Gazte Abertzaleak, member and co-founder of EFAY, shares its view of the current situation in the Basque Country with the members of EFAY and asks to the General Assembly of the EFAy to adopt this resolution.
October 2011 was a very special month for the Basque Country. After several years of killings, bombs exploding, and social harassment, E.T.A announced its permanent ceasefire. After this decision, social movements, agents, and society, in general, has moved forward; demonstrations have moved thousands of people to the streets asking for the rights of Basque political prisoners or the right of Self Determination of the Basque Country. A Social Forum gathering victims of ETA and the ones suffering the violence of the Spanish and French state, together with political parties, trade unions, and social associations are being formed, in order to continue stepping forward into a peaceful society where the voice and choice of the Basque Country are respected.
Meanwhile, the governments of Spain and France are not facing this situation with the political standards they should. They are not following the demands of the society, nor implementing the observations made by the “International Observers” during the Aiete Conference, which drew the route map of the Basque Peace process.
Two members states of the European Union that are not obeying their own laws nor respecting what the Basque government or parliament approves. Instead, they keep on ignoring Basque society and intensifying the harassment of everything that has to do with “basquism”: young people are being imprisoned without a fair judgment, political prisoners are kept in jail longer
than their term, no response to the closing of newspapers, a referendum on self-determination is totally illegal, they cut the economic budget for basque schools, … Situations that threaten the normalization of the peace process in the Basque Country
In this context, Gazte Abertzaleak, together with EFAy, adopts this resolution:
1. The EFAy strongly rejects all kinds of violence, in particular the one coming from the states.
2. The EFAy fully supports the Basque peace process and asks both Spain and France to contribute to the peaceful solution of the political conflict of the Basque Country.
3. The EFAy adopts as its own the motto “give peace a chance”. In that sense, insists on the fact that while the Basque society won’t be allowed to express itself, there won’t be a solution for the conflict.
4. The EFAy emphasizes that referenda are the purest sign of any democratic society, and rejects the fact that the organization of a referendum can be seen as illegal.
5. The EFAy continues supporting the efforts that organizations like Gazte Abertzaleak are taking in order to build a new scenery where democracy, peace, and freedom will be the main actors.