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Spain's Basque Separatists Declare Cease-Fire

   VOA News 05 September 2010
   Screen  grab  taken  from  Gara website displays an image of ETA armed
   Basque  group  members  declaring  a  ceasefire on 5 Sept 2010, in the
   northern Spanish Basque town of Guernica.

Photo: AFP

   Screen  grab  taken  from  Gara website displays an image of ETA armed
   Basque  group  members  declaring  a  ceasefire on 5 Sept 2010, in the
   northern Spanish Basque town of Guernica.

   The  Basque  separatist  group  ETA  has  issued  a  video declaring a
   cease-fire.
   The  video, posted Sunday on the website of the Basque newspaper Gara,
   shows three masked militants making a statement in the Basque language
   saying they were ending armed operations.
   One  of  the  rebels,  reading  from  a text, says ETA decided several
   months  ago  to  lay  down  its  arms  to  achieve its goals through a
   democratic  process.   It was not immediately clear if the cease-fire
   is permanent or temporary.
   The  Spanish  government  did  not  immediately  respond  to  the  ETA
   statement.
   The  separatist  group  last  announced  what  it  called a "permanent
   cease-fire"  in  March  2006.   But  nine  months  later  ETA claimed
   responsibility  for  a  powerful  car bomb at Madrid's Barajas airport
   that  killed two people.  ETA linked that bombing to frustration over
   lack of progress in peace talks with the Madrid government.
   ETA  is  blamed for more than 800 deaths during a four-decade campaign
   for an independent Basque state in northeastern Spain and southwestern
   France.
   The  European  Union  and  the  United States consider ETA a terrorist
   organization.

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