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Spain Threats to Internal Security
During the Franco regime, a wide spectrum of opposition
groups carried on antigovernment and, in some cases,
terrorist
activities. Nevertheless, these movements were
successfully
contained by the authorities, who were determined to crush
all
forms of independent political expression. Most of the
dissident
activity abated with the introduction of a democratic
system that
extended legal recognition to hitherto banned political
groups,
including the Communist Party of Spain (Partido Comunista
de
Espana--PCE. The legitimacy of separatist movements was
recognized by granting partial regional autonomy, which
included
legislatures with powers of taxation, policing, and
education
(see Regional Government
, ch. 4).
As a consequence of these policies, political
opposition
groups presented no imminent threat to Spain's stability
as of
1988, although the activities of Basque extremists
continued to
present a danger to the forces of internal security. The
Basque
terrorist movement did not, however, enjoy the active
support of
the majority of the Basque population, and it appeared to
be in
decline as a result of an increasingly effective police
campaign.
The radical movement of Basque separatists was
organized in
1959 when the group known as Basque Fatherland and Freedom
(Euskadi Ta Askatasuna--ETA) broke away from the much
larger
Basque Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista
Vasco--PNV). The
ETA adopted a policy of armed struggle in 1968; in
practice, much
of the violence was attributed to an extremist faction,
the ETA
Military Front (ETA Militar--ETA-M). A less violent
faction, the
ETA Political-Military Front (ETA
Politico-Militar--ETA-PM),
pursued a strategy of mixing political activities with
terrorist
actions. The ETA-M was largely responsible for the
mounting
savagery of the attacks during the 1970s, which included
the
assassination of the prime minister, Admiral Luis Carrero
Blanco,
in 1973.
The election of a democratic national parliament in
1977 and
a Basque parliament in 1980 brought little relief from ETA
violence. Although avowedly socialist in orientation, ETA
continued to justify its terrorist policies after the
Socialist
government came to power in 1982. It insisted that the
PSOE was
only a pawn of the capitalist and clerical forces that
dominated
Spain and that it had failed to offer real autonomy to the
Basque
people.
The ETA-M was considered to be the militant wing of
Popular
Unity (Herri Batasuna--HB), the most radical of three
Basque
parties represented in the Cortes
(see Political Parties
, ch. 4).
Although the HB increased its representation in the Cortes
to
five seats in 1986, it still received only 17 percent of
the
Basque vote. The party's platform included the compulsory
teaching of the Basque language, Euskera, in the schools;
the
withdrawal of Spanish security forces from Basque
territory;
measures to restrict private capital; and the addition of
Navarre
to the three provinces of the north that constituted the
existing
autonomous community of the Basque Country. As its
ultimate
objective, the party favored complete independence from
Spain.
ETA-M's strategy had been to carry out a series of
carefully
selected assassinations and bombings, each having
important
psychological or symbolic impact. The terrorists thus
hoped to
inspire a spiral of violence and counterviolence that
would
arouse feeling against "repression" by the security forces
and
that would perhaps provoke a right-wing coup by the armed
services. A total of more than 700 deaths had been
attributed to
the movement by the close of 1987. The violence had
reached its
peak in 1980 when the death toll was eighty-five. Nearly
two-thirds of those killed were members of the Civil Guard
or the
National Police Corps. Most of the remainder were
civilians
killed in bombings or caught in crossfire. The military
represented only 7 percent of the deaths, but those
selected for
assassination were often senior officers holding prominent
positions.
The activists of ETA-M, believed to number no more than
200
to 500 in 1986, were organized into cells of as few as 5
individuals. Most members were under thirty years of age,
and
they had served for an average of three years in this
sideline to
their ordinary jobs. Perhaps no more than 100 were actual
gunmen,
the others acting as messengers, transporting weapons and
explosives, and providing support. A number of young women
also
served in ETA-M; they were said to be among the most
uncompromising militants, willing to take risks that young
men
increasingly shunned.
By the mid-1980s, ETA-M appeared to be under growing
pressure
from the security forces, with the result that the
incidence of
terrorist acts had tapered off. Better use of informants,
ambushes, raids, and tighter control of the border with
France
contributed to the success of the police efforts. In 1984
the
Spanish government had announced a policy of "social
integration," a form of amnesty offered to ETA members in
exile
or in Spanish jails if they renounced future acts of
terrorism.
