Tribune. After decades of violence in the Basque Country, in Spain and in France, the voluntary choice was made to launch, in 2011, a peace process with a final disarmament of ETA in 2017, at the initiative of civil figures and political “craftsmen of peace”, to place the future exclusively in the democratic debate.
This historic turning point of pacification is still blocked by a French government which refuses to dialogue with the actors involved in this dynamic, as well as to any concrete progress by making gestures of appeasement and justice, despite repeated calls from a broad consensus of civil society and local elected officials from all sides.
Without any legitimate reason and even beyond the law, the continued detention of Basque prisoners, the constant application of the status of « particularly guarded detainee” (DPS), the ignorance of the requests for conditional release and the contempt for their state of health are felt as so many signs of a logic of revenge.
Corsican example
The situations of Ion Parot and Jakes Esnal, both aged over 70 and detained for more than thirty years, are exemplary of State relentlessness which takes the risk of seeing them die in prison and of a conflagration of impatient reactions in the Basque Country, following the example of what is happening in Corsica.
Basque civil society and elected officials reject such prospects and again in February showed constant determination on the democratic path of dialogue and peace, with symbolic actions of civil disobedience by elected officials and activists around these claims which were renewed on 1is and April 2.
The government is placed before its responsibilities, faced with a consensus of local political forces beyond partisan divisions with largely united civil societies that go beyond electoral news and allow progress to be made without delay.
Dealing now with the cases of those who have been convicted, allowing everyone to respond, without impunity, taking into account the change in context, are the conditions for reconciliation and the future of the Basque Country around lastingly peaceful societies.
First signatories: Anaiz Funosas, President of the Bake Bidea Association; Malik Salemkour, President of the League for Human Rights (LDH); Patrick Baudoin, lawyer, honorary president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH); Thomas Bidegain, screenwriter and director; Frederic Bodin, national secretary of the Union Syndicale Solidaires; Renaud Bousquet, departmental secretary of the Unitary Trade Union Federation (FSU) 64; Sorj Chalandon, writer; Maxim Combes, economist; Annick Coupe, Attac spokesman; Cybele David, national secretary of the Union Syndicale Solidaires; Marie Desplechin, writer; Hervé Di Rosa, artist; Bernard Dreano, President of the Center for Studies and Initiatives for International Solidarity/Initiatives for Another World (Cedetim/IPAM); Jean-Michel Ducomteacademic, honorary president of the Ligue de l’enseignement; Cecile Duflot, former minister; Txetx Etcheverry, peacemaker; Mireille Fanon Mendes France, former United Nations expert, Frantz-Fanon Foundation; Jacques Gaillot, Bishop of Partenia; Henry Leclerc, Honorary President of the League for Human Rights (LDH); Gustave Massiah, founding member of Cedetim; Jean-Pierre Mignard, lawyer and essayist; Veronique Ponvert, National Secretary of the Unitary Trade Union Federation (FSU); Fabienne Servan-Schreiber, film producer; Philippe Texier, honorary magistrate, president of the Association of Lawyers for Peace in the Basque Country.
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