Until the start of last week the news from the Basque country was predictably despairing as far as the search for a solution to the conflict between Basque separatists and the Spanish state is concerned. It took a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to introduce a chink of light into an otherwise dark political landscape following the October 2011 decision by ETA to call a unilateral and "definitive cessation" to its 40-year armed struggle. The ECHR ordered the release of a Basque political prisoner, Ines Del Rio. She had been in prison for the past 26 years and was expected to be released in 2008 but the Spanish government blocked her release. The Spanish government introduced a punitive law for political prisoners denying them their remission of sentence for good behaviour. The ECHR ruled this practice unlawful and ordered Ms Del Rio's release and further awarded her £25,000 compensation because of her detention since 2008. There are close to 100 ETA prisoners whose circumstances are similar to Ines Del Rios. They have been in jail for more than 20 years. It is expected they will follow a similar course to that of Ms Del Rio in seeking their release. The wise and correct response to the human rights court ruling would be to immediately release all those Basque prisoners on the basis that the release of Del Rio is an irreversible precedent.
But this is highly unlikely to happen as the Spanish government is following a hostile policy following ETA's unilateral ceasefire. It has filled with escalating oppression the opportunity opened up by Etas decision and has targeted for arrest those in the leadership of the Basque separatist movement seeking a peaceful way forward.
The leader of the Basque movement for independence, Arnaldo Otegi, (the equivalent of Gerry Adams here), is in prison serving a 10-year sentence. More than any other leading figure he was to the fore in convincing ETA to adopt a ceasefire strategy similar to the IRA's. ETA's ceasefire decision in 2011 followed an intense period of internal discussion among its armed activists and Basque political activists who support ETA.
They concluded that the ceasefire declaration had to represent a new phase, a new understanding of how the conflict in the region was to be resolved and that it could not just be a new front. This was a fundamental shift in thinking by ETA and others and is akin to the thinking inside the republican movement, which led to the IRA's decision to end its armed struggle and to decommission its arms.
Mr Otegi was key to shifting the thinking of Basques activists in this direction.
His detention on charges, of an entirely political nature, is designed to rob Basque separatists of its main thinker and strategist and to foment dissension in ETA's ranks, and among others, to undermine ETA's peace strategy, which is very popular across the Basque country. This popularity can be seen in the results of the elections that have been held in the Basque country since ETA's ceasefire.
Sortu, the party that replaced Herri Batasuna, (which was banned by the Spanish government and was the equivalent of Sinn Féin), made considerable gains in the local government and regional government elections. The Basque parliament now has a majority of elected representatives seeking independence or more autonomy from the Madrid-based Spanish government. This electoral breakthrough has encouraged other broad-based popular, political and social movements, to emerge campaigning for talks between the Spanish government and ETA; for the release of political prisoners and in opposition to the austerity measures the Spanish government has introduced to deal with the economic crisis in Spain. When ETA called its ceasefire in October 2011 there was a socialist government in Spain. There was great hope that this government would seize the opportunity opened up by ETA's initiative.
But the socialists were replaced in the last general election in Spain by conservatives and they are following an agenda aimed at humiliating Basque separatists, a strategy which is already failing as the election results show. This is a time for patience among Basque separatists. A time to strengthen the demand for negotiations. A demand the Spanish government can delay but cannot stop.