The end of the dispersion changes the demands of the ETA prisoners: they ask for third degrees and permits

The presentation this week of a new logo by the Sare and Etxerat groups exemplifies the end of an era in the claims surrounding ETA prisoners and the incipient beginning of another. The end of the dispersal of inmates convicted of terrorism is already a practically accomplished fact and, from this area, other demands such as grade progressions or the granting of prison permits are beginning to gain weight. A new cycle that will have its debut this Saturday in Bilbao, in an annual demonstration that until now had focused on the end of the distance as the main demand. It will be another eloquent example of the end of a strategy, that of dispersion, initiated by Felipe González almost 35 years ago.

The new logo presented by the platforms Sare, for the “defense of the rights” of prisoners, and Etxerat, for relatives of inmates, has suppressed the map that, accompanied by some arrows, demanded the approach of prisoners to Basque prisons; now, it only shows some arrows next to the motto ‘etxera’ (home).

Although this single expression could be interpreted as a demand for amnesty, the truth is that the claim is much more ambiguous and, in reality, the explicit request for amnesty only comes today from organizations critical of the official line of the left. abertzale. Behind this demand, this ‘home’, Sare and Etxerat demand a gradual release of ETA prisoners through access to third degrees or prison permits, which they consider should be applied “without obstacles” and without what they consider “exceptionalities”.

The recognition that the end of the dispersal of ETA prisoners is a reality is in itself a novelty, since until now the demand that the rapprochement be completed in its entirety prevailed. “Fortunately, we hope that the beginning of 2023 will be the end of the distancing policy (…). We have taken a great burden off our shoulders ”, they indicated from Etxerat.

At this moment, of the 174 ETA prisoners incarcerated, 148 are in the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarra, while only 14 are serving sentences in other Spanish prisons and a dozen in French prisons. Of those 14 prisoners who are serving sentences in other communities, the majority do so in prisons close to the Basque Country, such as those in Cantabria, Logroño or Soria. In the French case, of those 12 prisoners, all but one are in Lannemezan, two and a half hours from San Sebastián.

The data is therefore indisputable. In 2011, before the definitive cessation of terrorism, the only ETA prisoners in Basque jails were those who had taken advantage of the Nanclares route for reinsertion. Andalucía was then still the community with the most inmates of the terrorist group: 156 out of 527.

In 2017 the number of prisoners had been drastically reduced: 347 between Spanish (270) and French (77) prisons; however, the removal policy was still in force and in very similar terms.

The beginning of the end of the dispersal came when the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, declared, already in 2019, that the dispersal was meaningless “after defeating ETA”. The great acceleration of the end of this policy, in any case, has occurred during the years 2021 and 2022, since in February 2021 only a dozen prisoners linked to the EPPK collective, which brings together the vast majority of inmates (they are left out those admitted to the ‘Vía Nanclares’ and critics of the end of violence), was serving a sentence in Basque prisons.

Therefore, the dispersal policy, applied by the Government of Felipe González since the late 1980s, is practically over and both Sare and Etxerat have opted to make a move.

The motto of the demonstration this Saturday in Bilbao, used in other previous acts, also moves in ambiguity: Etxera bidea gertu (near the way home). In any case, from these groups they claim “the end of exceptionality” and “a path without obstacles, where grade progressions or prison permits are applied without exception.” “That the Law be applied and the rights of prisoners are not stolen,” they demand.

Although it has not explicitly claimed responsibility for this Saturday’s march, the nationalist left also has among its short-term objectives the repeal of organic law 7/2003, on full and effective compliance with sentences. This norm was approved during the second legislature of José María Aznar and, as far as ETA prisoners are concerned, it reforms article 76 of the Criminal Code to “modify the maximum limit of compliance with sentences, raising it to 40 years for cases in that two or more crimes of terrorism are committed”.

That legal change also affected issues such as prison benefits, exit permits, classification in the third degree and the “computation of time for probation in cases of especially serious crimes.”

The call for the Bilbao march has had the support of groups and people beyond the scope of the Abertzale left, as well as the adhesion of ETA victims such as Rosa Rodero, widow of the ertzaina Joseba Goikoetxea, assassinated in 1993.

One of Sare’s objectives is, in fact, to take their claims beyond the scope of the nationalist left and so that they can be defended by a broad spectrum of Basque society.

From the Gogoan-for a dignified memory collective, however, they have criticized that the Abertzale left intends to follow the path of grade progressions and prison benefits without addressing a “restorative reintegration” and without “acknowledging the injustice caused”.

The Gogoan collective defends “a memory that delegitimizes violence and that is pedagogical to prevent situations like those experienced in the Basque Country in the last 50 years”, and denounces that Sortu’s spokespersons “have publicly imposed that the recognition of the injustice committed is a impassable red line for ETA prisoners”.