Arregui
was found dead. GAL “Anti-terrorist Liberation Group” was formed as an extreme right-wing death squad that attacked Basque militants in what used to be their safe refugee in France. It is strongly believed that GAL was working for the Spanish government and for this the actions of GAL would come to be known as the “dirty war,” however, this theory lacked sufficient evidence originally. The first victim of GAL was Segundo Maurey who was captured from his home and held ransom for the release of four Spanish police men that were being held in jail on suspicion with an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap a Basque. The killings continued with the death of the brother to the most wanted ETA militant. France began to show concern that the Basque violence had moved into their country and following meetings in September of 1984, France agreed to extradite Basque criminals to Spanish. On November 20, 1984 GAL killed physician Santiago Brouard which resulted in public outrage and appeared to slow down GAL killings. In 1986 after killing 27 people GAL mysteriously disappeared. In the aftermath it was discovered that GAL was an assortment of mercenaries from the right-wing French military from the Algerian war, underworld hit men from Marseillers, Portuguese colonialist and Italian neo-Facista.
|
Next |