by KOMUNISTAK International
At the start of 2002, Euskal Herriko Komunistak-The Communists of the Basque Country (EHK) denounced the self-inflicted coup d`etat that the Spanish bourgeoisie was carrying out in order to implant a dictatorship with a democratic mask. The Basque People are beginning to experience this self-inflicted coup: suspension of a representative political force, closure of its offices by the police, arrests of young left-wing patriots followed by denunciations of torture, prohibition of the right to demonstrate.
This is only the beginning of an offensive which aims not only to crush the Patriotic Left and prevent it from standing in elections, but also to suspend the autonomy statute that is in force, defeat bourgeois nationalism, silence the voice of the popular sectors of the Basque clergy, close down the free Basque press, illegalise the patriotic trade unions that represent the majority of Basque workers, imprison the defenders of human rights, prohibit the Basque flag – as the right-wing in Navarre has already done – and eradicate Basque culture.
The “war against terrorism” of the Francoist Aznar is exactly the same as the “war against terrorism” of the fascist Bush. Both are based on the use of crude propaganda lies, on the massive use of force and on the violation of the basic norms of Law. Their true motives, which they attempt to conceal, are, on the one hand, the search for an urgent solution to the rampant economic crisis of international capitalism, and, on the other, to give cohesion to a narcotised society around the fascist ideal of force, making it believe that the fight is against “gangs” in order to avoid recognition of the serious and colossal political problem of delegitimisation of the imperialist states and, subsequently, to crush all opposition movements.
Today the struggle for democracy, self-determination and human rights means not only resisting the Spanish state, its Francoist politicians, its judges, journalists and other lackeys of the system, but also resisting imperialism, of which Aznar is a faithful servant. It is no surprise that the North American State Department should support the illegalisation of Batasuna, as a prize for the servile Spanish collaboration in the criminal wars against Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan and in the Venezuelan counter-revolution.
Today there is a clear need for the Basque People to decide, through the free exercise of self-determination, on the creation of a sovereign state. A state that would free us from the majorities subjected by the Spanish state which, because of the iron control of the mass media, give their support to anti-Basque governments bearing the etiquette of the PP or the PSOE.
This is not separatism because we strongly want to be independent but at the same time we want also to work more strongly with all the progressive and democratic forces of the rest of peoples of the Spanish State. Marx said that “a people which enslaves another forges its own chains`, and we want to explain to the peoples of the Spanish State that supporting the fascist war of Aznar against our people means delivering tools that will allow the repression of the national rights of Catalans and Galicians -among others-, of the struggles of the working class, peasants, local residents and other popular struggles and of the democratic rights of all the peoples of the State. We all have a fierce common enemy; therefore we have to unite for defend ourselves, and we must do it for internationalism and for practical sense.
Nowadays the ambiguity, weakness and cowardice of the bourgeoise nationalism represented by the PNV-EA are clear: they say they want self-determination but at the same time they put the repressive Spanish Law into practice, under the threat of seeing the autonomous institutions -source of PNV-EA power- destroyed. The national bourgeoise cannot lead, in no case, the national emancipation: it is the working class of the Basque Country which can do it.
It is also perfectly clear that we musn`t give way to the civil confrontation among the popular classes, something which the Spanish fascism is looking forward. More than ever it is necessary to create an all-people`s Front to defend the Basque Nation in danger and the hard-achieved liberties and rights. The working class must lead an alliance with the non-monopolist bourgeoisie and the middle-classes. The nationalist left, the trade unions movement, the bourgeois nationalism, the social democrat groups and all the popular forces must build, urgently, such a broad Front, upon the reference of the Lizarra Agreement.
In that respect, the collaborationist role played by the PSOE is deplorable. This acronym doesn`t represent the autonomist and pro-Spanish working and lower middle-class sectors of the Basque Country; they defend the strategic interests of the great imperialist Spanish bourgeoisie. It left off being an autonomous party to become a “driving belt” of such a bourgeoisie. The PSOE of González, Zapatero, Múgica Herzog, Là³pez, Rosa Dàez, hasn`t nothing to do with the PSOE of Pablo Iglesias, Largo Caballero, Negràn, Amat, Miguel de Amilibia and other distinguished Socialists. We call on the socialist and humanist sections that survive within this party to join the people`s majority for building Peace and Democracy in the Basque Country, without losing their identity.
We despise the chauvinist, revisionist and anti-communist line adopted by the group of Mr. Frutos, which has appropriated and corrupted the old and glorious name of PCE.
We support the real Spanish communists when we all understand that union between the Basque and Spanish workers means that we belong to the same class, without belonging to the same nation.
We call on the advanced and progressive humanity to develop solidarity with the resistance of the Basque People. The struggle against the fascistization of the State, against the imperialist capitalism and against the war that took place in 1936 in the Spanish State on a worldwide scale, nowadays, in 2002, is being waged in the Basque Country.
Jokin Elarre and Javier Ramos in the name of EHK
September 2002
Source: http://www.nodo50.net/ehk
