(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF report: Spain Journalists in ETA’s line of fire A hundred media professionals under official or private protection in Spanish Basque Country June 2000 Introduction About 50 journalists and managing editors are under police escort in Basque Country and Madrid; close to 100 have either official or private protection. […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF report:
Spain
Journalists in ETA’s line of fire
A hundred media professionals under official or private protection in Spanish Basque Country
June 2000
Introduction
About 50 journalists and managing editors are under police escort in Basque Country and Madrid; close to 100 have either official or private protection. Ten other journalists from Basque Country are in “exile” in Madrid and some media are multiplying their security measures. In both Basque Country and the rest of the country, journalists and the media who do not share the radical nationalist ideology are described as “Basque traitors” or “Spanish invaders” and are threatened by the independence army Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA). The campaign launched against them by ETA is increasingly violent.
On 3 May 2000, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) protested against this spiralling violence which, it predicted, “could soon end in a death”. Four days later José Luis Lopez de Lacalle, a columnist and member of the regional editorial board of the daily El Mundo in Basque Country, was murdered. This death was the culmination of a period of threats, warnings and publication of “black lists”, and was one of a series of increasingly violent attacks against the media and journalists. In March and April this year, two journalists, one in Seville and the other in Madrid, received parcel bombs – fortunately neutralised in time. On 14 May and 4 June the two dailies with the largest circulation in Basque Country were victims of bomb attacks.
Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the political group Euskal Herritarrok (EH – “Basque people”) which is considered to be ETA’s legal showcase and has never denounced murders committed by organisation, stated on 8 May that with Lopez de Lacalle’s murder, “ETA has affirmed and demonstrated that the media are the mouthpiece for a strategy of manipulation of news and instigation of war in Basque Country”.
During its 31 May to 2 June 2000 mission, the RSF delegation met Basque Country’s leading journalists, trade unionists, media directors and political party leaders and was received by the Spanish government’s interior minister and the Basque government’s adviser for internal affairs. For obvious reasons, this report cannot include the names of the journalists that RSF met during its mission.
ETA and the Basque conflict
Spanish Basque Country (Euskadi or Euskera in Basque), which has had the status of an autonomous community since 1979, covers three Spanish provinces (Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya and Ãlava). It borders with French Basque Country in the north and with Navarra in the east. Today Basque nationalism, born in the late nineteenth century, claims these territories as part of the greater “Euskal Herria” or “Basque Land”. Some, like the Basque Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista Vasco – PNV) use peaceful, democratic means; others, like ETA, use violence. ETA is represented in parliament by the Herri Batasuna Party (HB – “People’s Unity”) which, for electoral purposes, adopted the name Euskal Herritarrok (EH) after 23 of its leaders were sentenced to seven years in jail on 1 December 1997. In elections EH-HB obtains an average of close to 15% of the vote (i.e. between 150,000 and 180,000 ballots). In the 12 March 2000 general elections, the PNV, allied to the Euska Alkartasuna (EA – splinter group of the PNV), obtained 38% of the vote, while together the national Popular Party (PP) and Spanish Workers’ Socialist Party (PSOE), obtained 51% of the vote.
The armed independence organisation ETA was born in 1959 under the dictatorship. In 1968 it embarked on an armed struggle against the Spanish state. According to official data, in 30 years it has been responsible for 764 deaths (523 in Basque Country), including 19 children, and 77 kidnappings. 307 of the victims were not members of the army but politicians, magistrates, company directors, etc. The bloodiest years were between 1974 and 1992. But there have also been deaths among the “etarras” (active members of ETA), including about thirty killed by the Antiterrorist Groups (GAL), active from 1982 to 1986. Several members of the socialist government of that period were sentenced for their involvement in the creation of these armed groups. Over 500 “etarras”, often arrested with the collaboration of the French police, are currently in jail for “violent crimes” and “belonging to an armed group”.
On 16 September 1998, ETA announced an indefinite ceasefire which lasted until 3 December 1999. Since 21 January 2000 the armed separatist organisation has killed five people, including a journalist.
Attacks against the press since 1978
Attacks by ETA and its supporters against journalists and the media are nothing new, yet there has been an upsurge of violence since the truce – and even during that period ETA never stopped harassing the press.
Between 1978 and 1982, during the “democratic transition” in Spain, ETA attacked the press only sporadically. Then, during the next 15 years attacks ceased, before starting up again just before the signing in 1998 of the Lizarra Pact, an alliance between the PNV and EH.
