Ireland to the Basques: lessons on the conflict

For ten years the resolution of Northern Ireland conflict was set as an example to follow. A perfect case of how diplomacy, talks and give up by both parties can drive into a peaceful solution. And yet, last weekend, a few discontent men wanted to blow up that.

First was the murdering of two soldiers (about to be deployed to Afghanistan), on Saturday night. They were shot at their base’s gates, when they were taking a delivery from two pizza men. Two other people (including the two pizza men) were wounded.

The Real IRA took responsability for the action in a call to a Dublin newspaper. They also said they didn’t apologize for taking British soldiers as targets (logical) but neither for targeting the two pizza men, as they were “collaborating” with the “enemy”.

Then was in a second attack 24 hours alter the first one. A policeman was shot dead in an ambush in County Armagh.

However, until these two attacks, the Northern Ireland peace process was taken as an exemplary process. From the Basque country, nationalists (pro Basques) were always begging for an Ireland-style solution to the ETA terrorism. But the constitutionalists (pro Spanish) had a very Spanish fault: they tend to act impulsively.

Get me right, being impulsive is not always wrong. But in politics, it is. And Spanish politicians show a high predisposition to act impulsively. In Spain, many political actions and laws are a product of the will to maintain the people happy more than of an in deep study of the situation. From the withdraw from Iraq to the approve of gay marriage, from the Parot doctrine to the debate for the reimplantation of the life sentence (not revised).

In the case of the Basque conflict, another act following that path of ad hoc legislation was the ilegallization of the Basque radical parties or abertzaleen ezkerra (patriotic leftists in Basque). There has been a lot of ink running on the more than probable loss of power of the nationalist parties in the Basque parliament after the elections. But no one has spoken about the truth: that the banning of Batasuna and similar parties led into that situation. If it hadn’t been banned, the representation of Basque nationalists in the Parliament would have been much more significant, similar to that from previous elections.

Also, another impulsive act from Spanish politicians regarding to the Basque terrorism was the end of the peace negotiations by Mr. Zapatero’s government after the bombing of Madrid airport in 2006. Here, from the UK and Ireland, Mr. Brown and Mr. Cowen have given a lesson of what should be done in a peace process to Mr. Zapatero. Like Mr. Blair and Mr. Ahern did in the past after the Omagh bombing. Patience, give up, talk. Knowing that there will be obstacles in the way, but that it worths going on with the process and never abandon at first sight of problems.



Photo: Reuters

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