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Thursday saw the launch of the Free Arnaldo Otegi and Bring Basque
Political Prisoners Home campaign in Ireland.
The event took place in Leinster House and was jointly sponsored by myself;
Maureen O’Sullivan TD; Finian McGrath TD and involved speakers including Robert
Ballagh, Artist and social justice campaigner; Urko Airtza, Basque Senator and
human rights lawyer; Pablo Vicente, and Fermin Muguruza, famous Basque
musician.
On my own behalf and on behalf of Sinn Féin, I extended solidarity
greetings from the event to Arnaldo. I also warmly welcomed today's initiative
and pledged Sinn Féin's full support.
Sinn Féin and the Basque people have a long history of solidarity in
struggle. I and other Sinn Féin leaders have been active in travelling to the
Basque country in support of efforts to achieve a peace process and agreement.
Regrettably the dialogue for peace has been largely
one-sided. The people of the Basque country, represented by a range of
political parties and civic organisations, have been involved in recent years
in a substantial dialogue around building a peace process. Their objective has
been to bring an end to violence while creating the conditions for democratic
and peaceful political change, including independence.
They took as their model the Irish peace process and the South African
model. The strategy that has emerged, based largely on language and principles
agreed here, commits Basque activists to using ‘exclusively political and democratic means’ to advance their
political objectives. It seeks to advance political change ‘in a complete absence of violence and without interference’ and ‘conducted in accordance with the Mitchell
Principles.’ And its political goal is to achieve a ‘stable and lasting peace in the Basque country’.
The key to making any progress is dialogue. The Spanish government
needs to talk. Thus far it has refused. This runs entirely counter to Nelson Mandela’s oft quoted
mantra that to make peace we have to make friends with our enemy. That cannot
be done in the absence of a dialogue. It cannot be done in the absence of
respect for the rights of citizens to vote for elected representatives of their
choice.
In this context the
continued imprisonment of Arnaldo Otegi (Secretary General of SORTU) makes no
sense and is deeply unhelpful. In the
course of recent years I have met Arnaldo here and in the Basque country. I
support his efforts and those of the
Basque independence parties to construct a peaceful and democratic resolution
to the conflict in the Basque Country.
Arnaldo is a courageous and
visionary leader who has taken real risks for peace and despite speaking many
years in prison on spurious charges he has never faltered from promoting the
path of peace.
The policy of dispersal of
Basque prisoners from prisons close to their families is not helpful to the
peace process. It mirrors the policy of ‘ghosting’ that was regularly used
against Irish republican prisoners held in Britain. Families would make the
difficult journey to the north of England for a visit with a loved one only to
be told that they were moved the previous day to a prison in London. This
policy, which has no security dimension to it, was simply about hurting the
families and demoralizing the prisoners. So too with Basque prisoners.
It is also a truism of every
peace process I know of that the release of prisoners was an indispensable part
of building confidence. Invariably the prisoners themselves played a crucial
role in assisting the peace.
The refusal of the Spanish
government to engage in dialogue, the continued imprisonment of Arnaldo Otegi
and its punitive regime against Basque prisoners, are evidence of a government
reluctant to embrace the potential for peace.
The Spanish Prime Minister has
an opportunity to take a step change in advance of elections in December by releasing Arnaldo Otegi, and ending
its reprehensible dispersal policy and allow Basque political prisoners to go
home to the Basque Country.
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