"THE BASQUE BALL" "SKIN AGAINST STONE" "This film is intended to be an invitation to dialogue." "This film is based on respect for all opinions." "This film is independent, entirely the result of a personal initiative." "This film supports the victims of violence connected with the Basque conflict." "This film will always regret the absence of those who did not want to participate." "If I had clipped its wings, it would have been mine." "It would not have escaped." "But it would have ceased to be a bird." "But it would have ceased to be a bird." "And the bird was what I loved." "Writer in Basque" "Journalist" "Sociologist." "Writer in Basque" "President Basque Govt. with Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) 1980-85" "Former president of Eusko Alkartasuna (EA)" "Musician" "Psycho-sociologist" "I'd say this is more like an archipelago, a place with lots of little islands rather than one big island." "Yes, there are two poles which influence the Basque conflict," "ETA and the government in Madrid." "That's obvious." "Those two opposing forces are hindering something essential, that is, mutual understanding." "Things are black or white now." "You're either with me or against me." "We forget about the range of colors in between, which are perhaps the loveliest and the most enriching." "I think it all begins with labeling people like me, who are considered ambiguous, with that cruel description of "cowardly equidistance"." "We've already been reproached for taking the easy way, for buying that freedom by avoiding commitment and refusing to see what's happening under our noses." "You can't resort to dogmatism backed up by violence, the violence of guns or the violence of the monopoly of State force." "I don't want to be equidistant, but I can see the wrong on both sides." "Social confrontation forces individuals to become polarized." "It's not politically correct to try to avoid taking sides." "You'll be called weak, undefined, cowardly, compliant..." "The spectrum is much wider." "The reality of the Basque conflict is much more complex." "It isn't so easy to define." "Professor of Sociology." "Threatened by ETA" "Professor of Sociology and Political Science" "In my opinion, the capital sin being committed is that of situating the center of the debate in the Basque Country-Spain confrontation." "But 48% of the people born in the Basque Country are the children of immigrants." "It's a political confrontation, caused by politicians, by some of the media and by some intellectuals." "It is out of keeping with the plurality of Basque society." "So we have a Basque community divided into two great cultures, or possible cultures, or possible identities." "Basque society has basically got a multiple identity." "Widow of Juan María Jaúregui, of the Basque Socialist Party." "Civil Governor of Guipuzcoa assassinated by ETA in 2000." "Juan Mari was mentioned in documents belonging to ETA." "That was partly why he went to work in Chile." "He wanted to get out of this environment, at least for a while, to see if things calmed down." "Every three months, he came to Spain, to Guipuzcoa, to Legorreta." "My daughter and I would go to Chile, especially at Christmas." "We talked every day." "It was almost as if we were still newlyweds." "We had a wonderful relationship." "But it was cut short." "President of the Basque Government 1985-1998 with the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV)" "Graduate in Basque Philology, poet and writer in Basque" "President of Euskaltzaindia (Academy of the Basque Language)" "Cultural Councilor in San Sebastian for the Basque Socialist Party." "Threatened by ETA." "Gen. Secretary of Batasuna (banned left wing independent movement which does not condemn attacks by ETA)" "Former mayor of Vitoria-Gasteiz with the Basque Nationalist Party" "There are Basques who feel Basque and think that whatever is Basque takes in everything that is a basic element of identity." "The Basque Country is their homeland and their nation." "My little place in the world, that's what Euskal Herria is for me." "It's the name the world takes on in this place, the place where I live." "I live in the French State, that's my citizenship." "But my nationality is Basque." "50% of Basques feel that they are Basque, but their national patriotic identity is Spain." "That's where a large part of the conflict lies, in how each person defines the Basque identity." "In this country, we tend to make collective formulations in which the individual disappears." "They want this group identity to be uniform." "ACuban friend of mine says that we are the last natives in Europe." "Some think that feeling Basque is their fundamental identity and that can actually unhinge their personality, and thus generate hatred and violence." "Journalist and writer threatened by ETA" "We have feelings too." "We're not nationalists, but we have feelings of social justice." "People move us more than landscape and language and the earth." "The day when, in Lekeitio or Zubieta, people eat hamburgers and listen to American rock and wear American clothes, and give up their language to speak English, and, instead of looking at the mountains, are using the Internet," "for us, that world will be so boring it won't be worth living." "Our daughter is going to marry a South African, our cousin will be oriental, our children's children will be a mixture of whatever." "Maybe that will teach us a lot and we'll break down barriers." "I want that to happen." "I want to be Basque, but not as I'm told to be by one group or another." "Euskal Herría, you are moving forward, but, towards what?" "." "The future will be rough but prosperous too." "If only it has the color of this landscape which is a reflection of our hope." "In the Basque Autonomous Community, or Euskadi, with 2 million inhabitants," "42% know Basque and 16% speak it." "Historian-anthropologist" "Ethnographic researcher" "Writer-humanist, ethnographer." "Ballad singer, TV presenter, journalist" "Professor of Political Science, writer." "Threatened by ETA." "The only living thing from European pre-history is the Basque language." "It doesn't belong to the Indo-European group." "It doesn't belong to the Romance group, or the Germanic group or the Celtic group." "Our language is a made-to-measure instrument for showing our sensitivity and our thoughts." "The non-Basque speaking world thinks that we have an insatiable desire to impose it, that we want mono-lingualism in Basque, and that isn't true." "We have no alternative but to grow." "A lot of people have learned Basque but it can't compete with Spanish on the streets." "The Basque language in particular..." "The obsession today for it to become an absolute monopoly is, in my opinion, negative and laden with reactionary effects." "Basque is being identified with violence, with nationalism." "For me, language has got nothing to do with politics." "It's beyond that." "In any case, it's poetry." "It's part of my installation in the world." "The future of Basque in Navarre and in the Basque Country is uncertain." "I love the Basque language rather than the Basque Country..." "We have the oldest language in Europe." "It would be heart-breaking if we lost it." "It's my homeland." "If Germany had had the Basque language, it would be the greatest monument in Europe today, greater than all the monuments made of stone." "We now know that cave paintings are more widespread than we believed." "What undoubtedly exists is a particularly rich Franco-Cantabrian nucleus." "President of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV)" "The fact that a small country like this has maintained certain genetic, serological characteristics for thousands of years" "doesn't suppose superiority or inferiority." "What it does suppose is the coexistence of a people for thousands of years and the creation of habits, of culture, of language, etc." "General Secretary of the Young Socialists of the Basque Country." "Victim of an attack by ETA in which he lost a leg." "I got up as usual, I got in the car," "I was thinking about what I had to do and organizing my day's work," "Just as I was leaving a roundabout my car exploded." "I knew immediately that it was an attack by ETA." "I'd always felt that it could happen to me." "I looked at myself," "I had a lot of injuries but I was in one piece." "I got out of the car but I couldn't walk because my legs hurt so much, so I lay down and someone came to help me." "At that moment, you think you've been very lucky, and despite the misfortune of it