Freedom of expression in Spain...Just don't express it or you will be jailed

Eta prisoner 'close to death'


Violence erupts in Bilbao as hunger striker demanding Spanish government restarts peace talks has feeding tube removed

Alfonso Daniels in Bilbao
Sunday February 25, 2007
The Observer

A leading member of the Basque terrorist group Eta was last night close to death following a hunger strike that has lasted more than three months and inflamed tensions in Spain.

Doctors treating the emaciated body of Inaki de Juana Chaos in a secure unit in a hospital in Madrid said his feeding tube had been removed to allow him to continue his hunger strike. De Juana, who has served a 20-year sentence for leading Eta's 'Madrid Commando' unit, which killed 25 people during the Eighties, has been on hunger strike since November.

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News of his imminent death came as thousands of people waving red-and-yellow flags rallied in Madrid and the Basque country to protest a court ruling that has put de Juana on the verge of parole.

Police made several arrests and 17 people were hurt when violence broke out in the northern city of Bilbao after a banned pro-Eta march went ahead illegally.

Pictures of de Juana tied to his hospital bed, published last week, raised tensions across Spain. The emotive case has become a lightning rod for the country's deep political divisions.

The crowd screamed, 'Murderer, murderer' as they stood in the cold to accuse the Socialist government of being soft on ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in its 40-year fight for an independent state in the Basque region.

De Juana was on the verge of release last year when he was charged anew over newspaper articles he wrote from prison that were judged to be threats. He was sentenced to another 13 years in prison, but on 12 February the Spanish Supreme Court reduced this to three. As he had already been in jail for 17 months since the new charges had been filed, he is now eligible for release. De Juana's hunger strike is intended to put pressure on the government to restart peace talks, deadlocked since Eta killed two people in a car bombing at Madrid airport in December. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has insisted he will not deal with Eta's outlawed political wing, Batasuna, unless it renounces violence.

But The Observer has learnt that the Socialist government has secretly continued to keep channels of communication with Batasuna open in an effort to revive talks. Their efforts have been kept quiet to avoid provoking Eta victims' families and the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP), which is strongly opposed to any dealings with Eta-Batasuna.

Yesterday the Association of Victims of Terrorism held the latest in a series of large demonstrations in Madrid. Its pressure threatens to derail attempts by the government and Batasuna to participate in local elections next May and push forward the peace process, which many fear could lead to the break-up of Spain.

'Zapatero is reopening old wounds: they kept telling us to be patient, that the state will bring the criminals to justice, and now they're talking about giving them everything they want,' said Salvador Ulayar, 42, who as a child saw his father, a former Basque mayor, gunned down by Eta.

However, Juan Mari Olano, leader of the Askatasuna organisation that takes care of Eta prisoners, said the Madrid attack was a wake-up call: 'They [the government] maintained repression and lost time, convinced that Eta was negotiating out of weakness and that with time it would find it more difficult to resume activities, but they were wrong.'

Experts warn that, unless progress is made, a resumption of Eta attacks could be just weeks away.