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Viewing cable 06MADRID644, BASQUE JOURNALIST DOUBTS ETA READY FOR PEACE DEAL

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
06MADRID644 2006-03-15 13:18 2011-08-24 16:30 UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Embassy Madrid
VZCZCXRO9454
PP RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLZ
DE RUEHMD #0644 0741318
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 151318Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY MADRID
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9150
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHLA/AMCONSUL BARCELONA PRIORITY 1802
UNCLAS MADRID 000644 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PTER PGOV SP
SUBJECT: BASQUE JOURNALIST DOUBTS ETA READY FOR PEACE DEAL 
 
 
1. (SBU) Oscar Beltran, a journalist for the Basque Region 
daily "El Correo" and a former International Visitor grantee, 
recently shared his observations regarding rumors of an 
upcoming truce declaration by ETA.  He has covered ETA for 
several years and reports extensively on the group.  Beltran 
expects ETA to announce a truce soon, most likely on Good 
Friday in an effort to draw parallels between the Northern 
Ireland peace process and the situation in the Basque Region, 
part of ETA's "long-held dream of internationalizing the 
conflict."  He said the rumors of a possible truce obscured 
increasing tensions in the region, which he ascribed to a 
sense among ETA members that they have recovered from Spanish 
and French police actions in 2004 and 2005 that decimated 
their leadership and can therefore resume the political and 
military offensive. 
 
2. (SBU) Beltran expressed concern that well-intentioned 
Spanish government officials may believe that they are making 
progress with ETA as a result of negotiations with the 
organization's political wing, while in reality the ETA 
military wing remained fully in control.  "The ETA military 
leadership doesn't care about Arnaldo Otegi (leader of ETA 
political front group "Batasuna"), they operate according to 
their own logic and make the decisions without consulting the 
political leadership."  In his view, ETA's military wing did 
not have a realistic appreciation of what was achievable and 
believed it was operating from a relatively strong position, 
an attitude that was not conducive to good faith negotiations. 
 
3. (SBU) Beltran noted with concern that ETA carried out bomb 
attacks to mark the March 9 general strike called by Batasuna 
to protest the deaths in prison of two ETA members (one by 
suicide, the other from natural causes).  He said that 
although the strike was a total failure, the bombings were 
worrisome since ETA had not previously joined in direct 
support of political actions, such as the strike.  (NOTE: 
Spanish officials were set to charge Otegi and other Batasuna 
leaders with inciting the March 9 violence, but the examining 
judge delayed a March 13 hearing due to Otegi's poor health. 
END NOTE). 
 
4. (SBU) According to Beltran, ETA has significantly ramped 
up the extortion of Basque businesses to collect 
"revolutionary taxes."  He attributed this to both an 
increased need on the part of the organization and to the 
recovery of ETA's "extortion wing" from the 2004 arrest of 
Maria Soledad Iparragirre, who was in charge of collecting 
these funds.  Beltran said ETA was making up for lost time 
and had probably run out of "legitimate" funds diverted from 
public coffers when Batasuna was a legal political entity, 
necessitating a crash program to generate funds for ETA and 
Batasuna activities.  He was struck by the fact that ETA was 
using strong-arm tactics against even businesses known to be 
sympathetic to radical nationalists, sending company owners 
pictures of their children as a clear threat of violence. 
 
5. (SBU) Beltran said the Basque Socialist Party felt 
tremendously confident that it could displace the Basque 
moderate PNV as the largest party in the region.  He 
described the PNV as riven by ideological and personal 
struggles and clearly losing ground to the Socialists on one 
side and to the radical nationalists on the other.  As for 
the Popular Party, once the second power in the Basque 
Region, Beltran said the party was in disarray and still 
reeling from its fall to third place in the Basque Parliament 
in the March 2005 elections, behind the PNV and the 
Socialists.  He said, however, that observers of the Basque 
political scene were more focused on the 2007 municipal 
elections than on regional-level politics, since Batasuna 
stands to make significant gains at the local level if an ETA 
truce leads to the legalization of the group by the Zapatero 
government.  Almost certainly, the PP would wage a pitched 
political campaign to keep Batasuna out of the political 
process, setting the stage for a major legal and legislative 
battle at the national level. 
 
AGUIRRE