The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky [98]
More than a cynical calculation, this was a necessary reform. After all, even Txillardegi was an Alvarez whose family had come from Madrid.
TERMS SUCH AS national liberation, class struggle, revolution were heard increasingly. Under Leizaola, the Basque Nationalist Party began openly denouncing ETA as “a Communist organization.”
Txillardegi struggled to master his own creation until 1967, when the clandestine network of cells managed only its fifth meeting in eight years, consisting of two encounters which together were called Assembly V.
By this time there may have been as many as 450 members. The second of the encounters was held on Easter week, 1967, in Guetaria, Guipúzcoa. The assembly published a document titled “The Official Ideology of ETA.” According to this document, ETA was now “a Basque socialist national liberation movement” defining its nationalism as “revolutionary nationalism” that would fuse the Basque people and their struggle for national liberation with the working-class struggle for “social liberation.” One moment ETA appeared to be Basque nationalist, but the next, it was supporting Spanish workers against a Basque bourgeoisie. It was a complex blend of Marx, Mao, Fidel Castro, and Sabino Arana—Miguel Unamuno’s worst nightmare, ideologies run amok, ism heaped on ism.
Assembly V changed the entire leadership. A new generation that had never known the Basque government or the Second Republic, that had been born in the hungry years of the 1940s and never experienced anything but the grinding stagnation of the Franco dictatorship, took over ETA. The man who presided over the assembly by unanimous acclaim was Txabi Etxebarrieta.
Born in Bilbao in 1944, Etxebarrieta was the author of much of the revolutionary theory of the new ETA. While he was being elevated to the executive committee of the new armed wing of the organization, the older Txillardegi and most of the other founders left or were forced out. “It was a sad period in my life,” said Txillardegi. “I just didn’t believe in this.”
In the 1960’s, in Basqueland, Txabi was a name much like Che in Latin America. He was the most popular leader ETA ever had, a man of clear intelligence with a vision—a plan for Basque independence through selective violence and close alliance with social causes and labor unions. But more than an intellectual, he was a man of action, ready to test his physical courage in the fight for his beliefs. Txabi was an anti-Franco revolutionary.
He earned two distinctions. He was the first ETArist to kill, and he was the first ETA leader to be shot down by the Guardia Civil.
Following Assembly V, ETA became more active. The Guardia Civil began a practice of spot checks along the roads. On June 7, 1968, a Guardia Civil stopped a car in Guipúzcoa that happened to have Etxebarrieta and a colleague inside. The two opened fire and killed the Guardia Civil, a man named José Pardines. Later, Etxebarrieta was tracked down and killed. It was still the same pattern: an eye for an eye between ETA and the Guardia Civil. Only the nature of the acts was escalating. Txabi had counted on this, believing that provoking Guardia Civil would in turn provoke Basques, and eventually a general uprising would be provoked. Next would be ETA’s turn.
* * *
12: Eventually Night Falls
Baina gaua dator, joan dira sapelaitsak, eta trikuak,
Marraskilo, Zizare, Zomorro, Armiarma, Igel,
Erreka utzi eta mendiaren pendizari ekiten dio,
seguru bere arantsetaz nola egon baitzitekeen
Gerlari bat bere eskutuaz, Espartan edo Korinton;
Eta bapatean, zeharkatu egiten du
belardiaren eta kamio berriaren arteko muga;
Zure eta nire denboran sartzen de pauso bakar batez,
Eta nola here hiztegi unibertsala ez den
azkeneko zazpi mila urteotan berritu,
ez ditu ezagutzen gure automobilaren argiak,
ez da ohartzen bere heriotzaren hurbiltasunaz ere.
Eventually night falls, the eagles disappear and the hedgehog,
Frog, Snail, Spider, Worm, Insect,