all, you've been lucky to get out of it alive." "As a result of the explosion my left leg was amputated." "And today, thanks to the good luck that I had, and with an artificial limb, my life is pretty much the same, but I can't practice sports anymore." "Journalist, writer, music critic, editor of "La Vanguardia"" "General Secretary of United Alava (UA)" "Doctor in Sociology." "Member of Gesture for Peace." "President of the Spanish Government, 1982-1996, with the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE)" "President of Eusko Alkartasuna (EA)" "I believe that ETA is a deep-rooted, political problem, that the Basque conflict is political, and that if it is resolved politically its effects will also be resolved." "Which is more important, or more valuable?" "The individual rights of a person or the collective rights of an abstract Basque people?" "They even deny the existence of a people, because one thing leads to another." "If you accept there is a Basque people, you accept their collective will, their right to decide for and about themselves." "So the easiest thing is to deny it." "There is no people, no collective rights, only individual rights." "ETA is the last manifestation of an atavistic people." "In 200 years, every generation of Basques has sufferedjail, exile, torture and death for political reasons." "In Shakespeare's "Macbeth" there is an image of a lake of blood." "After we've committed the first murder and are submerged in that lake, we can only move forward." "It's senseless to go back because how can we explain what we've done?" "It's the definition of fascism." "Why do the military have to stay in the barracks?" "They have the guns." "They can't have the right to speak as well." "These people want both things." "What's being debated isn't nationalism or non-nationalism." "It's civilization or barbarity." "The so-called democratic nationalism should have realized that, and fought with all its means against that horror." "When someone is assassinated in this country a part of what we are is shattered." "Philosopher" "Journalist" "Journalist, editor and writer" "Journalist" "There is a line of thought that only the nationalist extreme left-wing can obtain a total liberation of the Basque Country." "When a society accepts that, given there are political problems,..." "It's pathological." "violence is justified, it's impossible to make thatjump without first suffering a moral collapse." "It's as if the intelligence were confused by patriotic emotion." "It isn't true that ETA is the only conflict." "Even if ETA didn't exist, and in fact before ETA existed, there was conflict." "Perhaps terrorism is a product of those unresolved questions." "Euskal Herria is the name used to encompass the 7 provinces," "3 in France, and the 4 in Spain which are the 3 in the Autonomous Basque Community, or Euskadi, and Navarre, which has its own autonomy." "Historian and writer" "Secretary General of the Union of the People of Navarre" "Historian" "Co-founder of ETA" "Member of the Aralar Group which condemns attacks by ETA" "Euskal Herria didn't exist in the sense of political unity because the idea of Basque citizenship didn't exist." "The Basques did have their own state." "It was Navarre." "The Autonomous Basque Community that exists today was never part of the Kingdom of Navarre or of the ancient Kingdom of Pamplona." "The present union of the 4 Basque-Navarre territories has only been in existence for some thirty years." "We lived for five centuries under the national control of our people, the Kingdom of Navarre." "The French and Spanish states hide the reality of those conquests in their historiography." "You must distinguish between myth, history and history created by myth, because at some point the myth is accepted." "Son of José Javier Múgica, UPN councilor in Leiza, (Navarre) assassinated by ETA in 2001." "They killed my father because he was a UPN councilor." "UPN's ideas are contrary to the ideas of HB (extreme nationalism)." "Just for his ideas." "If I meet any of them, or the mayor," "I look him in the eye." "I have no reason to look away." "He's the one who should look away, and he does, because he's ashamed." "President of the Basque Government since 1998 with the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV)" "Secretary General of the Aralar Group" "(left wing pro-independence group which condemns attacks by ETA)" "Mayor of San Sebastian for the Basque Socialist Party since 1991" "The statute says who can form part of this political reality which is the Basque people, Euskal Herria." "It says:" "Alava, Vizcaya and Guipuzcoa, and Navarre, if its citizens so wish." "That goes against the wishes of the majority of the people of Navarre." "Leiza could form part of Euskal Herria because you can see that it has maintained its Basque traditions." "Present-day Navarre is the result of the last 25 years and an intensive cultural and media policy stressing a dichotomy between what is Basque and what is Navarre, a dichotomy that has never existed in Navarre." "The historic Basque Country is being expropriated of its condition as the root and trunk of Euskal Herria." "If you go deep into the heart of Navarre," "I think there's no trace of Euskal Herria." "Basque nationalism is practically reduced to the north-north east area of Navarre while the UPN has a major presence throughout the whole community." "Because they are governing by making use of the abnormal situation caused by the violence, and the political message they are transmitting has got no content other than opposition to ETA's message." "What has to be done, in a natural way, is establish relations with other territories without any kind of restraint, with Navarre, for example." "We have to promote cross-border cooperation with the French Basque Country." "Mayor of Bayonne, capital of lparralde (French Basque Country)" "Writer, member of Euskaltzaindia (Academy of the Basque Language)" "Founder of the newspaper "Le Journal du Pays Basque"" "If we had a referendum here on the Basque Country, you'd see that we want to be French and that we don't want independence." "In lparralde (French Basque Country) there are 260,000 people." "Aquarter of them speak Basque." "What does that represent amidst 60 million French?" "Basque is not an official language." "It's being crushed." "It's going to disappear." "As Basques, we do not exist." "The French Basque Country needs a legal identity, and recognition by the French Republic." "That's why we want a Basque "Département"." "The creation of a Basque "Département"" "depends on what happens on the other side of the Bidasoa, provided the violence ceases." "This is the old oak which was revered in Guernica, the sacred town of the Basques, as a symbol of its liberties which, in the form of laws, gave rise to the oldest democracy in Europe." "Guernica was bombed by the German Condor Legion, allies of Franco, during the Spanish Civil War." "654 people died." "This is a Spanish school." "Only Spanish is spoken here." "Basque is forbidden because you are Spanish." "Basque!" "Spanish!" "Basque!" "Spanish!" "Basque!" "Spanish!" "Basque!" "Priest" "Franco came in here with great violence." "He appointed very competent civil governors." "But for the people, whether communists or nationalists, they were the devil himself." "The PNValways was an ultra-Catholic party and it still is, with good results." "ETA has always been secular, but it has produced a new religion, that of the homeland." "We spoke to the PNV." "They didn't understand us." "The time came when there was a split." "Professor of Psychology." "Franciscan" "And here the story with ETA starts again." "It's a tragedy on a collective level." "This violence is the greatest frustration of the Basque people." "Let's look at culture first." "The enemy reacted strongly, harshly." "They couldn't tolerate any cultural activity." "Immediately, a section, I don't know how large, of the clergy in Guipuzcoa and Vizcaya, and parishioners too, sympathized with ETA." "The enemy's reaction was out of proportion." "We were persecuted." "That forced us to move on to the political phase." "They helped organize meetings." "They provided sacristies and retreat houses where they could meetings." "Then the first interrogations began, the first beatings, the first signs of torture, and that forced us to move on to the final, military phase." "In December 1973," "ETA assassinated Admiral Carrero Blanco, recently chosen by Franco to be his successor." "He flew, he flew." "Carrero flew!" "We were