ETA’s mea culpa prior to disbanding

Two weeks before the expected announcement of its dissolution, ETA yesterday made a public statement critical of its armed activity and which recognises the “damage done” and apologises to the victims who did not have “a direct role in the conflict,” a distinction causing outrage among families of the victims. In the text, the terrorist organisation explains that the five decades of conflict have caused “excessive suffering”. ETA admits its responsibility but goes on to also says that none of this would have happened or lasted so long, if the historical and political conflict” had been given a democratic solution.”

What has disappointed political parties and angered the families of the victims is the difference the movement makes between victims, saying it “respects the dead” and is “truly sorry” for its errors and wrongful decisions” which have “caused vitims” inside and outside the Basque Country who were “not directly involved in the conflict.”

Spokesperson for the government in Madrid, Inigo Mendez de Vigo, reiterated that the government will always be at the side of the victims and that ETA will “never” be rewarded for disbanding. He claimed the statement is an admission of the “total defeat” of the terrorists and a triumph of the “rule of law”.

Organisation representing the victims of ETA stated they trusted that the disbanding would not be in exchange for changes in the attitude of the government. PNV spokesman in Congress, Aitor Esteban, criticised the distinction between victims, when we “all are equal,” while Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, urged the organisation to have “the same consideration” for all the victims during the proclamation of its unilateral and definitive end, scheduled for the first weekend of May.