Basque Fatherland and Liberty

Basque Fatherland and Liberty (Euskadi ta Askatasuna; ETA), a group of separatists seeking Basque independence from Spain, is responsible for a 44-year-old liberation campaign whose bombings and murders have left more than 800 dead. Among its most high-profile attacks were the assassination of a Spanish prime minister and the killing of 21 shoppers at a Barcelona supermarket.

Feeling that the right-wing Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) was not significantly advancing their goal of achieving Basque independence from Spain, dissidents created this extremely radical and violent faction of the Basque Separatist movement in 1959. ETA's liberation campaign has long been funded by crime, including robbery, kidnapping, and extortion. It has resorted to bombings and the murder of government officials and members of political parties to advance its cause. In 1969, several prominent leaders of the ETA were arrested for their involvement in the death of a police chief. One of the ETA's most well known crimes was the murder of Spanish prime minister Carrero Blanco in 1973. Blanco's assassination was a particular triumph for the ETA as he was also formerly a top-ranking member of the Francisco Franco administration. Franco was adamantly opposed to Basque self-rule, and when he died in 1975, the activities of the ETA dramatically increased. The members founded their political wing, Herri Batasuna, in 1978, and also began to target members of the People's Party for assassination.

Overall, the ETA has killed more than 800 people, including 21 people with a bomb at a supermarket in Barcelona in 1987. Although cease-fires took place during peace talks with Spain in 1988, 1995, and 1998, they were unsuccessful, and in all three cases the violence escalated again.

A group similar to the ETA that exists mostly in the French provinces of the Basque region is called Enbata. It offers support to the ETA and sometimes they coordinate their terrorist attacks. In 2000, the Spanish group, Jarrai, and the French group, Gasteriak, united to form a youthful faction of the ETA called Haika. They are responsible for an increase of terrorist attacks in France. Fifteen members of Haika were arrested in March of 2001. Later that summer, eight members of the ETA were arrested in Spain, found with a loaded car bomb that was already armed for an attack. The group's most recent campaign has been against the tourism industry in Spain, and the chosen weapon has been the car bomb.