always very careful to say and to state and to write ceaselessly that the military arm would always follow the orders of the political head and not the reverse, which is, unfortunately, what happened." "Professor of Political Science" "Expert in the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the U.N." "The militants who joined ETA in the 70s were, on average, 22 years old." "The immense majority were male." "They were mainly from Guipuzcoa, and from those regions with many small and medium sized towns, regions where more than 40% of the people spoke Basque fluently and on a daily basis." "Both the open and secret discussions were gradually abandoned and replaced solely by classes in weapons handling." "Many Christians in the Basque Country, including the ordinary diocesan clergy who also participated must have said to themselves at one point:" "Where are we going?" "It was an important moment." "But the dictatorship continued until 1975." "We mustn't forget that in September 1975" "Franco approved the execution of three members of FRAP and of Txiki and Otaegi who were in ETA." "As a result, the feelings of exasperation and of loathing towards the regime lasted until Franco's death." "Aríse, my boy, stand up." "See if there is light." "Arise, my boy, stand up." "See if there is fire." "Arise, my boy, stand up." "See what is happening outside." "When the transition began there was a serious problem, and that was the inevitable slowness of certain aspects of that transition, such as the reform of the State's forces of repression, police, etc." "The transition in Spain was a success because it was based on consensus and gradual reform and not on rupture." "Between March 1976 and March 1978, the police killed 38 people during various demonstrations." "Undoubtedly, that favored the radicalization of the Basque process and also of positions in ETA circles." "In October 1977, the democratic government of Adolfo Suarez amnestied all political prisoners." "The colonial submission of the Basque people by the ruling Spanish power is still going on." "ETA made that analysis and saw that the young Spanish democracy did not have the slightest intention of finally and in a democratic way letting our people decide for themselves." "Basically, Spain was seen as the enemy." "The armed struggle continued." "They think that nothing has changed or can change." "Former abertzale lawyer (Left wing pro-independence group)" "Member of the Sabino Arana Foundation." "Professor of Political Science." "Founder of HB and HASI (Left wing pro-independence group)" "I was immersed in a situation of political violence." "People close to me were killed by the police or tortured." "That makes you see violence as an imposed necessity." "It makes you more radical." "Given the attacks we suffered as a people, there are various ways of fighting." "We can reconstruct ourselves as a people, or stand up to those who are opposed to that reconstruction, without attacking any other people." "From its conception, ETA cannot accept that the Basque problem can be resolved within the framework of the Spanish constitution and with an autonomy limited to three of what they consider the seven provinces of Euskal Herria." "FRENCH BASQUE COUNTRY" "Can anyone explain this?" "So what ETA is trying to do is to break through the Spanish constitutional process." "8 innocent victims and not one objective fulfilled." "If you look at the dates of ETA's biggest offensives, they coincide with that." "Under Franco, ETA killed about 40 people." "During the democracy, the figure is 700, almost 800 deaths, but of those 800, there were almost 100 per year between 1979 and 1981." "The best thing to do is throw it into an official car and get them all." "The Spanish army has lost more generals and colonels than in any other war it has fought." "That is a simple fact." "During the attempted coup on February 23, 1981, many people said that ETA was responsible for the circumstances which led officers to attempt a coup." "The political-military wing of ETA then announced that it was giving up the armed struggle to avoid provoking any further coups." "The children of this land will not know the sound of gunfire." "They will not know the effects of bombs." "Very intelligently, at that time or soon after, the Spanish government offered reinsertion to the young Basques who had taken refuge in France." "From the second half of the 80s," "ETA's decline was particularly noticeable." "Among other things, it was gradually losing popular support and finding it more difficult to recruit new militants." "A considerable number of people in the south of France discreetly accepted the Spanish offer of reinsertion." "ETA had to stop this trend, possibly for the same reasons, and assassinated Maria Dolores Katarain, "Yoyes", in the center of Ordizia, in order to stop that flow of people who were accepting reinsertion." "EUSKADI FOR PEACE" "Relatives of ETA prisoners traveling to the prison in Huelva." "You leave Friday night for Huelva, come back Sunday morning, and then face a week of work without having had a rest." "You make a journey of 2,000 kms." "in just over a day." "It's crazy." "The poor little thing, all this journey." "Widow of the "ertzaina" (Basque policeman) Ramón Doral, assassinated by ETA in 1996." "When they killed Montxo, Jokin was just 18 months old." "He kept saying: "Aita?", as if asking 'Where's Daddy?"" "I would answer:" ""Aita, joan da"" "Daddy's gone." "At first, that was enough." "He was away for three years, in exile, then he was arrested in Barcelona." "We met up when we were both in a group of militants, when we were young." "One day, in the car, he asked me:" ""Why did they kill him?"" "I explained that some men thought his "alta"was bad and they decided to kill him." "I've been going to visit a relative for fourteen years." "The only thing I can do is offer him this support, go and visit him." "He said: "Then I'm going to kill them", and I told him:" ""Thinking someone is bad is no reason to kill him." "You could be wrong"." "40 minutes in a little cubicle, where you can't hear anything, you aren't comfortable." "He never asked me how he was killed." "A friend told him." "She said that they'd put a bomb in his father's car." "He always thought that they'd shot him." "Secretary General of the Euskadi Socialist Party" "Former Minister of Industry for PSOE." "Former President of the Euskadi Socialist Party" ""Father" of the Spanish Constitution" "There has been an understanding between socialists and nationalists since the days of the republic, and then, during the transition, there were socialist-nationalist coalition governments." "I think it was a very good period as regards cooperation and the easing of many tensions." "The basis of the Statute of Autonomy was developed then, under the Socialist government which came into power in 1982." "The Socialist Party had a majority but it handed the government over to the nationalists." "We need to go back to what were maybe not good days but certainly were better days." "When Felipe González left..." "He learned some hard lessons and suffered with this phenomenon, so he decided to begin talks." "He went to Algiers." "I don't know why that didn't work out." "But when Felipe González left he'd opened a door to ETA for creating an area of dialogue." "I'm not just opposed to violence by ETA." "I'm opposed to any violence, whether it's by someone who plants a bomb or by a civil guard, for instance, who tortures a person because he thinks that person is something or other." "Arrested by the Civil Guards in Pamplona (Navarre) in May 2002 for alleged collaboration with ETA." "After 5 days she was released without charges." "They asked me questions." "I answered them, but they didn't like my answers so they hit me on the head, on the arms." "They put me up against the wall." "They started shouting and insulting me." "A lot of people who have nothing to do with ETA, who, at most, coincide ideologically with Batasuna, have been arrested and tortured." "Their families have been contaminated by violence as a result of the reaction by the security forces to ETA." "I think that's terrible." "They told me:" ""Take off your clothes"." "I said that I wouldn't." "A man started to take off my sweater, from behind, then my blouse and my bra, and they carried on like that." "I'd be in total solidarity with her, today, always, whether I knew her or not." "The next time, they made me strip off completely." "They touched me on my breasts and on my backside." "They made