06/05/2007
ETA will end their ceasefire as of June 6, the armed separatists said in a communique released in Basque newspapers Berria and Gara on tuesday.
Since ETA began its armed activity in the 60s, the armed group has decreed many ceasefires. And sometimes the truce has been limited to specific objectives, such as end of attacks against prison staff, against Ertzaintza (Basque police) or the cease fire limited to Catalonia.
1988/01/28 First ceasefire
The first truce offer took place on January 28th 1988. Some days earlier the "Agreement for the Normalisation and Pacification of Euskadi", aka Ajuria Enea Pact, had been signed.
Within that framework ETA announced a 60-day ceasefire. It got in touch with the Spanish government, but the meeting was not productive. Before the deadline had passed, the armed organisation abducted Spanish businessman Emiliano Revilla.
1989/01/08 Talks in Algiers
Months after the businessman was freed, a negotiation known as Algiers Table began on January 1989 in the first anniversary of the Ajuria Enea Pact.
The starting point was a 15-day unilateral truce. Eugenio Etxebeste, aka Antton, and former number two in the Interior Ministry Rafael Vera sit down at the negotiating table as top representatives of ETA and Socialist Spanish government respectively.
After accusing each other of lack of will to reach agreements, ETA resumed the use of violence three months later. The first serious attempt to reach peace failed this way.
1992/07/10 ETA's top leaders arrested in Bidart
No more ceasefires were decreed until July 1992, this time also a 60-day truce. ETA's top leaders had just been arrested in the French Basque town of Bidart, one of them armed group's leader Francisco Mugika Garmendia, aka Pakito.
In those days, talks between Basque Nationalist PNV and Basque Nationalist left-wing HB led to the change in the route of the Leizaran highway, one of the ETA's targets up to then.
1996/06/23 Conservative PP's offer
Next ceasefire was decreed no sooner than four years later. Conservative PP won the Spain's parliamentary elections in March 1996 and four months later ETA invited the new government to get in touch with each other.
A 7-day truce was decreed, but Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar's Cabinet did not take it into account. A year later, ETA carried out the act with the largest social impact in the Basque society: Conservative PP's town councillor of Ermua Miguel Angel Blanco was kidnapped and killed.
1998/09/16 The longest truce
The talks that ETA held with Basque Nationalists PNV and EA and the signature of the Lizarra-Garazi Agreement led to a ceasefire in 1998, the longest truce in the history of the armed group. It was an unconditional and indefinite truce.
The Spanish government accused ETA of having declared a false truce, but even though it began negotiations with the organisation. The Basque Nationalist left wing and Basque political parties, unions, and organisations signed an agreement committed to the end of violence and to democracy. 440 days later the truce finished. ETA resumed its armed activity and put the blame on Basque Nationalists PNV and EA.
Almost ten years after
Since the 1998 ceasefire, the political situation has been marked by the resumption of attacks. The killing of leader of the socialist party in Alava and Socialist spokesman in the Basque parliament Fernando Buesa put an end to the pact with Basque Nationalist left-wing EH (former HB) and caused the split of the organisation into two parties, the previous one and Aralar.
In 2003 Batasuna was declared illegal after a reform of the law on political parties. In 2004 Zapatero become Spanish Premier and in October French police arrested Mikel Albizu Iriarte, aka Mikel Antza, considered top leader of the armed group.
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