Improved international cooperation was also important. In
1986
about 200 active terrorists were believed to be living
among the
large Basque population in the adjacent provinces of
France,
using French territory as sanctuary and as a base for
terrorist
missions. Two years later, their numbers had been reduced
to a
few dozen as a result of intensified cooperation between
Spanish
and French security authorities. Until 1983 France, citing
its
tradition of granting political asylum, had been unwilling
to
extradite ETA members to Spain. France shifted to a more
accommodating policy, after the new Socialist government
took
office in Spain, and permited the extradition of a few ETA
members, accused of specific crimes of violence, while
resettling
others in northern France or deporting them. In late 1987,
the
police claimed a crippling blow had been administered to
the
terrorists by the arrest of many senior members of ETA-M
in both
Spain and France and the discovery of caches of arms and
explosives.
Sympathy among Basques for the extremists, which was
already
limited, diminished further following the bombing in 1987
of a
supermarket garage in Barcelona, in which twenty-four
innocent
people were killed. Later in the same year there was
popular
revulsion over the deaths of five children among eleven
people
killed in a bombing of family quarters of the Civil Guard
at
Zaragoza.
Beginning in late 1983, a right-wing force, the
Antiterrorist
Liberation Group (Grupo Antiterrorista de
Liberacion--GAL), began
a campaign of revenge killings and bombings among
suspected ETA
terrorists, chiefly in France, where GAL was widely
believed to
be linked to the Civil Guard. At the same time, an
offshoot of
ETA-M, Spain Commando, targeted members of the Civil Guard
and
the armed forces in Madrid, where such attacks, which
gained
maximum publicity for the movement, had been on the rise.
ETA-M was at one time well financed by kidnappings,
robberies, and the so-called "revolutionary tax" on Basque
businessmen. Reportedly, however, after the reverses
suffered by
the terrorists in 1987, receipts from the tax had declined
almost
to zero.
The regional Basque police force, Ertzaintza, formed in
1981,
originally was assigned to traffic and other nonsecurity
duties,
but in late 1986 it conducted its first engagement against
ETA-M.
A plan had been adopted for Ertzaintza gradually to take a
larger
role, but it was reported that Civil Guard officers were
reluctant to turn over intelligence out of conviction that
the
autonomous police were infiltrated by ETA activists.
Other regional opposition groups--in the Canary
Islands,
Galicia, and Catalonia--did not present a threat to
internal
security forces that was comparable to ETA. The Catalan
separatist organization Terre Lluire (Free Land), formed
in 1980,
was responsible for a series of bomb explosions, some of
which
had resulted in fatalities. In late 1987, a United States
servicemen's club in Barcelona was attacked with grenades,
and
the United States consulate was bombed. Terre Lluire and a
newer
group, the Catalan Red Liberation Army, both claimed
responsibility. During the first part of 1987, a group
dedicated
to a separate Galician nation, the Free Galician Guerrilla
People's Army, carried out bomb attacks against banks in a
number
of towns in Galicia.
* * *
An official Spanish publication, Ministerio de
Defensa:
Memoria Legislatura, 1982-86, provides an
authoritative
explanation of the sweeping changes undertaken during the
1980s
in the structure of national defense, defense policy,
organization of the armed services, personnel and training
policies, and modernization of equipment. The role of the
armed
forces under Franco, the strained relations between
military and
civil authorities during the transition to democracy, and
the
government's successful efforts to introduce its reform
measures
are reviewed in a study by Carolyn P. Boyd and James M.
Boyden
included in Politics and Change in Spain, edited by
Thomas
D. Lancaster and Gary Prevost. Briefer accounts covering
the same
topics can be found in John Hooper's The Spaniards: A
Portrait
of the New Spain and Robert Graham's Spain: A
Nation Comes
of Age. Analyses by several scholars of Spanish
security
concerns, relating to the North African enclaves,
Gibraltar, and
the implications of Spain's membership in NATO, can be
found in
Spain: Studies in Political Security edited by
Joyce Lasky
Shub and Raymond Carr. An article by Victor Alba also
addresses
the domestic political and military factors bearing on
Spanish
entry into NATO. Strategic considerations of Spanish
participation in the defense of Europe are weighed in a
study by
Stewart Menaul, The Geostrategic Importance of the
Iberian
Peninsula. The uncertainties arising from the special
conditions of Spain's adherence to NATO are emphasized in
"Spain
in NATO: An Unusual Kind of Participation," by Carlos
Robles
Piquer. The changes in the character of the Spanish police
services and the Civil Guard are detailed in two articles
by Ian
R. MacDonald. In Spain and the ETA: The Bid for Basque
Autonomy, Edward Moxon-Browne provides background on
an
internal security problem that has troubled Spain for many
years.
(For further information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1988
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