From 1978 to 1982
⦠On 17 January 1978 the managing editor of the Bilbao daily El Correo Español-el Pueblo Vasco, Antonio Barrena BallarÃn, was beaten up by two individuals and lost his left eye.
⦠On 28 January 1978 ETA murdered José MarÃa Portell Manos, managing editor of La Hoja del Lunes in Bilbao, editor-in-chief of La Gaceta del Norte and official mediator between the Spanish government and ETA.
⦠On 22 August 1980 in Pamplona, the capital of Navarra province, members of ETA fired several shots at the managing editor of Diario de Navarra, José Javier Uranga, who was seriously injured but survived.
⦠On 4 April 1981 members of ETA shot at the caretaker of La Gaceta del Norte, Gerardo Hueso Fernández.
⦠On 17 July 1982 an ETA bomb explosion damaged the offices of the state news agency EFE in San Sebastián, the capital of Guipúzcoa province.
From 1997 to 2000
⦠On 22 December 1997 a home-made bomb exploded in the home of Carmen Gurruchaga, a journalist with El Mundo and Periodistas sin Fronteras (Spanish section of Reporters Sans Frontières) award winner for 1998. Shortly afterwards Carmen Gurruchaga left Basque Country and, in 1999, the editor-in-chief of the Basque regional edition of El Mundo followed suit.
⦠On 23 December 1997 a van of Canal Gastéis, a regional television channel based in Vitoria, was damaged when a magnetic bomb placed under the chassis exploded.
⦠On 5 October 1998 the home of journalist Gorka Landaburu (son of the Basque ex-vice-president in exile, Xavier Landaburu) in Zarauz (Guipúzcoa province) was attacked by Molotov cocktails.
⦠On 27 September 1999 a home-made bomb exploded at the home of Mikel Muez, Navarra correspondent for the daily El PaÃs.
⦠On 3 October 1999 unknown persons threw Molotov cocktails at the head office of the daily Diario Vasco in San Sebastián.
⦠On 27 February 2000 unknown people threw Molotov cocktails at the home of José Luis Lopez de Lacalle, in Andoain (Guipúzcoa province). Similar attacks were made that day against the premises of Radio Nacional de España (RNE) in Vitoria.
⦠On 21 March 2000 a bomb exploded at the San Sebastián home of the parents of Pedro Briongos, editor-in-chief of El Correo.
⦠On 27 March 2000 police defused a parcel bomb found in a cigar box, that ETA had sent to Carlos Herrera, with RNE in the southern town Seville.
⦠On 30 March 2000 masked men dynamited the head office of the radio station Onda Cero in Vitoria.
⦠On 25 April 2000 Madrid police defused a parcel bomb sent to the vice-managing editor of the daily La Razon, Jesús MarÃa Zuloaga, a specialist in terrorism. According to the interior minister, Jaime Mayor Orega, there is still uncertainty as to who sent the bomb, but the editorial staff of the daily recall that the journalist was threatened by Basque separatist groups who attempted to intimidate him.
⦠On 7 May 2000 an unidentified assailant shot dead José Luis Lopez de Lacalle in the small town Andoain, while the journalist was on his way home. José Luis Lopez de Lacalle had refused offers of protection by the Basque autonomous police.
⦠On 14 May 2000 unidentified persons threw Molotov cocktails at the head office of the daily El Diario Vasco in San Sebastián.
⦠On 4 June 2000 a Molotov cocktail was thrown onto the premises of the daily El Correo in Getxo (Guipúzcoa province).
“Watchdogs” of the state
After the end of the truce, José MarÃa Olarra, an HB leader, stated that journalists “incite terrorism”. In a communiqué dated 2 February 1999, ETA described journalists who were “Basque traitors” or “Spanish invaders” as “enemy watchdogs” who informed or expressed themselves in Basque Country or Spanish state media “against the construction of Euskal Herria”.
Between December 1997 and end-1999, in the middle of the ceasefire, Molotov cocktails were thrown several times at the homes of journalists or at media premises. As of March 2000, firearms and explosives have also been used in such attacks. Often, as in the case of José Luis Lopez de Lacalle, the attacks as such are preceded by a series of events:
⦠Constant threats and harassment by young freedom fighters close to ETA, protagonists of the phenomenon called “kale borroka” (struggle in the streets);
⦠Tags, leaflets and banners with the name and photograph of the person labelled an “enemy of the Basque people”;
⦠Molotov cocktail attacks.
“Black” lists
There is something in common between people whose life is in danger, whether they are Basque or not and whether they live in Basque Country or not: their statements and opinions are considered to be “against the will of the Basque people” and the “construction of the nation”. On 15 March 2000 members of the youth organisation Jarrai, close to ETA, pasted 2000 posters in the main towns in Basque Country, listing the names of 30 journalists and 20 media considered to be “slaves of the state”. When French police arrested Julia Moreno Macuso, a presumed member of ETA, on 16 April, she was carrying a list of journalists and editorialists targeted by ETA. Media close to the Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional del PaÃs Vasco (National Liberation Movement for Basque Country – MLNV) gave the names of journalists accused of working for the interior ministry. According to Javier Balza, internal affairs adviser for the Basque government, the targets are Basque or national media such as the newspaper El Correo, the Groupe Prisa (to which El PaÃs belongs), the privately-owned radio station Cope, the state-owned Radio Television Española (RTVE), the state news agency EFE, and so on.
In this context several media feel threatened, in Madrid and Basque Country alike, especially the newspapers Correo Español and Diario Vasco, both members of the Groupe Correo, as well as the local editorial staff of the dailies El PaÃs and El Mundo and the radio station RNE.
Journalists of the daily El Correo say they feel far more threatened today, after experiencing attacks, than in the past when they were simply the victims of calls for boycotts or written threats demanding they change their attitudes. Pedro Briongos, editor-in-chief of the newspaper, whose parents were victims of an attack, chose to continue his job. A journalist recounts: “As soon as we leave home we look around us to see if there aren’t any suspicious characters around”. Staff of RNE are sometimes victims of individual threats but, for fear of reprisals, refuse to talk about it. Certain journalists working in Madrid refuse transfers to Basque Country. Although the Spanish government persistently refuses to talk about journalists from the region who are “in exile”, the pressure on journalists there is so strong that some have preferred to leave and many others would like to do so. This was the case of the managing editor of El Correo who received threats and whose name was on the lists given to ETA’s commandos. He left for Madrid, like seven other journalists whose names are withheld for obvious reasons of security.
Enhanced security
Measures taken by the authorities
The national police provide protection in certain cases, but most people who have been threatened have private protection. In Madrid ten people have a national police escort. According to Jaime Mayor Oreja, interior minister, it is impossible to protect all threatened people. In some cases the police limit their assistance to suggesting changes of routine and routes. The authorities nevertheless reinforce security measures as much as possible around journalists whose names feature on ETA lists.
The Basque authorities have set up a global and individual protection plan supported by all the media. According to Javier Balza, internal affairs adviser for the Basque government, five meetings have already taken place and an emergency telephone line that sets off immediate police intervention has been created. Each publication, radio and television channel has its own coordinator who gives the authorities the name of the people requiring such protection. A total of 25 to 30 persons are concerned. Seven or eight of them, mostly members of the Groupe Correo, have a direct police escort and ten others a private escort that collaborates with the police. Other measures have been taken such as surveillance of the homes of certain journalists, routine rounds, parking for press vehicles in police garages to prevent magnetic bombs from being placed on them, patrols on media premises, etc. The Basque nationalist newspapers Gara and Deia have no escort because, again according to Javier Balza, “the risk is greater for media that are not linked to nationalism”. Others refuse protection, like José Luis Lopez de Lacalle.
Until May 2000 the Basque authorities complained about the lack of coordination between police in Madrid and Vitoria (the seat of the Basque government), and the Spanish government’s reluctance to collaborate with Ertzaintza (security forces under Basque government control) in the struggle against terrorism. When the Basque authorities received the RSF delegation, the interior ministry had still not given them the list of 300 people on ETA’s hit list, including eleven Basque police officers. Yet, according to Jaime Mayor Oreja, “there is no disagreement between Madrid and Vitoria as regards antiterrorist security”. One solution to the crisis was perhaps found on 7 June: after a meeting with the Spanish interior minister, the Basque government stated that differences had been ironed out. During that interview the two leaders agreed that a group of technicians from the interior ministry and the Basque government internal affairs adviser’s bureau, would work on the creation of a new organ responsible for facilitating communication between the various police forces, and would study the Basque government’s proposition to increase the size of Ertzaintza.
