#i know his surname is arrizabalaga

[justisco]

today i decided to google kepa to find out what his name is short for, only to find out it is in fact just kepa

[beautiful-basque-country]

English translation

Kaixo girls!! Forgive me for bringing up the usual topic, but I was wondering if you know of any informative material that talks about the Basque nationalist movements and/or ETA from the point of view/knowledge of someone who really experienced the situation. I am from 2000 and I have lived in Madrid all my life and in class we have received almost 0 true information about this (if we have received any at all). Sometimes the topic comes up with someone and you can have an adult conversation but I always find that the other party ends with "both sides did bad things! (But the Basques more)" and it frustrates me. I don't know if there will be any book or documentary that is 100% impartial, but I do know that what I have at hand has a lot to do with centralism and I would like to know if you know of anything that talks about these movements without the typical "they hadn't done such and such things wouldn’t have spiraled out of control like they did." to which I am accustomed. A hug! ♡

Kaixo!!

You don't know how happy we are that someone young and from Madrid is interested in how things were on "the other side", totally seriously. THANK YOU.

We are not personally aware of any "fair" documentaries. The other day someone told us here that "La Pelota Vasca" addressed the conflict from both sides and that it was worth it, but we haven't seen it.

As you can probably access more Spanish/centralist press, what we can do is leave you some links to our posts - with sources - so you can get an idea of ​​how things were around here.

In 1975 the Spanish government didn't allow Lobo to finish off ETA because it was a political asset. Torture continued to be applied even after Franco's death, Arrizabalaga case.

In the 1980s, the Civil Guard flooded Euskadi - especially Gipuzkoa - with heroin with the intention of numbing and killing young Basques. A former Basque president has confirmed it. The Civil Guard tortured and murdered Basque citizens with NO proven links to ETA. They worked as judge, jury and executioner. And they were rewarded with promotions. Cases Etxabe, Mikel Arregi, Zabalza, Joxe Arregi and Lasa and Zabala. Far-right terrorist groups such as Batallón Vasco Español did the same, and their victims are not yet recognized as victims of terrorism, case Yolanda González.

In the 1990s - and we have experienced this first-hand - the usual thing was for the Civil Guard to set up roadblocks and check the trunks of the cars that left the Basque Country when summer started, only for the Basques to lose their first day of vacation in a traffic jam. Basque children were asked by children from other provinces whether we had weapons in the trunk, and many children stopped talking to us because their mothers told them not to talk to Basques. When the king was going to stay in a certain hotel in the Balearic Islands, all the guests with a Basque surname were relocated elsewhere. Until the license plates were changed - the old ones indicated the province of the car - it was normal for a Basque car to be scratched or get punctured tires outside the Basque Country. At airports, Basque passengers always got "random" check-ins. Media outlets were closed just because, case Punto y Hora.

In the 00s, media outlets - accused of belonging to ETA - continued to be closed without any proof, Egunkaria case. The Civil Guard is still judge, jury and executioner, Berrueta case. Former Spanish president Aznar admits the Basque independence cause is legitimate if it does not use force. A young Basque is sentenced to prison for painting "Gora ETA" in sheet size on a secondary street of his town, 4 years after the final ceasefire. ETA tried to disarm in 2011 and 2014 and neither Spain nor France accepted. Until 2013, more than 3,000 cases of tortured prisoners have been recognized, the Strasbourg Court is already bored of denouncing Spain for this issue.

Figures about ETA and attacks on Basque people (which can be quantified).

Double standards: 1, 2, 3

The Basque Country continues to be the European region with the most police officers per capita, after years without ETA. The Civil Guards continue to recieve their bonus for dangerousness.

And this is not over: when ETA existed, the Spanish National Audience recieved 3 terrorism cases a year. Now it doesn't exist anymore, it recieves more than 30 cases yearly, most of them are related to tweets, jokes or songs.

We have chosen these news because finding information about the ETA attacks is much easier than finding all this, and there are still many more personal traumatic experiences that didn't reach the press that Basque society - not members of ETA but embers of our people - have had and have to endure.

The issue is not "of course, if they hadn't done this then the others wouldn't have done that"; the issue is that reprisals were for everyone, member of ETA or not, it did not matter. And let's not forget that yes, ETA members were obviously murderers, but it was a terrorist group and they are supposed to be criminals; what it cannot be allowed is to have a bloody criminal state funded by tax payers when it is supposed to defend its population. And that, at least with the policy that all governments have followed up til now, Spain needs to have ETA - be it ETA itself, the Catalan independence movement, the Bolivarian communists, whatever, an enemy - and, worst of all, that this is not over yet (as you can see in many news, they are very recent).

A hug anon, and we hope to have given you some of the info you asked for! 🧡

Original ask in Spanish