Eta’s endless war

Isn't Eta washed up?
Officially, yes. In the past few years, the Basque separatist group has become a shrunken, splintered version of its former self, infiltrated by the Spanish and French security forces. Eta leaders have lasted only a matter of months before being arrested: four have been captured in the past year alone. But, somehow, the group continues to attract young men and women to its cause and to carry out attacks. In June, Eta assassinated the Basque region's anti-terror chief and in the run-up to its 50th anniversary last week, the group blew up a police barracks in Burgos, northern Spain, wounding 60 people, before killing two Guardia Civil officers with a car bomb in Mallorca, throwing the island into chaos just days before the King and Queen of Spain arrived for a holiday.

What does Eta want?
Eta stands for 'Euskadi Ta Askatasuna' ('Basque Homeland and Freedom'). The group wants four Spanish provinces (Biscay, Guipuzcoa, Alava and Navarre) and three French ones (Labourd, Basse-Navarre and Soule) to secede and form an independent state straddling the Pyrenees, hence the Eta slogan: "4 + 3 = 1".

Is this a long-standing goal?
As old as the hills. Although their exact origins are unknown, the Basques have always been a separate people. Many are recognisably distinct, with blue eyes, light brown hair and fair skin, while Euskara, or Basque, is one of Europe's only surviving pre-Indo-European language. For centuries, the mountainous Kingdom of Navarre enjoyed independence from France to the north and Castile to the south, but in the 19th century, Spain began to integrate the region into the rest of the country, collecting taxes and conscripting men for the army, sparking modern Basque separatism. In 1895, the writer Sabino de Arana y Goiri set up the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) to agitate for a free, conservative state that would protect the Basques' racial purity.

How did Eta come about?
After his victory in the Spanish Civil War in 1939, General Franco tried to eradicate Pyrenean culture by banning the Basque flag, festivals and language. The region's political leaders went into exile, and in 1959, a group of middle-class students from Bilbao’s Deusto University broke away from the PNV to take direct action against Franco's regime. In 1968, Eta killed its first victim, a police commander, in Irun. In the years that followed, Franco's cruel reprisals and the popularity of some Eta actions – in 1973 the group blew up Franco's chosen successor, 'The Ogre', Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco – gave them a certain cachet abroad; above all in France, which looked the other way while Eta used the French Basque provinces to attack targets in Spain. However, after Franco died in 1975, Basque fortunes markedly improved.

How did they improve?
The post-Franco settlement provided for a new, elected, Basque General Council to exercise self-rule over three of Spain's four Basque provinces (excluding Navarre, which is a separate province). Since then the "Basque country" has become the most autonomous region in Europe, with its own tax-raising powers, courts, police, judiciary, school system and official language.

And was all this to the delight of Eta?
On the contrary, Eta maintained its hard line against Madrid, insisting that Spain's new democracy was a front for another authoritarian regime. In fact, after Franco's death it became even more ruthless, killing 91 people (half of them civilians) in 1980 – its deadliest year. Since then, the group has engaged in a long war with moderate Basques and Spain's political and security establishment, killing more than 825 people. Today, around 600 people convicted of Eta-related crimes are in Spanish jails.

Why has it been able to go on attracting support?
Some blame lies with the Spanish state. Frustrated by the lack of cooperation from France, the Spanish Interior Ministry set up secret paramilitary squads, Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberacion or GAL, in the Eighties. The teams crossed into southern France to capture and kill Eta members. But the GAL frequently misidentified its targets: it killed a total of 27 people, some of whom were innocent. GAL's secret operations continued until the early Nineties, and did nothing but help Eta's cause.

So who supports Eta today?
Until the late Nineties, Eta had steady support in the Basque country. Its political wing, Herri Batasuna, won around 15 per cent of the vote in local elections. But its continuing atrocities have alienated ordinary Basques. In 2003, Herri Batasuna was declared illegal. Since then, support has slumped further, as it has for Basque nationalism in general. This year, for the first time since 1977, the PNV lost power to Spain's Socialist and Popular parties in the Basque parliament. But support has not vanished entirely: 40 per cent of Basques still want more independence from Spain.

Is there a peace process?
There was. Eta declared a "permanent ceasefire" in 2006, but nine months later, it blew up a car parked at Madrid's Barajas airport, killing two people. Since then, the government has ruled out talks, and instead has tried to crush the group with the help of the French police. "To join the group now is to buy a ticket that leads directly to prison," says the Interior Minister, Alfredo Rubalcaba. The problem is that Eta's few remaining fighters seem to be young, desperate and radical. The recent bombings, 34 hours apart, at opposite ends of Spain, suggest that Eta still has at least two terror units and that they are determined to go down fighting. ·