09 March 2015
Others
The General Secretariat for Peace and Coexistence has also commissioned a report on the injustice suffered by people threatened by ETA. The first of these two reports is of a general nature and will examine the situation experienced by the group of people who lived under threat from ETA. The second report will specifically address the impact that this threat had on the life, freedom and rights of Basque police members (Ertzainas) and their families.
These reports have been drawn up by the Pedro Arrupe Institute of Human Rights at the University of Deusto. The first of these reports will be carried out in collaboration with Zaitu, the Association of people threatened by ETA; the second report will be developed jointly with Aserfavite, the Basque Police Association and Relatives Victims of Terrorism. In addition, this second report will be conducted in dialogue and contact with the Security Department. The completion of both reports is expected for late 2015.
Justification for the reports
The 2013-16 Peace and Coexistence Plan was approved in November 2013. The first of its three major commitments focuses on clarifying the past. The Basque Government maintains that the future cannot be built as if nothing had happened in the past. We must shed light on violence and the violation of human rights to enforce the principles of truth, justice and reparation.
Initiative 1 on this plan mainly seeks to clarify the past. Some of the actions to be developed within this initiative include the Verification Report on Human Rights Violations between 1960 and 2013 in the Basque case that was conducted in June 2013. This report, conducted by Manuela Carmena, Jon Mirena Landa, Ramon Mugica y Juan Maria Uriarte, revealed the existence of a broad, indeterminate number of threatened and escorted persons, the shortage of data and the need to shed light on the facts that constituted violations of human rights in the past.
These two reports were commissioned within this framework of commitments and recommendations emanating from the Plan for Peace and Coexistence and its initiatives. Their justification is therefore clear: to contribute to the normalisation of coexistence, by clarifying the past and recognising all human rights violations and all unjust suffering caused.
Aims of both reports
The main aims of the report drawn up by the Secretariat for Peace and Coexistence are:
- Providing a quantitative and qualitative description of the unjust suffering caused to those who were threatened by ETA;
- Drawomg conclusions regarding clarification of human rights violations through threat and reparation to their victims.
Some characteristics of the commissioned reports
The commissioned reports are defined by the characteristics that define the contents outlined in both studies.
The first factor that limits the scope of the study is the time frame established between 1990 and 2011. As from 1990, ETA’s strategy broadened persecution to include a larger number of sectors. In addition, it conceptualised the idea of socialisation of suffering.
With regard to the general scope of the report, the second feature that defines its content is linking threats to police objective analysis to determine the need to establish an escort system for one person. In this way, the general study refers to a study on escorted people under the threat of ETA.
As for the specific report on the impact of threats in the case of the Basque Police, the study will address two aspects, the diffuse threat on the whole of the Basque Police, and on direct cases of threat and persecution.
Structure of both reports
These two reports have a shared structure divided into three types of contents:
- A quantitative perspective: Providing a quantitative assessment of the number of people threatened by ETA since 1990, and their classification by sectors of activity.
- A qualitative perspective: Describing the impact that leading a threatened and escorted life has on the freedom and rights of a person and his/her family. This study will include an account of the number of landmark cases. The aim is to know the human cost in the lives of the victims.
- Conclusions and recommendations. The conclusions seek to clarify this part of our past form the perspective of human rights violations. The recommendations aim to provide suggestions for reparations, at least in a moral sense, of the suffering unjustly suffered by the victims under the threat of ETA.
