Spain
The End of ETA :Euskadi Ta Askatasuna
ON OCTOBER 20TH ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna—”Basque Homeland and Freedom”), the armed Basque separatist group, announced a “definitive cessation” to its decades-long terrorist campaign for an independent Basque homeland. The group has killed 829 people since it was formed in the late 1950s during the Franco dictatorship.
Since 1968, ETA has been blamed for killing 829 individuals, injuring thousands and undertaking dozens of kidnappings. The group is proscribed as a terrorist organization by the Spanish and French authorities, as well as the European Union as a whole and the United States. This convention is followed by a plurality of domestic and international media, which also refer to the group as “terrorists”.More than 700 members of the organization are incarcerated in prisons in Spain, France, and other countries
But in recent years, severely weakened by a series of successful joint Spanish-French police operations, it has been a shadow of its former self. In 1980, its most murderous year, it was responsible for 92 deaths. Since it broke its last ceasefire, in 2007, it has killed ten; paltry, by the group’s bloody standards. ETA’s recent declaration was in part the result of pressure from its 700 prisoners, who knew the game was up.
The historical timeline provided by Economist below tells the story of ETA’s campaign.
COMPARISON CHARTS 