Northern Ireland

Clergyman who oversaw IRA decommissioning hails ETA disarmament

Rev Harold Good (right) watches as Ram Manikkalingam (centre), president of the International Verification Commission for the disarmament of ETA, announces that the group has handed over its arms. Picture by AP/Alvaro Barrientos
Rev Harold Good (right) watches as Ram Manikkalingam (centre), president of the International Verification Commission for the disarmament of ETA, announces that the group has handed over its arms. Picture by AP/Alvaro Barrientos Rev Harold Good (right) watches as Ram Manikkalingam (centre), president of the International Verification Commission for the disarmament of ETA, announces that the group has handed over its arms. Picture by AP/Alvaro Barrientos

A METHODIST minister who oversaw the decommissioning of the Provisional IRA's arms has hailed the handover of weapons by the Basque separatist group ETA as "hugely significant".

Rev Harold Good was present at a ceremony in Bayonne, in the Basque region of south-west France, as the group gave up a list of its weapons and their locations.

French police immediately began searches of the sites.

In a letter, ETA said: "After giving up all its weaponry (arms and explosives) to Basque civil society representatives, it is now a disarmed organisation."

It has been reported that the eight weapons dumps contain around 120 firearms, thousands of rounds of ammunition and three tonnes of explosives.

Rev Good told the BBC: "It's been a very significant day today, hugely significant.

"To be here as a part of it has personally been very important for me, but much, much more - hugely important - for this country and hopefully the next step in their peace process."

Along with Catholic priest Father Alec Reid, who died in 2013, Rev Good was also an independent witness to IRA decommissioning in 2005.

He said: "The heart of it all has been the problem and the stumbling block over weapons. I've been coming and going to the Basque country over a number of years now and we've been trying to encourage them towards this day.

"We've been able to tell them from our experience it opens up new opportunities and without the disarmament and decommissioning we'd lose those opportunities."

The move was welcomed as "historic" by Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, who urged the two governments involved to now deal with the issue of ETA prisoners.

"It creates a unique opportunity which the Spanish and French governments, and the political parties in the region, must urgently grasp," he said.

"Addressing the treatment of Basque political prisoners, including ending the policy of dispersal of Basque prisoners and moving those who are a significant distance from their families closer to their homes - previous to an early release process - would also be an important confidence building measure."

However, the Spanish government, which has refused to negotiate with ETA and its political representatives, has called on the group to disband and has said it would not be offering anything in return.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said the handover of weapons was a sign of the "definitive defeat" of ETA.

The Republic's foreign minister, Charlie Flanagan, said it marked a "significant and welcome step in the disbanding of a terrorist organisation which inflicted great suffering on people in fellow EU member states and has no place in the European Union".

"Democracy and dialogue are the only legitimate means of resolving political differences.

"We must never forget the victims of terrorism; those who have died and those whose pain will continue beyond (the) announcement."

Euskadi ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom) was founded in 1959, at a time when Spain was ruled by military dictator General Francisco Franco.

It killed more than 800 people in its campaign for an independent Basque state in a region covering northern Spain and southwest France.

Around 350 prisoners are in jails in France and Spain.

ETA did not disarm at the time of a ceasefire announcement in 2011, and has seen members arrested and weapons seized in joint French and Spanish government operations in the past six years.