me do squats, up and down, until I fell over." "What happened to me hasn't clouded my vision as regards the enormous human tragedy in the world of Batasuna." "And as time goes by and no solution is found, that tragedy grows and spreads and affects more and more people." "The sessions on the first day were like that." "I was naked, and on the second and third day too." "They threatened to rape me with a vibrator." "I had an anxiety attack, I had no strength, I couldn't breathe." "GAL (Anti-terrorist Liberation Group) assassinated 27 people between 1983 and 1987." "In 1994, a group of policemen, officers in the Civil Guard and politicians from PSOE were put on trial." "President of Amnesty International Spain" "The business with GAL was so far-reaching that it is hard for me to believe that no other people were involved." "I don't think you can say it was State terrorism." "I'm looking at it now from an historic perspective." "Many democrats, people who were above all suspicion, approved of State terrorism." "If the State apparatus had decided to eliminate them, there might have been problems but it would have done it." "It was condemned by the Basque Socialist Party and legal action was taken as at other times." "We were concerned about the delay in organizing certain trials." "And there may be a guideline, which is another sign of impunity, regarding very light sentences, official pardons..." "He was committed to clarifying who was responsible for the murders of Lasa and Zabala and to ensuring they paid for it." "Allow me to say, Your Honor, that with six men like me, we could have conquered all of South America." "Mr. Galindo gave Juan Mari a look, and if looks could kill, Juan Mari would have died sooner." "The "Kale borroka" (Street Conflict) is made up of young pro-independence radicals." "Ertzaina (Basque Policeman) Member of Ertzaintza Trade Union" "At first, the "Kale Borroka" set fire to cash dispensers, they blocked streets..." "Recently, they set fire to two "ertzainas"." "After attacking the homes of councilors they turned their attention to the brothers, sisters, cousins of those people." "This is because, at the beginning, it was easy for them, due to an error on our part, an error by the Ertzaina, when we didn't put a firm end to that movement as we should have done at the time." "There is a small minority of young Basques which has been indoctrinated, in the strongest sense of the word, with what is basically one idea, that Euskadi is the homeland of the Basques, and it is presently being subjugated" "by the French and Spanish states which are preventing them from realizing themselves as Basques." "Former Cultural Counselor, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV)" "In Spain there is a dispersion policy with a certain group of prisoners." "We did disperse them." "And the PNV agreed to a phase of that operation." "When the ETA prisoners were held in groups, the social pressure that was exercised in the prisons made it impossible to achieve any reinsertion." "The ultimate aim of a prison sentence in the Spanish penal legislation is still reinsertion." "It's a different matter if that aim can't be achieved." "In that case, humane criteria demand that the prisoners are brought to the Basque Country." "A prisoner, whether criminal, political, Basque, non-Basque, has the right to serve his sentence close to his home area, because that is set down in international law." "In some cases, they are imposing additional punishment by sending the prisoners far away, and punishing their families too." "It's up to you." "If you stop killing, they'll be brought closer to home." "Meanwhile, people who committed horrible crimes, and did so while they were in power, are set free or given greatly reduced sentences." "Daughter of Xavier Galdeano who was murdered by the GAL in 1985." "Pres. of Etxerat (Organization for bringing prisoners closer to home)" "There are prisoners who have spent 22 years under "maximum surveillance", which means 20 hours a day in their cells and 4 hours in the yard." "I'm going to visit my father." "In April, he was in prison 19 years." "For a 40 minute visit, we had to spend a whole week in the Canaries, with all the expenses that involves." "We were doing that for nine years." "About 115 of them should have been released by now, after serving three quarters of their sentence." "My father should be a free man today, by law." "By their law." "He's been in prison these last four years for nothing." "No one can ever judge the life of anyone else." "I don't feel any great hatred." "First of all, I don't know the person who planted the bomb." "I'd like to know him." "I'd tell him to think about what price he would put on a person's life." "I'd tell him to ask himself how bad he would feel if something similar happened to someone in his family." "I'd tell him to read, because he probably hasn't done it much." "I'd tell him to travel, and to see that the Basque Country is great, but that it isn't worth killing someone for." "This country only has to be the same as everywhere else." "It's special in many ways but perhaps not that many, and by killing for it, he's probably insulting it." "ETA, LET US LIVE IN PEACE." "Redemptorist priest" "Spokesman in Northern Ireland peace talks" "Founder of Elkarri," "(social movement for peace, dialogue and agreement)" "Former president of Bayonne Chamber of Commerce." "Businessman" "Elkarri is a call to society to make it more aware of what it needs and what it wants." "Uselessly beautiful." "I think it's beautiful but useless." "Human rights come first, especially the right to life and to non-violence." "That's fundamental." "It is the idea of Elkarri that is being persecuted, and not its ideas as such." "The peace conference doesn't bring political forces together." "It brings together moderators whom they trust and who draw up draft proposals for an agreement." "The citizens have given legitimacy, responsibility and the duty of solving the problem to the political parties." "We shouldn't leave the solution of our problems to other people." "That would be totally irresponsible." "Then those proposals are put to the political parties, all of whom are participating, including the Socialist Party, but not the PP." "Elkarri can help, undoubtedly, but the final solution has to come from the political parties and from the governments." "Elkarri is some 20 years ahead of the needs of a civil society, because if there isn't a strong civil society you'll have to fasten your seatbelt because it'll be horrendous." "You'll have politicians controlling the media, creating opinions, manipulating things as they please." "The Popular Party (PP) won the general election in Spain in 1996." "Since 2000, José María Aznar has governed with an absolute majority." "In May 2001, the nationalist coalition PNV-EA won in the Basque Country (43% of the vote)." "The PP is the second political force (23%)." "Since the PP obtained an absolute majority freedom of expression has lost ground, but I think that freedom in general has lost ground." "In my opinion, while the transition took many steps forward the PP is now trying to take those same steps backwards." "Aznar always used to say that, because of the transition and everything that came after," "Spain was leaning more towards the provinces and had lost its identity as a nation." "They declared that terrorism was equivalent to nationalism, and said if they put an end to nationalism they'd put an end to terrorism." "The Basque problem has become a means, first of all, of demonstrating firmness and winning votes throughout all of Spain." "A few years ago, the moment came when you had to make a choice." "You were with the victims or with the executioners, with democracy or with those who were attacking democracy." "What's more, with the Basque problem, it's a matter of:" ""If you're not with me, you're against me"." "Bush's new philosophy." "No divergence is acceptable." "That has been widely accepted by the press in Madrid." "And I mean Madrid." "There is practically unanimity among columnists on the Basque question, whether it's "ABC", "La Razón", "El Mundo" or "El País"." "The view of the Basque Country comes from a single source, from a constitutionalist source, if you want to call it that." "If ETA, which contaminates everything, didn't exist, neither the PP nor the PSOE would be suffering this situation, and, naturally, the satanisation or criminalisation of democratic nationalism wouldn't exist either." "Every paranoia needs to invent an enemy