Report from Paris by Katherine Kanter

Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 10, Number 33, August 30, 1983

ETA feeds on French weakness

zaBus, an ex-Jesuit priest, and Carlos France provided sanctuary to terrorists on the condition that no Garaicoechea, a slick businessman operations are carried out on French soil. with shady ties to the pro-ETA finan cial community in Venezuela, where he just made a visit demanding to be treated as a head of state. Arzallus and Garaicoechea have declared war on the Socialist Party, which they want to expell from the A French gendanne was assassinat curity reasons. Basque country. They have hypocrit ed near Bayonne in the French depart Nothing seems to be forbidden un ically refused to comment on the battle ment of the Pyn!nees-Atlantiques on der the Mitterrand regime, however. over whether or not the Spanish flag Aug. 7. The authors of the crime were Despite repeated warnings by the should fly there, but have covered the a number of Frenchmen claiming to Spanish police that the security situa provocations of ETA-front Herri Ba sympathize with the aims of the Bas tion on the Spanish side of the border tasuna, which is only slightly to the que Spanish terrorist-separatist group, was getting increasingly out of con right of the Moscow-controlled Mov the ETA; the group included one Phi trol, in part because of the French gov imiento Comunista and Liga Comu lippe Bidart, responsible for the 1981 ernment's refusal to cooperate by nista Revolucionaria. assassination of two other gendannes, handing over wanted· ETA members, In the French-border province of officers Buyer and Roussarie. the French authorities turned a deaf Catalonia, Barcelona was put under a Philippe Bidart is an ex-Jesuit ear. But the chickens have now come virtual state of siege as police searched seminarist-an important connection, home to roost. for seven bombs which ETA claimed since the Jesuits on both sides of the In the context of an overwhelming had been laid to provoke the liberation Franco-Spanish border have promot deployment of separatist, terrorist, and of "political prisoners." The Barce ed so-called Basque culture since the environmentalist groups this fall, there lona chief of police stated that ETA's 19th century. They have also encour will be no way for the French au links to Catalonian separatists have aged the idea of creating the provinces thorities to maintain their "special been reactivated. The French govern of "Euskadi North" and "Euskadi agreements" with Armenian, Kur ment would do well to remember that South," by separating regions from dish, Basque, or other terrorists to a key nerve-center for these various France and Spain. grant them sanctuary, as long as they independentist movements, the ClE A number of organizations have do not commit terrorist acts on French MEN, is extremely active on their side sprung up over the last15 years on the territory. of the border. French side of the border, including Cancer spreads. On the Spanish On Aug. 6, a Barcelona daily, Di Iparretarrak, the French ETA ("ETA side of the border, the weeks of late ario de Barcelona, reprinted exten from the North"), Herri Taldeak (the July-early August have witnessed sive quotes from Nouvelle Solidar equivalent of the ETA political front scenes reminiscent of Hitler's rise to iete. the LaRouche-linked French Herri Batasuna), Seoska (a so-called power. Members of the ETA front weekly, denouncing the ClEMEN as cultural organization which manages Herri Bastasuna mailed the Spanish a Libyan-funded terror front. This the Basque schools). flag to Socialist Interior Minister with provoked something of a political Newspapersand magazines of very a label "undesirable"; in the town of storm, and angry denials from the limited circulation, like EuskndiNorte, lrun they threw the ballot box full of mouthpiece of the KGB in Spain, the and La Voz de Euskadi, are distributed just -cast votes out the window to pre daily El Pais. Security forces in France on both sides of the border to promote vent the election of a Socialist mayor; are convinced that the problem on the a "feeling" of Basque unity beyond they stoned the Socialist municipal French side could rapidly become ex national frontiers. The Spanish' San councilmen in Renteria as they were tremely grave unless stem measures Sebastian football club and the Royal holding an emergency meeting to dis are taken. But French culture minister St. Germain of Paris hold benefit foot cuss the situation. Jacques Lang's recent contribution of ball matches in Bayonne to promote All this happened under the smil half a million francs to the Celtic na Euskera, the Basque language, a prac ing gaze of the Partido Nacionalista tionalists' festival, which he also did tice forbidden under Giscard for se- Vasco (PNV), headed by Xavier Ar- last year, is not a good sign.

EIR August 30,1983 International 45