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MADRID, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- Spain has dismissed a call by ETA for international mediation to resolve the conflict with Madrid, with the government saying the Basque separatist group had to give up violence first. Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said Monday in Madrid that ETA's appeal for mediation contained "nothing new."
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"ETA knows that the only thing that has any value is the definitive and complete end to violence and arms," the Web site of Radio France Internationale quoted her as saying.
ETA in a statement printed in two Basque newspapers said that "if there is a democratic will, it is possible to resolve the conflict here and now."
The group called on four international figures to mediate future peace talks -- from South Africa Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former President Frederik Willem de Klerk, former Northern Ireland leader John Hume and former Irish President Mary Robinson.
The statement came on the heels of a Sept. 5 video message in which ETA announced a cease-fire but Madrid had dismissed that as well -- too fresh are the memories of a series of terror attacks on the holiday island of Mallorca in the summer of 2009. Moreover, the government has reasons to be suspicious: A first attempt at peace talks failed in 2006 when ETA militants broke a truce by killing two people with a car bomb at Madrid airport.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, who is steering a hard-line course against the group, after the attacks in Mallorca said his goal was to crush ETA and he has reasons to believe that Madrid can achieve that goal.
During the past years, French-Spanish anti-terror cooperation has thinned out the top ranks of ETA. Authorities have arrested dozens of ETA suspects this year, with several top military leaders caught.
Formed under the oppressive regime of Gen. Francisco Franco, Euskadi ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom), for four decades has fought for an independent state in northern Spain and southwest France and has been blamed for around 850 deaths. It is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States.
The recent police successes and waning ETA support at home have caused the political wing of the Basque separatist group to try to revive peaceful negotiations.
ETA's violent resistance dates to the 19th century when religiously conservative Basques disapproved of the too liberal style of governance in Madrid, which aimed for more centralization. The Basque region as early as the Middle Ages enjoyed special privileges and autonomy, although they weren't always fully honored by Madrid.
When the Franco government harshly cut some of those privileges and tried to destroy Basque nationalism, ETA formed itself as a militant resistance group aimed at ending the oppression and installing a fully independent Marxist-Leninist Basque state.
