Доклад: Terrorism in Europe

That imprisoned ETA members currently awaiting trial or serving prison sentences in Spain be released.

During the 1980s, the goals of the organisation started to shift. Four decades after the creation of ETA, the idea of creating a Socialist state in the Basque Country had begun to seem utopian and impractical, and ETA moved to a more pragmatic stance. This was reflected in the 1995 manifesto "Democratic Alternative", which offered the cessation of all armed ETA activity if the Spanish-government would recognize the Basque people as having sovereignty over Basque territory and the right to self-determination. Self-determination would be achieved through a referendum on whether to remain a part of Spain.

The organization has adopted other tactical causes such as fighting against:

-Alleged drug traffickers as corruptors of Basque youth and police collaborators

-The nuclear power plant project at Lemoiz

-The Leizaran highway

1.3 Structure

ETA is organized into distinct talde ("groups"), whose objective is to conduct terrorist operations in a specific geographic zone; collectively, they are coordinated by the cъpula militar ("military cupola"). In addition, they maintain safe houses and zulo (caches of arms or explosives; the Basque word zulo literally means "hole."

Among its members, ETA distinguishes between legalak, those members who do not have police files, liberados, exiled to France, and quemados, freed after having been imprisoned.

The internal organ of ETA is Zutik ("Standing").

1.4 Tactics

ETA's tactics of intimidation include:

-Assassination and murder, especially by car bombs or a gunshot to the nape of the neck.

-Anonymous threats, often delivered in the Basque Country by placards or graffiti, and which have forced many people into hiding; an example was the harassment of Juan Marнa Atutxa, one-time head of the department of justice for the Basque Country.

-The so-called "revolutionary tax."

-Kidnapping (often as a punishment for failing to pay the "revolutionary tax").

ETA operates mainly in Spain, particularly in the Basque Country, Navarre, and (to a lesser degree) Madrid, Barcelona, and the tourist areas of the Mediterranean coast of Spain. ETA has generally focused on so-called "military targets" (in which definition it has included police and politicians), but in recent years it has also sometimes targeted civilians.

ETA victims have included, among others:

-Luis Carrero Blanco, president of the government under Franco (1973)

-Members of the army and the security forces of the Spanish state, including Guardia Civil, Policнa Nacional, and police of the autonomous regions, such as the Ertzaintza (Basque police) or mossos d'esquadra (the police force of Catalonia).

-Parlamentarians, members of city councils, sympathizers and partisans of other parties, including the socialist PSOE (such as Fernando Buesa, killed February 22, 2000 in Vitoria and Ernest Lluch shot through the neck November 21, 2000 in Barcelona), the conservative Partido Popular (such as Miguel Бngel Blanco and Gregorio Ordусez) or even conservative Basque nationalists such as (Navarrese fuerista Tomбs Caballero, assassinated in 1998).

-Judges and lawyers

-Businessmen, such as Javier Ybarra.

-Functionaries of the prison and judicial systems.

-Philosophers and intellectuals.

-University professors, such as Francisco Tomбs y Valiente, killed in 1996.

-Journalists, such as Josй Luis Lуpez de la Calle, killed in May 2000.

-Members of certain religious and social groups.

-Foreign tourists in Spain.

Before bombings, ETA members often make a telephone call so that people can be evacuated, although these calls have sometimes given incorrect information, leading to increased casualties.

A police file, dating from 1996, indicated that ETA needs about 15 million pesetas (about 90,000 Euros) daily in order to finance its operations. Although ETA used robbery as a means of financing in its early days, it has since been accused both of arms trafficking and of benefiting economically from its political counterpart Batasuna. The two most important methods that the organization has used to obtain finances are kidnapping and extortion, euphemistically known as "revolutionary taxes." Other similar organizations such as FARC have also used this tactic. In 2002 the judge Baltasar Garzуn seized the herriko tabernas (people's taverns) which were reportedly collecting these "revolutionary taxes".