against which to discharge its rage as it were." "I'm that enemy." "As to whether there is a rising neo-nationalism or neo-Francoism in Spain," "I think it has always existed and what we have here is a continuity." "Closing your eyes to the short and medium term negative effects of the PP's nationalist Spanish ideology is not going to help democracy." "If you accept that Spain is not a nation but is a pluri-national state, and that a pact between nations can form a certain kind of state, then we can talk, because a uni-national Spain is an extended Castile." "The PP has not understood the Constitution, or the philosophy that lies behind it." "At the time, he voted against the Constitution," "Article 8, because he didn't understand the autonomies." "A party leader who wrote, in 1979, a vitriolic article against Article 8 in the "Diario de la Rioja", when he worked there as a Treasury inspector." "I've had several long conversations with Aznar." "Look, Jose María, I think there have been a lot of clichés and simplistic statements." "If you look back at history, the Basques have always been present in the construction of the history of Spain," "even before the notion and concept of Spain existed." "There were Basques with Colombus on board his ships, as crew members and on the bridge." "The Basques feel comfortable as long as the government of Spain respects their customs, their rights, their general assemblies, their autonomous institutions." "There is a close relationship between Carlism, which represents religious and political traditionalism, and the world of the Basque peasants and clergy." "At times there was even a kind of "Basque Arcadia", a series of beliefs with which they defended themselves against control by Madrid." "Spain is attempting to impose certain institutions, certain laws here in the interests of that unity." "After the II Carlist War (1876)" "Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa, Alava and Navarre lost their "fueros" (ancient laws)" "Let us repeat time and again those words which are ours." "They must not be forgotten, they must not be lost, like the tracks which the tiny claws of the birds leave in the snow." "That's what Carlism is, and in some cases it has derived into the third Carlist war, as some say." "It's ETA's war with another series of different components." "Where are you, my love?" "I cannot see you." "I have heard no news of you." "Where have you gone?" "At the heart of the present Basque problem is the frustration caused by the abolition of the "fueros" in 1875-76 and, above all, the 40 years of Francoism." "In order to understand the Basque Country today, you must bear in mind the economic and social transformation after 1880 mainly due to the iron mines in Vizcaya which are no longer in existence." "The profits were truly incredible." "I can't think of any similar case of such intense growth anywhere else in Europe at that time." "There were up to 20,000 people working in the mines." "Iron and steel foundries were set up, along with shipyards and a merchant navy." "More than 35% of the population of Vizcaya, for example, were not born in Vizcaya." "The Euskadi Socialist Party dates from the end of the 19th century, as part of PSOE, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party." "Basque Nationalism appeared, and not by chance in my opinion, in Bilbao in 1894," "when Arana said:" "I will no longer call myself a "fuerista"," "I'm going to call myself a nationalist." "The "fueros" are sovereign laws of the Basque Country." "What the abolition of the "fueros" really meant was the loss of the Basque Country's historic rights." "Sabino Arana's speech was racist, like almost all the political speeches at that time." "They believe that the aggression brought in by the immigrant is going to "de-euskerize" the country." "It's a blasphemy." "The sky of Euskadi is being polluted by the arrival of people who speak Spanish, who blaspheme." "Our salvation is to form an independent state because then we can solve all our problems, economic, ideological, biological or religious." "From its foundation to the present day, the PNV is the political group with most social support in Euskadi." "Professor of Media Studies" "Nevertheless, the so-called democratic nationalism has not revised the figure of Sabino Arana, a precedent of the darkest chapters of the 20th century." "The nationalism at the turn of the century was unlike the nationalism during the Civil War, or the post-Franco period or the early days of democracy, or the nationalism today." "There is violence in the original nationalism." "There isn't a chapter, a word, a phrase by Sabino Arana, that refers to tenderness or solidarity." "It's all horrific." "I think there is a basic crisis, a need, if you want, to rework the nationalist discourse," "because nationalism has experienced the syndrome of "a lack of state"" "of the state that couldn't be in the 19th century." "Therefore, Basque nationalism is a sense of cohesion, of belonging to a small country, which has been forbidden to them, and which they believe is part of their identity and is fighting to get out." "When the right of belonging is not based simply on the possession of citizenship, but has some added component, which could be ethnic or cultural or of any kind, then it becomes dangerous because it starts to exclude others." "The nation is not the most important thing." "What really matters are people, individuals." "I think that Basque nationalism, like almost all others, is the expression of fear, almost always the fear of disappearing." "I want the Basque people to be preserved," "I don't want them to be diluted into history." "In my conversation with Aznar" "I put all that into context for him, and we got to the 20th century." "What happened there?" "A civil war, a military coup," "Basque Catholics forming the Basque Government of the time, with the Statue of 1936, etc." "We were accused of being pro-Vatican but we supported the Republic, even though we didn't approve of it, simply out of loyalty to democracy and liberties." "Then there was Francoism, the dictatorship, and finally an attempt to find a solution." "I said to Aznar, "Look, whether you like it or not, the Basque question isn't over." "You can't ask me to love the Constitution when I haven't voted for it." "I can be respectful, and I will be, but it isn't my Constitution"." "Article 2 says that the Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation." "In my opinion, that's complete and total hyper-nationalism, the worst nationalism." "And it's accepted, like the change from francoism to democracy without anyone having to change their ideas, by decree." "The impression I had was that the PNV collaborated loyally in drawing up a new Constitution but wanted to remain on the sidelines." "You didn't want the PNV, with its eight deputies, to be a group and thus form part of the constitutional committee." "So you excluded us from the constitutional debate." "The Constitution says there are cultural nations in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia." "That doesn't mean they have a right to independence." "What we argued was that we couldn't accept a constitution which didn't resolve a problem which had existed for 200 years." "In 1978, 68% of Spaniards and 30% of Basques voted for the Spanish Constitution." "Journalist" "We knew then that we needed some kind of autonomy." "The PNVcame from a segregationist project which talked of a Basque Country with seven provinces and had sovereign aspirations." "The UCD, basically, came from a large, free Spain, from the national movement." "We didn't deceive anyone." "We said that the Statute didn't satisfy our aspirations and we put in an additional clause which says," ""The acceptance of this statute does not mean the renunciation of rights which the Basque people have by virtue of their history"." "For the PNV that statute was the minimum, while for the UCD it was the maximum." "I have to say it is a good autonomy, but it is extremely insecure." "The stability of the Basque statute is the greatest that has ever been had in any situation of statutory agreement in the life of the Basque community." "From a financial point of view, there is no case in Europe which has the autonomy of Navarre or of the Basque Country." "The Basque statute undertook to transfer a series of responsibilities to the Autonomous Basque Community and that has simply not been done." "Today, about 40% of our statute is still not a reality." "That's just an invention by the