The British Prime Minister, Tony Blairmobilized Sinn Féin and the IRA (Irish Republican Army) to convince the ETA leadership to abandon terrorism. It is one of the revelations of the former socialist president of the Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapateroabout one of the most unknown aspects of the end of terrorism, its international flank, on its thirteenth anniversary which is celebrated today. A terrorism that, in four decades, left 850 dead, thousands injured and caused irreparable damage.
Both Blair, Sinn Fein and the IRA, which gave up arms in 2005, closely followed ETA’s final process. So Jonathan Powell, Blair’s Chief of Staff, and the former IRA leader, Gerry Kelly, were present at the last round of meetings between representatives of the Zapatero Government and ETA in Geneva, in May 2007, culminating in a failure.
Powell and Kelly reproached ETA for abandoning the negotiation. But Powell, sent by Blair, like Kelly and Martin McGuinness, on behalf of the IRA, held subsequent meetings with ETA leadership in Switzerland and France to convince them to lay down their weapons. “It was very important for ETA to cease terrorism in 2011,” says Zapatero. This is explained by the great influence that the IRA always had over ETA, together with the fact that, after the Irish gang left the violence in 2005ETA remained the only European terrorist organization, also very weakened and progressively criticized by its bases.
“I will always thank Tony Blair for his commitment to ending ETA,” says Zapatero. Labor Blair, like the British Conservatives, considered the fight against terrorism a matter of State, including the dialogue processes, and ruled out its political use.
Zapatero considers indisputable the contribution to the end of ETA terrorism of police and judicial action, for decades, and social mobilization against ETA. But he believes it is fair to highlight the unknown role of international facilitators and those of some countries. “Without them, there would have been no end to terrorism,” he emphasizes.
The former leader of the PSOE reveals the role played by the regimes of Cuba, Colombia and Venezuela, encouraged by his Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinosto convince ETA residents in their territory to abandon violence. “It was a complement and served Cuba so that the United States – with the Obama Administration – could remove them from the list of countries that supported terrorism. I gave a press conference in Cuba highlighting his role.” Donald Trump later reintroduced them.
France, where a majority of ETA members resided, played a double and unique role that had to be coordinated by the then Minister of the Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcabawith their French counterparts. “Stop the ETA members who maintained terrorism and facilitate the movements of those who worked to put an end to it. “France collaborated in this complicated task.”
Zapatero highlights the role of the Henri Dunant Humanitarian Center (CHD), based in Geneva (Switzerland), financed mainly by the Swiss and Norwegian governments. Its executive director, the British Martin Griffiths, was very relevant. Two officials from the center, for almost a decade, maintained permanent and indirect contact between ETA and the Zapatero Government. “His effort was fundamental for the end,” Zapatero highlights.
The Spanish Government’s relationship with the CHD began in 2004. The center committed the governments of Switzerland and Norway to maintain, between 2005 and 2006, the dialogue process with ETA in their territory. They also guaranteed the safety and movements of their negotiators.
After the formal dialogue between the Government and ETA failed, in June 2007, the two CHD officials maintained indirect communication between the Executive, the nationalist left and ETA, at the request of Zapatero. “It was the most difficult decision of the process. I did it because I knew that the Abertzale left disagreed with the ETA attack on T-4 in Barajas and the breakdown of dialogue with the Government. It was a success because maintaining communication revived the debate between the nationalist left, which wanted to end it, and a divided ETA. At the same time, the police did not lower their guard and after the breakdown of the dialogue, with key arrests, they weakened the most radical ETA sector,” concludes Zapatero.
Between the formal breakdown of the dialogue between the Government and ETA, in 2007, and the end of terrorism in 2011, the nationalist leaders, supported by international organizations and agents, convinced the most influential sector of ETA, led by Josu Ternera, to end due to ETA weakness and the rejection of nationalist bases. “It culminated in the vote to abandon violence in the nationalist bases and in prisons,” recalls Zapatero.
ETA asked the nationalist left, before materializing its end, that it be endorsed by international bodies – it was the Aiete Conference, headed by Kofi Annan – and have the unitary support of nationalism. Six months earlier, in May 2011, the Abertzale left had been legalized after fulfilling the commitment to reject ETA terrorism in its new statutes.
“A clean and priceless ending”
“ETA ended the violence with a unilateral and unconditional decision,” reaffirms José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the face of renewed speculation about secret agreements that he and Pedro Sánchez would be paying. Zapatero considers it an outdated debate: “When ETA declared the end of terrorism on October 20, 2011, Mariano Rajoy, leader of the opposition, publicly recognized its veracity and his conviction that we do not pay any price.” The former president highlights that “it was, furthermore, a clean ending, without splits, assumed by ETA and definitive as these 13 years without violence show.” Six months earlier, Bildu, the new electoral brand of the Abertzale left, was legalized, condemned for nine years as the political arm of ETA. “They were promised to be in politics if they contributed to ETA abandoning violence. They did it and reflected it in their statutes,” says Zapatero. He is also convinced that Sortu “will not take long” to definitively close the cycle and recognize the unfair damage it caused: “Their evolution supports them.” And he refutes those who supported conspiracy theories about the 11-M attack and accused him of having resurrected the band: “When I came to power, ETA was weakened, not defeated.”