Measures adopted by the media
Several national media have offices and staff in Basque country. After the most recent attacks most of them multiplied security measures, both in Basque Country and Madrid: metal detectors, scanners, security agents at the entrance to buildings, bullet-proof windows, private protection for management staff, etc. Staff of the daily El PaÃs claim that they feel threatened by very strong outside pressure and by the existence of “black lists”. The daily has strengthened security measures on which it refuses to give further details. Apart from private escorts, six top-ranking editorial staff of RNE have chauffeurs trained to get away in case of attack, while regional managers have a self-protection vade mecum written by the security division of RTVE (under which RNE falls) and endorsed by the police. Radio journalists now cover events in unmarked cars. The protection of journalists is a very tricky matter, as the editors of the newspaper El Mundo put it: “Journalist cannot do their work well surrounded by bodyguards”. Jesús MarÃa Zuloaga, of La Razon, resigned himself to taking certain security measures after the abortive attack on him. He nevertheless states that “journalists must act openly and, as far as [he is] concerned, being Basque for several generations, to silence [him] they’d have to kill [him]”.
The Bilbao newspaper Deia, considered to be the PNV mouthpiece, has taken no particular security measures. Its senior staff claim that “today” they do not feel threatened, “without being sure that [they] won’t be tomorrow”.
According to RSF estimates, over one hundred journalists have some sort of protection. This includes the fifty or so journalists protected by police in Basque Country and elsewhere, as well as all those who use private security services.
A climate of controversy and mistrust
As tension mounts, controversy is raging between the majority of non-nationalist “pro-Spanish” media, and the media and political leaders that support Basque nationalism. Mutual mistrust intensified during the Lizarra Pact: while the one side saw this pact as violent and dangerous abuse by the independence movement, the others saw their opponents as an anti-nationalist media front.
Some denounce the “logic of the finger and the trigger”
Thus, some nationalist movement leaders, whether radical or moderate, accuse the “pro-Spanish” press of “media violence” and of having founded a “media Brunete” (name of an army division that participated in the 23 February 1981 attempted coup) to eradicate nationalist ideals. The communication director of EH-HB accuses the Madrid press of “manipulating” news. Javier Arzalluz, PNV president, describes the newspaper El Correo as “belligerent”. In its March/April 2000 edition, under the headline “Over one hundred journalists base their reporting on the interior minister’s instructions”, the magazine Ardi Beltz (“Black Sheep”) listed the names of 41 journalists in various Spanish towns, accused of working under the rule of the police or army. The list included Jesús MarÃa Zuloaga, victim of an abortive attack on 25 April.
Faced with such statements and these “black lists”, the Spanish press states that by pointing a finger like that at journalists and the media, “[the nationalists] take aim and ETA pulls the trigger” or, at least, that these names create a propitious climate for attacks against journalists.
After the murder of José Luis Lopez de Lacalle, a Basque constitutionalist and opponent of nationalism, over one hundred managing editors of Spain’s leading media, from the conservative ABC to the progressive El PaÃs, signed a manifesto read in public on 12 May in San SebastÃan and entitled “They won’t silence us”. It read: “â¦Although we know it is ETA that kills and its political wing that justifies these murders ⦠the behaviour of certain leaders of the democratic nationalist parties vis-à -vis journalists and the media that criticise their ideology and their actions seems unwise”. They added: “â¦this attitude, this pressure on ‘uncooperative’ journalists, has been used by advocates of violence to justify themselves with objective reasons ⦠But acting as though ETA didn’t exist is a totally irresponsible attitude. Unfortunately there are enough tragic and heartbreaking events allowing us to imagine how terrorists act with regard to allusions to ‘hostility against national construction’ or the ‘media Brunete’ that some accuse us of”. No editors of nationalist media signed this manifesto (the newspaper Deia states that “[it] was not invited to do so”).
This view is shared by the Spanish government. The interior minister described these declarations as a “terrible mistake” by PNV, given that “ETA is on the lookout”. Carlos Iturgaiz, PP president in Basque Country, regrets that in the province “a minority threatens the majority”. He recalls that at school the son of a journalist who had to go “into exile” in Madrid, heard classmates saying “We’re going to kill your father”.
Some publications also denounce the nationalists’ will to silence them and force them to practise self-censorship. The daily El Mundo compares Javier Arzalluz to Slobodan Milosevic and talks of “a climate of pressure and pre-Bosniac aggression” against non-nationalist journalists who force them to “weigh their words”. “The PNV wants to frighten us and when its members launch into diatribes against the press, they know full well just how effective they are, because everyone knows that ETA is pulling the strings behind the scenes. This fear has an inhibiting effect, for nobody wants to be cited in the press; hence, unconscious self-censorship”, commented the daily El PaÃs.