nationalists." "The state gradually wove a corset of basic laws which invaded everything and restricted all potential." "There's a certain feeling of having been cheated." "Frustration, disillusion, and a strong feeling of wanting to say," ""The Spaniards have tricked us again"." "Why are the King's speeches not broadcast on Basque television?" "Why isn't the Spanish flag flown alongside the Basque flag?" "So it's very difficult, in those conditions, for it to be treated normally, as happens with other autonomies, including Catalonia." "Secondly, the statute defined a whole series of possibilities to be developed, and they haven't even been touched." "I was in Pamplona and I got a call telling me to take a taxi and get to Leiza as quickly as possible." "I asked what had happened but they didn't tell me anything." "I knew it was serious and I did think for a moment that he'd been assassinated." "I knew it was something serious." "My sister told me over the phone and the journey from Pamplona to here was horrible." "I felt terrible, just terrible." "That was it." "I arrived in Leiza and I could see lots of people milling around, the civil guards." "They took me in to where my mother was, and my brothers and sisters." "I walked past him, but they didn't let me look at him." "I guess I'm glad I didn't see him." "The Basque Government and nationalism haven't been able to respond to the victims." "One day, at a lunch with Arzalluz, I said it to him." "I think it's a mortal sin." "When the PNV accepts that the suffering of the non-nationalist is also their suffering as the ruling party, we'll have taken a big step forward in understanding." "I'd distinguish between the victims and the victims' associations." "I don't doubt that he is against ETA, in some cases with that slightly condescending look with which one regards a son's sins." "The person who suffers, the victim, is one thing." "Those who take political advantage, on one side or the other, of the suffering of those victims is another thing." "I have always felt that I'm a victim twice over." "On the one hand, a victim of the violence and on the other, a victim of the protectors and defenders of the victims." "The proof is there's never been an act in which they have truly received the homage they deserve." "There are nationalist parties who don't see that sensitivity." "It may be because they haven't had to go through what we're going through in both the PP and the PSOE." "At present, the Popular Party, often with the connivance of the Socialist Party, the party to which I belong, demands a unity of criteria." "They demand to have you at their disposal under any condition." "They demand that you should be a political argument rather than a person with rights and freedom of opinion." "Sociologist." "Executive Member of the PSE-PSOE Threatened by ETA" "Mayoress of Lasarte, Guipuzcoa, for the PSE-PSOE." "Threatened by ETA" "Musician" "There's a hidden Basque Country where cars explode and councilors are assassinated, and judges, politicians and journalists are threatened along with lawyers and university professors." "I've got a bodyguard because I appeared on ETA's lists." "The commando group was intending to kill me in my office at the university." "First of all, it's:" "Get out of here." "We're watching you." "You're pro-Spanish..." "All that sort of thing." "The Ertzaintza got in touch with me and they gave me protection." "It's a real pain living with a bodyguard." "My colleagues, who I'm sure are very fond of me, try to avoid meeting with me." "When your family or friends invite you to dinner you exclude yourself, you don't go." "For me, the worst of all nightmares would be that one day they put a bomb in my car and that I was driving it with my wife beside me." "Our children would be orphaned." "That is my worst nightmare." "I've received anonymous letters from students in which they say:" ""Even though we feel bad about it, we can't speak in your defense because we're scared"." "We carry on out of idealism, because we fought against Francoism." "But they also say, and that's partly why I stay on here:" "'We need more people like you to help us carry on"" "They never mention that people on the other side are threatened too." "Every day I get 5 e-mails." "We're going to kill you." "We've killed one of you." "You're next." "They killed Josu, a friend of mine." "We worked together." "Why do people have to leave?" "Musicians, filmmakers, writers, politicians..." "Some colleagues can't even hang out their washing, in case they'll be identified as Ertzainas because of their clothes." "Carpenters, chefs..." "Cleaning ladies, who are socialists, go to work with bodyguards." "What kind of country is this?" "People are afraid, very, very afraid." "We must respect and defend anyone who is threatened." "But you can't live off the fact of being threatened, so we must then analyze their arguments." "The intellectuals who left..." "I wish the intellectuals had taken a firmer stand." "Some were threatened." "Others thought they might be, and perhaps were right." "More discussion and less propaganda." "But others have taken advantage of the situation." "I wouldn't go that far." "You can't ask people to be objective when they are suffering the terrible impact of this political violence." "I believe there are some "official" victims of threats, they're almost professionals, while others are also threatened but don't talk about it." "I don't know if they take advantage of it or not." "But I do believe that other people can take advantage of them." "Power has got a tremendous capacity for absorption, for manipulating things." "ETA announced a year-long truce between 1998 and 1999" "You, in the PP, think you're going to bring us peace by means of a police victory over ETA." "We're sick of military victories." "ETA held an 18-month truce, even though they broke it with their usual blindness." "The very minute that ETA announced its truce," "Mayor Oreja, the Minister of the Interior, immediately announced that it was a trick." "If there had been a statesman..." "It's possible that, at that point, ETA would have ceased." "There was one point on which to base a continuing truce." "Bringing the prisoners home." "It would have been a small gesture, by which the left wing "abertzale" would have felt that the truce was of some use." "But that would have meant that there was a strong growth, a strong political growth, of nationalism, and the government in Madrid was not willing to tolerate that." "The Popular Party only had one meeting with ETA." "A matter like ETA can't be resolved in one conversation." "Two of the representatives at that meeting were arrested." "ETA felt that, in some way, it had been tricked." "And it's not that I want to stand up for ETA, God forbid." "I think it was a big mistake to take up arms again." "Atime will come when the arms will be silent again and words will play the main role." "What we couldn't accept was that the organization, ETA, to which we were showing solidarity as regards the way to resolve the conflict through negotiation, was not showing respect for its own militant members." "When ETA broke the truce it was terrible for all of us, but it was really terrible for Herri Batasuna." "They lost 80,000 votes in the next elections." "ENOUGH" "Professor of Contemporary History" "Secretary General of the United Left-Ezker Batua" "The armed struggle by ETA, terrorism, is a very low-level conflict." "It's very intense for those who suffer from it, of course, but it's perfectly manageable and can even be used for defending a certain policy of power." "The Basque Country, among others, is useful when looking for an enemy, just as general or world terrorism is useful to Bush." "Terrorism's emotional capacity is too great a booty for political forces not to fight over it." "The suffering of this society is being used to obtain electoral advantage throughout all of Spain by ensuring that people only talk about the Basque conflict." "There are parties which don't want to put an end to the problem." "With the PP, all its electoral aura and all its strategy revolves around the suffering caused by ETA and how it is tackling the problem." "I love coming here because when I'm in my "txoko"" "I can isolate myself a bit." "And I do it for sentimental reasons too because I got married here in Guadalupe." "Because of the family, we got married on July 23, last year." "It was my mother's first visit to the jail and she cried so much." "We left the house together." "He went over to his car and I