ETA was a terrorist organization founded by Spanish Basques that aimed to create an independent nation for the Basque people. The Basques live in northern Spain and southwestern France . ETA stands for Euskadi ta Askatasuna << yoos KAH dee tah ahs kah tah SOO nah >> , which is the full name of the group in Euskara, the Basque language. The name means Basque Homeland and Freedom. ETA’s campaign of violence killed hundreds of people from 1959 through 2011.
The Basques have inhabited northern Spain and the western Pyrenees Mountains for over 5,000 years. But France and Spain have long ruled the Basques. In the late 1800’s, Basques in Spain began working to gain more self-rule. But in 1937, General Francisco Franco , the dictator of Spain, abolished most of the civil rights of the Spanish Basques.
ETA was founded in 1959 by students in Bilbao . The group chose to use such tactics as assassinations, bombings, and kidnappings to fight Franco’s policies and to gain more rights for the Basques. In 1968, after Spanish police killed one of its leaders, ETA assassinated a chief of Spain’s secret police force. In 1973, Spain executed several ETA members. That same year, ETA assassinated Spain’s prime minister, who was considered Franco’s most likely successor.
Franco died in 1975. The new Spanish government pardoned hundreds of ETA members and offered limited self-rule to the Basques. But ETA continued its campaign of violence, killing over 90 people in 1980 alone. On several occasions, the Spanish government held talks with ETA to try to end the violence. As a result, ETA called cease-fires for three months in 1989 and for over a year in 1998 and 1999. But mistrust and misunderstandings ended both cease-fires.
In 2002, the Spanish government temporarily suspended Batasuna, a Basque political party, because of its close ties to ETA. The government outlawed Batasuna permanently in 2003. In 2008, the Supreme Court of Spain banned another political party—the Basque Nationalist Action party (ANV)—for having ties to ETA.
ETA killed over 800 people—about 500 Spanish security forces and government officials and about 300 civilians. In its fight against ETA, the Spanish government killed more than 200 people—mostly ETA members, but some innocent civilians as well. Spain and France held hundreds of ETA members and supporters in prison.
In 2006, ETA declared a cease-fire. The group planned to work to achieve its goal of Basque independence by nonviolent means. However, the police believed ETA was responsible for new incidents of theft, vandalism, and violence. In December 2006, ETA claimed responsibility for a bomb attack at an airport in Madrid . In response to the bombing, Spain’s government suspended peace talks with ETA.
Animosity and violence between ETA and the Spanish government continued until 2012, when ETA expressed a willingness to peacefully negotiate an end to its operations. In 2017, the group formally disarmed and abandoned violence as a means of achieving Basque independence.
