Born to be Basque

William Chislett

San Sebastian Kostituzioko Enparantza (Basque for Constitution Square) is the new name of the Square in the old quarter of this most elegant of Spanish cities. When I was here last year it was called Plaza de 18 de Julio after the day the 1936 Franco uprising began. The change of name and the fact that it is now in Basque, a prohibited language linder the dictator, are symbolic of the defrancoisation' of Spain. But the change is something more than this, for in most other Parts of Spain main squares are still called Generalissimo 'Franco and avenues Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera (founder of the fascist-rooted Falange). In the Basque country the writing is already on the wall.

I can remember my last visit here most Vividly. As the red, white and green Ikurrina, the Basque flag banned under Franco, Was run up the brand-new pole in the Square, next to the red and yellow Spanish flag, for the first time in forty years, thousands of Basques jumped up and down Chanting: 'Everyone who does not [jump] is a Fascist.' Everyone jumped and Francoists, who were nowhere to be seen, must have trembled in their homes and envisaged the breaking up of the state.

Since then there have been general elections and this year the government condescended to grant three of the four Basque

Provinces a degree — a tiny degree — of the autonomy which was taken away from them by Franco during the Civil War. A Basque council was set up for Guipuzcoa, Alava and Vizcaya which took the Republican Side in the Civil War and were most severely repressed afterwards. The fourth province, Navarra, home of the Carlists, was on Franco's side and was rewarded by being allowed to retain its special status enshrined in its fueros (statute laws). Navarra is controlled by the ruling Centre party and is unlikely to join the other three provinces.

The outburst of violence this month by

the Basque separatist organisation ETA Which has so far resulted in the deaths of four policemen and two ETA members has confirmed that the Basque country remains a painful thorn in the side of Madrid. For Pram() the Basques were always the most troublesome part of his divided nation.

They never forgave Franco, and never will, for the destruction of Guernica, the traditional heart of the Basque country, by the Condor Legion. The regime stamped down

on' anything that smacked of Basque nationalism, be it displaying the lkurrina or

speaking the language, And during the process ETA (Basque Homeland and Liberty) grew up. ETA's most famous exploit was the assassination of Franco's prime minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, in 1973 when they blew his car a hundred feet up in the air and into the courtyard of the Jesuit church in Madrid.

ETA's account of the assassination plot — 0 peracion Ogro — has just been published

and is a best seller in the Basque country — itself a sign of how much has changed since Franco's death. The other emotive bestsellers are reproductions of Picasso's `Guernica' which are displayed in almost every bar. If so much has really changed then why is ETA still fighting against what it calls the 'continuation of the military dictatorship'? In Madrid the official line is that ETA has lost all support and is just out to wreck the emerging democracy and provoke a military coup so that it can feed off the repression that would follow.

It is true that ETA has lost ground, notably since it set off a bomb in the nuclear power plant at Lemoniz and killed two workers, and that its raison d'être has ceased to exist; but the fact is that ETA still enjoys a y/ide amount of sympathy. The wounds of the dictatorship were deepest in the Basque country and ETA was the first to fight back. The same police and armed forces, which are likened to an invading army, are still there and maltreatment has not disappeared completely, although it has been greatly reduced. And the home rule which has been granted is a sham until the full autonomy statute is worked out, probably after the approval of the new democratic constitution this autumn. All this works in favour of the essentially Marxist-Leninist ETA which is still pushing the visionary idea of an independent Basque country formed out of the four Spanish Basque provinces and the three French ones.

The great majority of Basques do not want independence, but the feeling for autonomy is as strong as the feeling that what they have achieved so far is only formal democracy. A high percentage of the working population are immigrants from other parts of Spain, like Andalucia, and many have become identified with the Basque cause, although they tend to vote for the Socialists and not the Basque Nationalist party (PNV) or the Centre party. The Basque council, the so-called 'preautonomous government' (the Basque government of 1936 is still in exile) is absolutely powerless. It has a Socialist president, four PNV and Socialist councillors and two from the Centre party. Logically, one would have thought, the Basque council's Interior 'minister', the Socialist Txiki Benegas, would work in close conjunction with the police. In fact he is hardly consulted, for the police still depend upon the Madridappointed civil governors. And so a power vacuum has arisen with Madrid paying lip service to the idea of autonomy and keeping the Basque council on a string — the council itself unable to do anything except make symbolic noises while ETA takes advantage of the situation.

That a certain romantic, almost heroic aura still hangs over ETA is easily gauged from going to any funeral for their members killed by the police. During my visit several thousand people attended one such funeral in Durango for two ETA members shot in Guernica. Most of the mourners were either PNV supporters or the extreme left-wing fringe groups of abertzales (patriots) as they are called. On the other hand when a policeman is killed by ETA the funeral is attended by few people but sometimes leads to rioting by extreme right-wing elements. This happened recently in Pamplona where the civil governor had to admit later that some of the 'uncontrollables' were in fact plainclothes policemen.

The prime minister, Adolfo Suarez, a centralist as well as a centrist, is now beginning to realise that it was a mistake to support the Socialist candidate for the Basque council presidency instead of the PNV man. Suarez did it, breaking the deadlock produced by the elections, in order to keep the council out of the hands of the Basque Nationalist party and in part to assuage the conservative military whose sabres rattle at the mention of autonomy.

The ideological differences between the ruling Centre party and the Basque Nationalist party, whose strength is growing, are slight apart from the fact that one is espanolista and the other nacionalista. A PNV president of the Basque council would certainly pacify some of the nationalist feelings and take a lot of wind out of the sails of ETA. But not until the Basque council is given its powers and itself assumes responsibility for some of the problems like law and order is the situation likely to get any better. At times, listening to Basques talking about Madrid, one wonders whether it is the capital of the same country, which, of course, for those in favour of independence, it isn't.