A funeral procession makes its way across the cemetery in the rain, saluted by hundreds of mourners with raised fists.
"Igor, Igor, herriak ez du barkatuko," they yell in Basque to the coffin (the people won't forgive).
The graveyard of this grey, working-class suburb of Santurtzi is surrounded by riot police. The suicide of Igor Angulo, one of two members of the separatist group ETA to die recently in Spanish prisons, has ignited a wave of unrest not seen for years, which culminated in last week's general strike called by Batasuna, the outlawed political wing of ETA.
Last month ETA issued a communique calling for dialogue and negotiation with the government in Madrid, saying this was the only way forward. Now ETA -- responsible for more than 800 deaths in a four-decade struggle to create an independent Basque state -- is ready to announce a historic "cessation of hostilities" before the summer, paving the way for a peace process that some believe could lead to the independence of the Basque region and the break-up of Spain.
ETA has not carried out any killings for more than 1,000 days, and it appears to be waiting for Madrid's clarification of the political process that would follow a ceasefire announcement. Sources say progress is well advanced toward setting up a forum in which regional parties, including Batasuna, would thrash out a new political framework for the Basque region, which already enjoys substantial autonomy.
Yet the window of opportunity is small. Batasuna needs to take part legally in next year's municipal elections to maximize its leverage in future peace talks. By then the Spanish government would have to have verified that the violence really has ended. Also, the entire process could be derailed following a recent spate of ETA bombings designed, according to most observers, to demonstrate its strength ahead of talks, and the possible jailing of Batasuna's leader, Arnaldo Otegi, for allegedly inciting violence during the Basque general strike.
A key figure in the attempts to prevent the peace process from collapsing is an Irish Catholic priest, Alec Reid, who played a crucial role in the negotiations ahead of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement about Northern Ireland.
"We're witnessing the equivalent of plane turbulence, almost inevitable when you're moving toward a resolution," said Reid, sipping coffee in a Bilbao hotel near the Guggenheim Museum.
"We cannot miss this historic opportunity to achieve peace, but ETA won't buy a pig in a poke. It needs to know how the political negotiating table will look, who'll participate, how will voting take place, will the Spanish government accept the outcome -- then they need to know when it will happen. Once all this is made public, ETA will stop," he said.
Critics are unconvinced that ETA-Batasuna will reach a compromise, despite Batasuna's commitment in November 2004 to "exclusively use political and democratic means to search for a democratic solution," which was backed by ETA.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS