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Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 SOLDIER OF FORTUNE SOF FEATURE DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON Basque Separatists Wage Europe's Longest War Text & Photos by Adrian Wecer HE young Basque terrorist walked out of. the apartment house on Cal- le Reina Cristina, heading toward his car parked a short distance away. He froze in mid-stride, slapped a hand to the side of his head — as if he had just remembered something very important — and keeled over. He was dead be- fore he hit the ground. The bullet that killed him had been fired by a fellow terrorist, an old friend of his hidden in the lobby of the build- ing he had just left. It punched through a plate-glass panel on the exit door. drilled into the back of his head, spun around inside his skull a few times, and finally came to rest deep within the bloedy mess that had once been his brain. It happened at 7:45 in the morning, while dozens of people on their way to work casually watched from doorways and passing cars. Within seconds the lifeless body was dragged off the street into the back seat. of a waiting auto- mobile, which quickly drove off to dis- pose of it at some unknown location. But there was no need to hurry. None of the witnesses would have dared call the police to report the killing — not this one, anyway. And even if someone had, the authorities would certainly have taken their sweet time about com- ing out to investigate — if they decided to come at all. Getting involved in a settling of accounts between ETA gun- men did not exactly rate high on their list of choice duties. The killing, which this reporter had been invited to watch and photograph from a nearby rooftop, took place several months ago in the Basque pro- vincial capital of San Sebastién. To be sure, it was nothing more than murder, plain and simple. But it was also the single most important political develop- ment in Spain's struggle against Basque terrorism in the last 15 years. ETA had gone to war against itself. Earlier interviews with Basque politic- al leaders and ETA militants — includ- ing the two who later invited me to that rooftop on Reina Cristina — provide us with a fairly clear idea as to how this situation came about. According to these knowledgeable sources, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA Basque Country and Freedom), the ruthless left-wing underground organiza- tion that has been striving for Basque independence from Spain through a bloody campaign of terror launched in the late ’60s, had suffered a series of political and military setbacks over the past two years which have deprived it of its leadership, eroded the vast popu- lar support it once enjoyed, and invali- dated any claim to a just political cause it may have had. The first of these setbacks occurred early in 1982 when José Martin Sagar- dia, ETA’s top leader and principal strategist, was assassinated in a south- ern French sanctuary during a cross- border retaliatory raid conducted by members of an obscure extreme-rightist group known as E! Batallén Vasco Espariol (the Spanish Basque Batta- lion). The subsequent capture and in- carceration of his most trusted lieute- nants by Spanish border police certainly didn’t help matters any. It quickly trans- formed the organization from a highly disciplined urban-guerrilla movement, with brilliant military strategy and well- defined political goals, into a disorga- nized band of thugs desperately striking out at any target of opportunity for 31 SPECIAL EDITION -- TERRORISM -- 26 JUNE 1984 July 1984 Pages 38-41 mere publicity value. Given this situa- tion, the second major setback was as predictable as it was unavoidable. Horrified by the mindless slaughter that since June 1982 has claimed the lives of 14 military officers and more than 150 innocent bystanders, the Bas- que people began to deny ETA the un- questioned support they once offered so freely. The cities of Vitoria and Bil- bao — alleged birthplace of ETA where militants were once openly paraded through the streets and hailed as heroes _— have since become staging areas for massive rallies denouncing the depreda- tions of this terrorist group. Recent out- rages such as the killing of a baker (for delivering bread to the families of policemen during a strike). and the kid- napping and cold-blooded execution of an Army pharmaceutical officer (after the government had already met their outrageous demands for his safe re- lease) triggered a nationwide protest the likes of which had not been seen in Spain since the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936. Thousands of people marched through the streets of every major city in the country to denounce the murders and to demand from the government in Madrid nothing less than the total extermination of these rabid killers. The third and potentially most damaging setback was a decision by the Madrid government to restore to the Basque provinces the political auton- omy revoked by Generalisimo Francis- co Franco during the Civil War. In 1937, the second year of the war, Franco suppressed the self-governing powers of Guiptizcoa, Vizcaya and Ala- va — the three provinces that presently make up the Basque region. They were officially proclaimed ‘‘punished pro- vinces” for having fiercely resisted the. onslaught of his rebel armies. His hatred for the Basques was so intense that he even went so far as to forbid them the use of their native language, Eskuara. People were forbidden to - teach this ancient language, or even speak it in the privacy of their own homes. To ensure compliance, Franco's political police often stopped Basque families on the street and questioned the children as to whether they had heard their parents speaking anything other than Spanish at home. The Madrid decision to restore the rights of the local Basque government to levy and collect taxes, to establish its own police force, and to finance , schools teaching the native language, met the home-rule demands of the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) which for years had been trying CONTINUED NEXT PAGE Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5