went in the opposite direction, to mine." "He was conceived in jail, poor thing." "I picked up my son to cross the road and I heard an explosion." "Ibai was born, strangely enough, on Constitution Day," "December 6, last year." "I'd planned my life with Montxo." "So, in that sense, they've taken all my plans away from me." "This is his third trip on the bus." "It's easy to allow the world, your world, to revolve around the murder of your husband, but I knew that thinking like that would lead nowhere." "He's the apple of his mother's eye, and she's suffered a lot." "In his PNV days, he evolved ideologically and politically, and that happens with relatives too." "My greatest fear was that I wouldn't do it well, and that one day, one of my children would consider he had the right to do the same thing, kill someone else's father." "If one of my children were to kill someone, he would ruin his own life and that of other people, but it would destroy me." "They're contradictory feelings." "Someone who is so generous and so loving, and yet, at the same time, can do that kind of thing." "I'm sure that the suffering of the prisoners' parents isn't just due to seeing their child in jail." "Even if they don't say so, I'm convinced that it's also the fact that their son has killed someone." "The ones I know are the most altruistic, generous people you could meet." "You see someone, and he's so kindhearted you can't imagine he did what he did for no reason." "You may agree or not, but you know there must be a good reason why he did it." "Why is the Socialist Party hanging on to the wheel, as they say in cycling, of the Popular Party?" "It's obvious, because people from both parties are being killed." "We coincided with the PP on the defense of the Constitution." "ETA makes a political analysis, it picks its victims for a reason." "I get the impression they killed Ernest Lluch to close off the route being followed by the Socialist Party which supported a political solution and talks with the Basque Government and also to contribute to what came later, which was to push the Socialist Party even further" "into the arms of the PP." "I am convinced that Ernest would have wanted to have talks, even with the person who killed him." "You, who can have talks, please do so." "Forensic officer" "In the 80s, almost 100% of those arrested alleged ill-treatment." "That has been greatly exaggerated." "I'm not saying there wasn't ill-treatment." "Jáuregui, the Civil Governor assassinated by ETA, one of the first things he did was close the cells belonging to the Guardia Civil in San Sebastian after he saw them." "He saw the place, not the people who were in it, just the installations." "I think that matter has been settled." "I think it's a subject which is gradually returning to normal." "Bear in mind that many of those arrested at the present time do not allege ill-treatment or torture." "Amnesty International and other organizations are worried by the anti-terrorist legislation." "I think we should be much more belligerent about torture." "The legislation allows people to be held for 5 days incomunicado and no one knows what goes on then." "We've seen how many young people are put in prison, and then released without charges." "That is a form of violence." "No one talks about that." "People see all those arrests as a success for the police, because they haven't been told that those 18 or 20 people were tortured, held in isolation and made statements to a judge, but in the end no charges were brought against them." "The police would go looking for someone in particular, and if they didn't find him, they were capable of arresting whole families." "The complaints being made at present are more slogans than reality." "It's hard to know if they are false complaints or if they can be proven." "Some of them certainly seem real." "At another moment, they said they would put electrodes on me." "I was naked, they threw water on my back." "They said: "Do you want to have more children?"" "Now it's more common that the complaints are true." "Some tortures leave no marks and are very difficult to prove." "The plastic bag was sticking to my mouth and I couldn't breathe." "You're suffocating, your face is soaking wet, you think you're going to die, and then they take the bag off." "We accept that some complaints are true when a sentence confirms it." "They told me what I had to say in front of the judge." "I had to say I'd been well treated." "We went over it time and again." ""We'll put you in a van, we'll drive you around and bring you back." "You won't know if it's a real judge and if you don't repeat what we've told you to say you're finished." "When you're held incommunicado for 5 days the police are given total freedom to act and to obtain incriminating statements which will be the main evidence for obtaining a sentence." "The use of a video camera in interrogations during the incommunicado period is recommended not only by Amnesty International but also by organizations made up by governments." "I know what I went through, I know what they did to me," "I know that everything I've said is true." "Something has to be done." "It has to be said out loud that people are being tortured here." "The Spanish Government, supported by PSOE and public opinion, banned Batasuna (10% of the Basque vote) for not condemning the killings by ETA" "The Basque Government and leading members of the Basque Socialist Party opposed the measure, as did the majority of Basques." "If Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, had banned Sinn Fein, would there have been peace in Ireland?" "I think the banning of Batasuna is a mistake." "It will create more problems than it will solve." "This is terrorism with social support." "It's almost the leading party in Guipuzcoa." "So what will actually happen is it will make whole towns illegal." "If you think that banning a problem will make it go away, you are mistaken." "The last thing to do with that world is give it arguments for going further into itself." "In a democracy, you can't have political formations which shelter behind the democratic system they mock, and use it to gain political coverage and funding, to win public understanding and to support terrorism." "I think the solution lies, as Ernest Lluch, Jaúregui and many others said, on the side of dismantling their arguments, of convincing all those people that their path is mistaken and doesn't lead anywhere." "One must be aware that there is a large percentage within Batasuna who have been thinking for some time that they want no more ETA, no more killing." "If the PSOE had opposed the banning of Batasuna they'd never win an election in Spain." "The PSOE didn't just support the law, they made it presentable when it certainly wasn't." "The attitude of those who signed the law towards those who dared express the slightest reserve about it or about its consequences, seems totally unacceptable to me." "I think it's inquisitorial." "What is the person who keeps silent saying when he keeps silent?" "Freedom of expression is at its lowest level ever, not just lower than it was in post-Francoist Spain, but lower than in Europe after World War II." "They controlled part of the economic power and through that they controlled media power." "A party that has taken control of nearly all the media, of practically all the television channels." "It's true that the government enjoys immense media protection." "It controls a large number of newspapers." "Here, of every 100 newspaper pages that are printed, the nationalists don't even publish 15%." "There is a nationalist silence, nationalist catacombs." "It was really quite devastating that before the Basque elections on May 13, not one Spanish newspaper, radio station or television channel said a single word in favor of non-violent Basque nationalism." "The big mistake is not to distinguish between nationalism, which follows a democratic path, and terrorism." "Being Basque was important 25 or 30 years ago." "After that, relations were more or less normal, and now, being Basque is, let's say, not very desirable." "There are areas in social life where there is much more freedom and people are healthier, and so there is no doubt the problem lies in political deficiencies." "We have to pension off a lot of people who are doing a lot of harm." "I'm sorry, but I don't like any politician." "You're liars and hypocrites, and you really don't care what happens to us." "With time, they have reduced space and created a reality of opposing poles." "They submit