Eta meetings went on for years

Arnaldo Otegi

SPAIN - Behind the Basque separatist group Eta's dramatic ceasefire lies a secret process that goes back years.

A network was made up of contacts who were involved with "temperature taking" and confidence building among Basque nationalists, socialists and a Belfast priest.

Those who painstakingly prepared the ground for this week's announcement took enormous precautions to shield their meetings from the public, knowing the smallest slip would prompt an outcry and possibly ruin all their work.

Key figures in the process were Basque socialist leader Jesus Eguiguren, and Josu Urrutokoetxea, better known as Josu Ternera, veteran Eta leader and erstwhile Batasuna MP. Eguiguren quietly built a wide circle of contacts among Basque radicals, and kept Spanish Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero informed, even though the socialists never officially recognised the conversations were happening.

Ternera was a risky interlocutor: not only was he a member of the banned Batasuna party, he had gone into hiding to elude capture by Interpol who wanted him for terrorism. If Ternera, with his authority within the organisation, is the man most responsible for bringing Eta to the negotiating table, Eguiguren found the people to talk to and got the socialists to listen.

The rapprochement began during the Aznar Government, when Arnaldo Otegi, leader of Batasuna, and Eguiguren had a secret meeting in the country house of a former Trotskyist. Other meetings followed. They never publicly existed, but in private no one denied they were happening.

Otegi lent his mountain retreat, out of reach of mobile phone coverage, for several tense meetings that established common ground in areas where participants were completely opposed.

Eguiguren was fully informed about Batasuna's declaration at a rally in November 2004, when it opted for "democratic and peaceful means", and sought to "transfer the conflict from the street to the negotiating table". Each party struggled for a formula and working method for future talks.

Eta sent a letter to Zapatero asking for talks, and internal documents reveal the organisation was seeking an intermediary so the Government was not forced to face the organisation directly.

The Belfast priest Alec Reid, veteran of the Irish peace process, persuaded Eta there were no military solutions.

"I explained the lessons we learned in Ireland," said the Rev Reid. Zapatero said he was ready to accept more Basque autonomy, if the guns were silenced; and the clandestine meetings gathered pace in recent months, as each side gained the other's confidence.

- INDEPENDENT