“Enough of hiding weapons under seats; Enough of pointing the finger at victims comfortably seated on a municipal chair and, in addition, receiving subsidies; Enough of accompanying election programs with booby-trapped lettersenough political weapons and political hoods and enough institutional sanctuaries”… José María Aznar, then president of the government, spoke these words in April 2002, in a law prior to the party reform law that would lead to the illegalization of Batasuna. Mariano Rajoy, first vice-president, spoke at the time in very similar terms. Only 16 months earlier, in December 2000, the anti-terrorist pact that supported the police and judicial strategy against ETA had been signed by the PP and the PSOE in opposition.
However, until that time, it had been essential to launch in 1996 from the General Information Commissariat (CGI) of the Police a strategy, in which very few people believed at the time, which had a strong idea: if the terrorist organization had survived until then, despite having received the most severe blows from the police, it had been because it had powerful support structuresthe regeneration and funding that allowed its survival.
The criminal edifice would therefore only collapse if it were also possible to destroy the other networks which played a decisive role in the network of satellite groups that ensured its regeneration “sine die” and its political-military strategy gathered in its anagram Bietan Jarrai (walk in both directions).
The book “The garden of ETA” (Editorial Almuzara) which arrives in bookstores on Monday, tells that police and judicial work –the latter led by magistrate Baltasar Garzón– and how, in addition, by attacking the structures linked to the terrorist organization –KAS, Jarrai, Egin, Xaki, Ekin…–, it was also possible to reach all the gang’s devices, hitting them hard until its defeat.
The story of those exciting and exhausting years is also told from the depths of the decision-making centres, because one of its authors, Jesús de la Morena – the other is the one who signs these lines –, The strategy was designed by the police command. De la Morena was head of the CGI between 1996 and 2004 and managed to imbue this powerful police unit with his philosophy.
In-depth analysis
It was the careful analysis of all the documentation that the anti-terrorist activity had generated on these relationships and communicating vessels that allowed us to glimpse and interpret the model and the “modus operandi” in more detail plots that worked so that ETA could continue its activity. The KAS stood out above all – first for its function as a remote-controlled coordinator by the terrorists, who met with all the groups in their orbit, and years later also as a specific organization composed of the most orthodox groups who already acted as their delegates – and Jarrai, ETA’s quarry and key in the development of borroka kale.
One of the thousands of documents intercepted by ETA that was analyzed explained very clearly the functioning and complementarity of the criminal model sponsored by the organization and reflected it in a drawing representing a trawler whose skipper was an ETA and the rowers who were members of these organizations that guaranteed their survival. They all followed the same path: the destruction of the Constitution, which would be approved by referendum a few months later. And in a Zutabe (ETA internal bulletin) from 1978, they welcomed the creation of Jarrai: “You must be the basis of all KAS, understanding this organization as a set of political parties, mass organizations and armed organizations. In this way, after your youth, you will swell the ranks of all these organizations to the extent of your degree of awareness and your will to fight. It therefore gives it an essential role, and yet until then no one had attacked this organization.
a submarine
This type of submarine, which made up the KAS/Jarrai, and which until then was not a priority for the anti-terrorist forces fighting against the criminal commandos, had to are resurfacing more due to the political and military crisis within ETA in the late 80s and early 90s, with dissidents such as those who emerged within the HASI or the fall of the ETA leadership in Bidart during a Civil Guard operation.
From this crisis was born new criminal strategy based on the “socialization of suffering” and in a stricter control of all related groups, especially Herri Batasuna. In this sense, the creation of the KAS as a specific organization in direct service of ETA and acting as the backbone of the entire criminal model and strategy was essential. Furthermore, this process gave rise to even greater violence, since the attacks were accompanied by the appearance of the borroka kale and the delegation of certain functions, such as co-financing and support for fugitives, previously in the hands of ETA.
In another document from the time collected in the book, Eugenio Etxebeste, “Antxon”, makes his self-criticism about the situation, the falls and the frustration with the failure of the Algiers negotiations. The head of the political apparatus of ETA at the time affirms that the objective of the new strategy of “socialization of suffering” was to break with the feeling that the struggle was limited to the organization and the security forces and He advocated that the whole of society be involved “in this stew.” And in this context of self-criticism, he also makes another statement, very pertinent, in which he admits that “everything we are is thanks to ETA” behind which we can see the determination that the heirs of this world still have to entertain and demand the freedom of ETA prisoners.
It was in the mid-90s that the police focused mainly on attacking this network and made multiple operations against the leaders of the borroka kale, without losing sight of the Jarrai organization to which many of its leaders were linked. It also makes its debut in the financial field and on the so-called media front with the closure of Egin, a measure unthinkable shortly before.
Truce trap
The new police strategy has not gone unnoticed by the terrorists or by the Abertzale left, who have seen how she has become a police target. “ETA’s Backyard” describes in detail how, from 1997 onwards, the seized documents reflect this change of strategy of the State and security forces to block and isolate the organization and how the police took advantage of the Lizarra truce trap to rearm against the terrorists.
In fact, at the beginning of the new century, after the failure of negotiations with ETA, the organization ordered the activation of the “mother of all battles” with dozens of commandos who committed dozens of attacks and who In 2000 and 2001 alone, they murdered 38 citizens.. Added to all this is a rebound in the borroka kale, even though the work carried out years before by the police on these groups had diminished their potential. In addition, the hasty transfer of the leaders of these “gasoline boys”, in the words of Xabier Arzalluz, to the ETA commandos, was excellent news for the anti-terrorist agents, who already knew them to a large extent from having detained them previously.
From this offensive ETA has fared very badly due to the continued operations of the Police, the Civil Guard and the CNI, which meant not only the neutralization of their commands, but also of their support and regeneration structures; in short, that “backyard”, without which the terrorist network was doomed to collapse.
At that time, the police information services, after a long period of inactivity, had managed to recover a lot of capacity, thus increasing their results in the so-called military route, both in France and in Spain. There were also major operations in the area of support structures, which not only caused the neutralization of many terrorists and collaborators, accelerating their progressive decapitalization, but also the blocking of the model and its communicating vesselswhich led to a global crisis which, in the short and medium term, would be definitive.
All this work made the situation irreversible for the ETA complex, so that by the mid-2000s, outside the negotiation with ETA undertaken by the government According to Rodriguez Zapatero, the end of the organization was only a matter of time.
final defeat
Between 2007 and 2009, ETA wanted to catch its breath with its last blows and tricks, but Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, Minister of the Interior, did not fall into the trap and responded with the police and judicial strategy of the late 90s. , thanks to the work of all of society and all governments, and especially the security forces, the CNI, judges and prosecutors, it was possible to change that old idea that only a negotiation could end terrorism, to that according to which its defeat was possible. This reality, and no other circumstance, was what forced Otegi to break away from the assassins in order to survive. A final moral blow to the oppressed leaders of ETA which led to their defeat being accepted in October 2011, without compensation from the State.
