Catalan Unrest A Concern To Basques
GUERNICA, Spain — Deep in the hills of the Basque region, Luis Iriondo tapped a bridge with his walking stick.
Mr. Iriondo, 95, is one of the last survivors of a notorious assault on Guernica during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. He was 14 when German bombers fighting for General Francisco Franco reduced this town to rubble.
It was beneath this bridge that Mr. Iriondo, more than 80 years ago, hid in the attack.
Franco won the war and ended Basque self-government, which did not return until 1979, after Franco’s death. Though Mr. Iriondo still hopes for greater autonomy for the region, he does not want Basque separatists to follow their counterparts in Catalonia, whose parliament recently voted to secede from Spain, prompting the Spanish government to take control of Catalonia.
“All my life, all I have had on my mind is war,” Mr. Iriondo said. “So what I look forward to is peace and unity.”
As the secession crisis in Catalonia deepens, attention has turned to the northern Basque region — which, like Catalonia, has its own language, culture and long history of separatism .
Even after its restoration, self-gov- ernment was still not enough for some Basques— including a militant group, ETA, which killed more than 800 civilians, policemen and soldiers in a decades-long campaign for independence that formally ended this year.
But an opinion poll found that nearly 63 percent of Basques did not want to copy the Catalan approach, while only 22 percent were in favor.
In Bilbao — the largest Basque city, and where tourism has boomed as separatist tensions have ebbed — the leader of the region’s largest nationalist party, Andoni Ortuzar, said there was no rush to achieve independence.
“Our way is our way, and we cannot change it because of the Catalan situation,” said Mr. Ortuzar, the president of the Basque Nationalist Party, or P. N.V., a conservative group that has led the Basque region for all but three years since the restoration of Basque self-government in 1979.
Instead of fast-tracking a divisive referendum, Mr. Ortuzar’s “way” is to first establish a consensus among Basque parties and institutions about the kind of autonomy they want. Then he wants to present this joint proposal to the central government in Madrid, before putting the negotiated settlement to the Basque population in a referendum.
If the Catalan crisis has changed anything, it is in the corridors of power in Madrid, rather than Bilbao, Mr. Ortuzar reckoned. The Spanish government will have learned the lesson of failing to engage constructively with independence-minded regional governments, which might provide the Basque region “an opportunity” in years to come, he said.
“The Catalan situation is very grave,” he said. “But it has a good consequence: Madrid has seen the risk of closing the door. And I think that many people in Madrid have seen — even if they’re not saying it, they’re thinking it — that it is necessary to change the state model.”
The more trenchant Basque nationalists have concluded precisely the opposite.
Madrid’s violent response to the Catalan referendum is a sign of how it will treat any effort to increase Basque autonomy, said Arnaldo Otegi, a leading figure within a far-left coalition known as Basque Country Unite, or E.H. Bildu.
Mr. Otegi expects “a reactivation” of peaceful interest in Basque nationalism, particularly among young people.
Back in Guernica, however, Luis Iriondo said: “I’d like more power. But not if it means losing what we already have.”