ETA defends use of violence

The armed Basque separatist group ETA defended its use of violence today, saying in a video that the conflict will only be over when the northern Basque region achieves self-determination.

“When the rights of our country and its people are recognised, the conflict will be over,” three ETA members say in the video sent to the radical Basque daily Gara. Excerpts of the video were published on Gara’s website.

The 15-minute video was filmed in an unidentified forest where three separatists are shown with different weapons, Gara said on its website. The paper often publishes ETA statements.

“The heart of the conflict is that we, Basque people, are not free to organise all the spheres of our lives and we are obliged to obey laws of foreign states,” the group said in the video. “That is the reason of our fight. We want freedom.”

There was no official government reaction to the statement.

ETA has claimed or has been blamed for more than 800 deaths since launching a campaign in the late 1960s for an independent Basque homeland straddling northern Spain and south-west France.

It is classified as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States.