ETA was not defeated: the PSOE prevented it with a perverse pact with the terrorists

One of the biggest myths of recent years in Spain is that the terrorist group ETA was defeated by democracy.

The favors to ETA for which Pedro Sánchez does not want anyone to talk about those terrorists
A betrayal that we did not imagine the day that Sánchez's allies destroyed 5 girls

I wish that had been the case, but that's not what happened. ETA was at its wits' end on October 20, 2011, when it issued a statement (see PDF) announcing "the definitive cessation of its armed activity," that is, that it was stopping killing. ETA was on the verge of being defeated, but the PSOE prevented it. Fourteen years later, we know that Zapatero's socialist government offered money to ETA if it put an end to terrorism and even warned ETA of an imminent blow by the French police against the criminal gang. All of this occurred within the framework of a negotiation process with these terrorists in which Zapatero's government repeatedly lied to the Spanish people, first denying these contacts and then denying that it was a negotiation of a political nature.

The effects of this negotiation were not long in coming. In June 2011, the socialist-controlled Constitutional Court opened the doors of the institutions to ETA's political wing, EH Bildu, a far-left party that does not condemn ETA terrorism and that pays tribute to ETA terrorists with total impunity, with Pedro Sánchez's government doing nothing to stop it.

The effects of this perverse pact between ETA and the PSOE have been particularly noticeable in recent years and have been reflected in a series of favors from the Sánchez government to ETA that I already analyzed here. Sánchez and the PSOE betrayed their promise not to make a pact with Bildu, normalizing that party that does not condemn terrorism, and have refused to punish tributes to ETA terrorists.

A particularly repulsive chapter of this pact is the one that has to do with the 379 unsolved ETA murders, crimes about which neither ETA nor Bildu have wanted to do anything to facilitate bringing those responsible to justice. In this they have counted on the help of the socialists. In 2022, the PSOE voted against the European Union investigating these murders as crimes against humanity, a measure that would prevent these crimes from becoming statute-barred and their perpetrators from going unpunished. In parallel, and thanks to this pact and the whitewashing carried out by the PSOE, today Bildu has more political power than ever despite not condemning terrorism and legitimizing the imprisoned murderers by calling them "political prisoners".

Certainly, ETA has stopped killing, but not because it was defeated, but because the PSOE offered it impunity in exchange for obtaining the support of its political wing. No matter how much they disguise it, this is not a defeat for ETA: that was bending democracy to favor terrorists, and the clearest proof is that today, in the environment of this criminal gang, they continue to use violence in the Basque provinces and Navarre to prevent the normal development of democratic life, giving rise to electoral processes in which the terrorists have not only the advantage of having driven 180,000 Basques from their land, but also of preventing those who remained in those two regions from expressing themselves freely, as became clear with the bullying of ETA supporters in Alsasua, Navarra, seven years ago, and with the violent attacks on Vox in the Basque elections.

The most ridiculous and absurd thing about this pact between the PSOE and ETA is the Popular Party's eagerness to whitewash both the pact and its effects and its shameful relationship with Bildu while putting all kinds of obstacles in the way of a democratic party like Vox. This false defeat of ETA is a myth that the PSOE has created with the invaluable help of the PP, which, as happens in so many other areas, seems determined to become a simple political and ideological clone of the Socialist Party.