By Norm Dixon
Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez knew of the activities of state-sponsored death squads which murdered dozens of Basque refugees in the 1980s, according to a senior politician who oversaw the death squads' activities. The charges boost the Basque nationalist movement's long-held belief that the GAL (Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups) murder squads were directed from the highest levels in Madrid.
The former Socialist (PSOE) leader of the Basque province of Bizkaia, Ricardo Damborenea, said on July 21 that Gonzalez not only knew of the operations but was "co-responsible" for the death squads. "We talked about it on several occasions. It [GAL] was a strategic policy taken by politicians", Damborenea is quoted as saying.
Gonzalez has denied that he was aware of the GAL murder squad operations. More revelations are likely to surface when three former security chiefs jailed for their role in the squads testify soon. They allege that Jose Barrionuevo, PSOE interior minister between 1982 and 1988, gave orders that a GAL kidnapping continue even though the wrong person had been seized.
The Spanish state's involvement in paramilitary activities against the Basque nationalist movement was recently detailed in a report released by a committee of family members of victims. The report pointed out that after the death of dictator Franco in 1975 there was neither a purge of fascist elements in the police and security forces nor punishment of those involved in atrocities. The same police, judges and military chiefs remained at their posts.
Death squads created in the last days of the Franco regime, recruited from the bands of Italian neo-fascists and French ultra-rightists resident in Spain, remained in place. Between 1976 and 1980, 500 terrorist attacks resulted in the deaths of 38 people.
A new phase of state terror began after the election of the PSOE in 1983. The GAL was created as part of a counter-insurgency plan against the Basque nationalist movement and its armed wing ETA, the report claims. GAL specifically targeted Basque exiles and refugees living in Iparralde, the northern part of the Basque country, controlled by France. GAL's first act was the kidnapping of two political refugees, Jose Zabala and Jose Lasa, in October 1983. Their bodies were discovered only in March this year.
The report details the mounting evidence of Spanish state direction of the GAL, coordinated with the security services in Paris. In January 1989, the chief of police in Bilbao, Francisco Alvarez Sanchez, publicly announced that he organised the Zabala-Lasa kidnapping. He was not prosecuted. On a French television program, a civil guard and former paramilitary squad member revealed that the creation of GAL followed the decision of Barrionuevo to give police a free hand against ETA. The decision to create GAL was made at the highest levels of the security forces and funded through the interior ministry.
Between 1983 and 1991, GAL killed 28 people, all except one in Iparralde. Following the arrest and trial of two GAL leaders in 1991 — painted as "rogue" elements by the authorities — attacks by GAL were replaced by more open state repression on both sides of the border. The French government began systematically expelling Basque refugees to Spain.
In Spain, the prisoners' families say, torture and beatings of Basque prisoners continue. Prisoners are held in jails outside the Basque country, denying them access to their families. Relatives are threatened and harassed. While death squad activity has declined, attacks still occur sporadically. In 1994, several bombs exploded in Bizkaia, causing serious injuries to passers-by.
The latest GAL revelations come on top of a series of corruption scandals and the discovery that Spain's secret police illegally tapped the telephones of many Spaniards. Gonzalez has indicated he may not stand at the next election in the hope that his departure may save the PSOE from defeat at the polls.
[Messages of support and solidarity with families of Basque prisoners can be sent to: Inigo Elkoro, Plaza Berri 2, 2 Izq, Hernani 20120, Gipuzkoa, Euskal Herria, Spain. Copies of the report are also available.]