Basque nationalism to a kind of blackmail by saying," ""If you have ideas which are in parallel with those of ETA as regards nationalist demands, you have to stop until ETA stops"." "It's just the opposite." "They condition our legitimate demands to whatever ETA sets out." "Leave the subject of independence to one side until ETA has truly disapperared." "Some even suspect that this would be a good way to prolong ETA's existence and prevent any nationalist claims." "If we're waiting for ETA to disappear, that doesn't depend on us." "I've spoken to many of them and it's something they all stress." "They'd rather die than admit that all those deaths have been in vain." "The armed struggle can't end in victory." "Such a victory would be ungovernable even if it meant independence." "There has been a great confrontation among our people." "There are moral wounds, family wounds, and I don't know how much time we'll need for those wounds to heal." "I am absolutely sure that in that revision we'll all have things for which we have to ask forgiveness." "I've got no doubt about that." "ETA has stated very clearly the conditions under which it would cease the violence." "The fact is, ETA is suffering from a terminal illness." "The day Madrid says," ""The Basques will decide their future and we will respect what the Basque people decide"." "I have got no objective reason to believe that, even if the right to self-determination is recognized, they won't think they should guarantee the exercise of that right and continue the armed struggle." "It isn't sovereignty." "It's letting the Basque people decide." "I don't believe them." "The right to self-determination, on a conceptual level, has always been clear to the PNV." "It's a basic aim of all nationalism." "This right has been used, not just in the colonial expressions of the 70s, but also to explain the reunification of Germany, the Irish peace process..." "No one who operates outside international law has got the right to self-determination." "We mustn't forget that self-determination was voted in the Basque Parliament in 1990." "It's the breaking of a co-existence pact." "It's betting on the decomposition of the institutions which have helped understanding between nationalist and non-nationalist Basques." "What strikes me is that they state with such certainty what this society supposedly wants for everyone, but there is no way they'll give this society the right to express itself." "The unilateral breaking of those agreements, constitution, statutes, etc., supposes that everyone else has got that right." "The Basque Country is small, but it's modern, powerful, with the highest income and the best industry in Spain." "I think it's been amply proved that the administration is better here and we live better here." "The Autonomous Basque Community has a commercial balance that is the envy of the Spanish State." "If the Basque Country becomes independent it strikes a blow for the Europe of the Peoples, for the independence of Bretons, Corsicans, Welsh, Scots..." "The European Union, according to its founder, Jean Monet, should be a Europe of the Peoples." "That was perhaps the idea of Victor Hugo." "That's impossible, it shows an ignorance of how the European Union was formed." "It's a union of States." "Being in Europe means having to rethink the final aims of nationalism." "It may not mean a pure, national independent state, but rather a political kind of state which would allow inter-dependence from a position of sovereignty within Europe while maintaining links with Spain." "Ortega said that useless effort leads to melancholy." "Today, politically speaking, the only possible path is through an understanding between socialists and nationalists." "It can't be ruled out that, any of these days, when all signs of violence have totally and definitively disappeared the Basques, using the necessary legal formula, may, in accordance with the state, seek some kind of consultation" "similar to the consultations carried out in Quebec, Canada." "Peace will come as a result of the combination of two factors." "An end to violence and multi-party talks which end up, finally, as a social consultation." "There is undoubtedly a Basque wound for those who are nationalists from birth." "The Basques have never willingly accepted being ordered by others." "We've been demanding something and we've been ignored." "A metaphor would be that of a huge tongue which is constantly touching a painful tooth." "It's the measure of an obvious national dissatisfaction." "There are reasons for the frustration that is found among the people." "There is undoubtedly a feeling of frustration." "Our reality is a bit frustrating." "This frustration is..." "Yes, we do feel frustrated..." "That creates a kind of "victimization"." "I believe that everything that is small has a tendency to disappear, I think that's how it is." "The leader of the Basque government, lbarretxe, has proposed that from September 2003 there should be a new status of free association with the Spanish State, based on the recognition of the right of the Basque people to be consulted on deciding their future," "providing the violence ceases, and also proposing the free, voluntary annexation of the three French Basque provinces and of Navarre." "I don't mean dialogue as an answer, but rather as an attitude, as a method, as a chain with many links, and right now, all those links are broken, even the first one." "The PP has made sure that the term has been discredited and has satanized whoever was in favor of dialogue." "If you mention the word "dialogue" you're a friend of ETA, you support terrorism, and you're on the side of the murderers, not the victims." "They have to realize that the formula for the solution has to include the element of the other side." "Former Director of the Carter Center for Conflict Resolution." "USA." "Mo Molam said in a recent statement," ""I cannot believe that there is any human problem that can be resolved by saying no."" "I believe that all human problems need a positive attitude and it's positive to say, I'm listening to you." "You can't be negative and say, I'm not listening to you, and I don't want you to ask me any questions, and if you keep doing it you're for it." "The last time he came was to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary." "It was on July 23, we had gathered the family together." "We had a great time." "He was due to leave on Tuesday." "They killed him on Saturday, the 29th." "He was to leave on Tuesday for Santiago de Chile." "But it wasn't to be." "These last two years, on the one hand I've lived without really accepting the fact that Juan Mari isn't here." "We spoke every day on the phone but I didn't actually see him, so I'm always waiting for him to walk through the door." "On the other hand, I accept that he's gone." "I only hope that this country, which has so many assets, unfairly hidden from public opinion, can one day become not just a country at peace, but one which has solved the atavistic problem, that of identity," "where people can live together comfortably in the Basque Country, whether they feel they are Basque, feel they are Spanish or feel they are Spanish and Basque." "I dream of the Basque city." "What's more, the play on words is in my favor." "In the Basque language, "Euskal Herria" means "The Basque people"" "and "Euskal Hiria" would be "The Basque City"." "I think that the word "city" in any dictionary of civilizations has got much more repercussion." "The city, in principle, belongs to no one and to everyone." "It has no origin." "No one can say," ""This city is mine, I saw it first"." "This city belongs to everyone who has come here, to those who have built it and who will build it." "What's more, a city accepts all kinds of people." "We've seen that in all cities." "My ideal would be that we go from a space where there seems to be a primal original identity to a space where there are many identities, including, of course, the one of which I form part," "the so-called Basque identity." "I would like that there was a neighborhood in that city where they spoke the language I speak to my daughters," "Basque, the language I write in." "It'll happen some day, and we'll notice because the people, instead of walking on the ground, will be floating 20 cm above it, just enough so as not to shock, because of the burden we'll have thrown off." "Right now, it's weighing us down." "To the Basques, to each and every Basque." "Adaptation:" "Deirdre Mac Closkey" "Subtitles:" "LA LUNA-TITRA"