Some demand “the right to divergence of opinion”
According to the testimonies recorded by RSF, virtually no Basque nationalists condemn attacks against the press. Yet the majority of them agree that the existence of ETA should not undermine their “right to divergent opinions”.
Only EH-HB refused to condemn Luis Lopez de Lacalle’s murder. A senior member of its press service simply stated that he personally disagreed with that type of action, but refused to condemn it and “bet there will be no more victims”. As regards the Spanish press – which, in his view, is “on the side of one of the factions” -, he granted it the “right to criticise” but immediately warned that “We will not allow manipulation [of information]”.
Some media, such as the daily Deia, as well as all the other organisations in Basque Country, except EH-HB, condemned the murder of Luis Lopez de Lacalle. Deia did so twice in its editorials and used the opportunity to denounce pressure “on colleagues whose ideas differ from our own”. Among Basque politicians, the most virulently anti-ETA comments were made by Juan José Ibarretxe, the “Lehendakari” (president of the autonomous Basque government), who stated: “We’ve got to get rid of ETA because we cannot associate its violence with Basque demands. All parties must sit at the same table”.
Javier Arzalluz noted that “attacks on journalists are reprehensible and ETA has no need for us to give it targets”. “Keeping quiet would leave me defenceless and would constrain my freedom”, he added. The president of PNV justified his statements against journalists who were “enemies of nationalism” by recalling that employees of RTVE had insulted him, calling him a “son of a bitch” and an “idiot”. To conclude, he affirmed that “[there] is a savage struggle under way, with neither rules nor referee and, when I’m savagely attacked, I fight back tooth and nail. If it is suicidal to take on journalists who’ve attacked me, then consider me suicidal”. The newspaper Deia also stated that “the Spanish press systematically attacks [them]” and demanded its “right to divergence of opinion”. This daily claims to be in favour of “doing something together” to defend threatened journalists, while preserving the right to criticise. It recalled that limiting journalists’ right to criticise was a serious impediment to freedom of expression.
Toning down the controversy
After the murder of José Luis Lopez de Lacalle, a less aggressive tone has been apparent. Nicolás Redondo Terreros, secretary of the Euskadi Socialist Party, has appealed to nationalists to be “calm”. The editors of Deia claim that the newspaper no longer names journalists personally, “as a precaution and for the benefit of the doubt” and affirm that they will continue that way as long as nobody cites the names of their journalists. Some nationalist leaders, including Juan MarÃa Atutxa, president of the Basque parliament, said to RSF “that we’re going to tone down our words, because when there are troubled waters, it’s ETA that makes a good catch”. The PNV spokesperson for parliament, Iñaki Anasagasti, while stating that in his opinion “the Irish peace process would not have survived a single tertulia” (radio programme on which several journalists debate controversial topics of current interest), thinks that the atmosphere has eased a little. Javier Arzalluz has agreed to lower the tone in the controversy and to refrain from naming the journalists and media he accuses, as long as “nobody attacks him”. Juan José Ibarretxe has urged the Spanish, Basque and international press to calm down the political debate. Even EH-HB has called for the general situation to be defused, and would like true dialogue. Yet the 4 June attack on Jesús Maria Pedrosa Urkiza, PP municipal councillor in Durango (Basque Country) casts serious doubts on the sincerity of these statements.
RSF’s conclusions and recommendations
The working conditions of journalists in Basque Country, subjected to threats from ETA and its supporters, have become unbearable and the same applies to many other members of the profession in the rest of Spain. Self-censorship, inhibition, silence and exile are all tempting for journalists who fear they may be victims of terrorism or of direct attacks. Being singled out as the “enemy of Basque national construction” or having one’s name on a “black list” can be the prelude to an attack. One journalist has already been murdered, two others narrowly escaped attacks, and everything suggests that this spiralling violence is not about to end.
RSF, while expressing its profound indignation at the escalation of terrorism used against the press, appeals to all the parties concerned:
⦠to political forces working for Basque independence, to definitively stop considering all journalists as being party to a conflict of which they are simply witnesses;
⦠to the central government and the Basque government to provide all possible protection to threatened journalists and media when requested;
⦠to journalists to continue doing their duty to society, without letting themselves be intimidated by those who are hindering press freedom;
⦠to all those who feel offended by the content of an article or by journalists’ comments, to take the matter to court;
⦠to everyone, without exception, to depersonalise the political debate and to bring it back to normal, so that murderers of journalists and of other citizens can have no alibi whatsoever.
