Gipuzkoa chief under fire from all sides over ETA declarations

The Socialist Party spokesman in the Basque parliament, José Antonio Pastor, on Monday came out against comments made over the weekend by the provincial chief of Gipuzkoa, Martín Garitano of the pro-independence Bildu coalition, who said ETA attacks in Catalonia were "more than an error."

"The Basques should pay special respect to victims in Catalonia," Garitano said. "They took place when the Basques had received a lot from Catalonia."

An ETA bomb at a Hipercor supermarket in 1987 killed 21 people and a 1991 attack in Vic claimed the lives of nine people. In 2000, the Socialist minister Ernest Lluch was assassinated by ETA. "To apologize for or lament ETA attacks exclusively in Catalonia is the same as justifying them in the rest of the country," said Pastor, in an interview with Radio Euskadi. "It shows the abertzale is not yet sufficiently mature for democracy. [Garitano] is enraging and disappointing tens of thousands of Gipuzkoans who expected something different from their highest institutional representative."

"The Basques should pay special respect to victims in Catalonia; they took place when the Basques had received a lot from Catalonia"

Garitano has been threatened with censure by Senate leader Javier Rojo over his recent shows of support for the families of ETA prisoners. Even in abertzale circles Garitano's behavior is causing consternation. Leaders of the Basque radical left have called him "arrogant" and fear that he is single-handedly undoing the two-year process that resulted in Bildu's legalization in May.

The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) on Monday called for Garitano to "appear urgently" in the regional assembly to explain "what he wanted to say" in his declaration. The PNV refused overtures from the Popular Party and the Socialists to form an alliance after regional elections in May, paving the way for Bildu to take control of San Sebastián.

"[Garitano] does not yet openly acknowledge that human rights are universal and inalienable," the PNV said. "[His words] have nothing to do with the sentiments of Basque society."