SPAIN:The Basque separatist movement Eta ended its ceasefire at midnight last night with an ominous warning that it would "defend the Basque Country with arms and on all fronts".
The communique, published in two Basque language newspapers, said Eta was putting an end to the "permanent ceasefire" - which it announced in March 2006 - at zero hour on June 6th because "the minimum conditions for a continued process of negotiation do not exist".
They accused the Spanish government of using the ceasefire to continue its policy of "detentions, torture and persecution" against them.
The announcement comes as no surprise to Spaniards since only this week a leaked police document warned the government that the end of the ceasefire was imminent. They said Eta had the capacity to carry out terrorist attacks "not only in the Basque Country and Navarre, but in the rest of Spain".
The document said that terrorists' operational capacity was based on three pillars: manpower, ie sufficient militants and supporters, efficient leadership and "commandos" on the ground, secondly a logistical capacity, and thirdly, the economic means. The police believe that all these pillars are now firmly in place and that Eta has used the past 15 months to rebuild its manpower and rearm.
After the ceasefire announcement 15 months ago prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero began exploratory talks with Eta. But they failed to make progress, and when Eta killed two men by detonating a powerful bomb in a multi-storey car park at Madrid airport on December 30th last year, Mr Zapatero declared that all contact with the separatist movement had been severed.
Throughout the so-called peace process Mr Zapatero has faced enormous opposition from the conservative Popular Party (PP) and the victims' organisations, who, breaking an unwritten rule, have used the anti-terrorist fight as a political weapon to attack the government. Although Eta insisted the ceasefire was still in force after the December bombing, the atmosphere changed radically. Incidents of "kale barroka" (street violence) broke out with ever increasing violence causing thousands of euro worth of damage to property in Basque cities and towns.
Another sign that the ceasefire was on its final legs was news of the receipt by businessmen of a wave of extortion letters in the Basque Country and Navarre.
Over the past weeks reports of these demands have emerged for so-called "revolutionary taxes" to raise funds "for the liberation and construction of an independent Basque state".
It is not known exactly how many of these letters have been sent - because the recipients are too afraid to publicise them - but the ones that have emerged to date have demanded sums of up to €150,000, which "for reasons of security" must be paid in small denomination notes of less than €100.
The news of the breakdown of the truce has come as no surprise to Spaniards, but it is an unhappy reversal of a mood of optimism which broke out just 439 days ago when it was first announced.
"There can be no turning back," I remember a Basque journalist telling me in March last year. Now he was reluctant to comment. "It is too depressing," he said yesterday.
His fellow Basques, and indeed the rest of Spain, are now on the alert for an attack which could take place at any time.
The police document warned that the next 10 months, between now and next March,when general elections must take place, will be critical.
