Spain bans Batasuna party, the 'mask of Eta'

The Eta car-bomb killing of a six-year-old girl and a man at the tourist resort of Santa Pola this month set in motion moves which culminated in yesterday's parliamentary vote in favour of outlawing Batasuna, the party seen as the Basque terror group's political wing.

Shortly after the Santa Pola atrocity, the Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, said he wanted Eta to "pay very soon". He added: "I am not prepared to let the human garbage that are Batasuna members walk the streets with impunity while we Spaniards have to bury innocent victims, including children."

Not since end of the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco more than 25 years ago has the Spanish parliament voted to outlaw a fully-fledged political party .

"Batasuna has run out of time to change," Luis de Grandes, the parliamentary spokesman for the ruling Popular Party told the session. "Batasuna is the mask behind which Eta hides its real face. Batasuna is the seedbed and the refuge of murderers."

Although Batasuna denies links with Eta, the government says the party is a key part of the armed group's shadowy network of commandos, fund-raising activities and recruitment operations.

The Parliamentary vote is the first step in a process established by a law approved at the end of June. That allows the Supreme Court to ban parties deemed to be actively or tacitly supporting terrorism. The failure of Batasuna's leader Arnaldo Otegi to condemn the Santa Pola bombing was the justification provided by the government for outlawing the party. It was tacit support for terrorism, the Mr Aznar said.

The Spanish cabinet will rubber-stamp the Parliamentary vote on Friday and send it to the Supreme Court for a final decision in three months. Hours before the historic vote, the crusading Spanish investigative judge, Baltasar Garzon, suspended Batasuna's activities for up to three years while the High court rules whether the party should be made illegal on criminal grounds.

Judge Garzon's 375-page order means the immediate shutdown of the network of taverns that serve as Batasuna's party offices and the freezing of public funding for the party.

Judge Garzon, known for his efforts to bring the former Chilean dictator General Pinochet to justice, says the network of People's Taverns is used by Eta to store weapons. He accuses the party of justifying Eta killings and staging public homages to dead Eta members, such as a young woman who blew herself up handling explosives in the resort of Torrevieja last year.

Judge Garzon's order said Eta had killed 836 people since its first attack in 1968, injured 2,367 in 3,391 attacks, and sponsored 3,761 acts of so-called low-level violence since 1991. The judge said Batasuna was part of the campaign. "All of these acts have been systematically aimed at specific sectors of the population, and sometimes indiscriminate, so one should not hesitate to classify the actions of the terrorist organisation Eta, of which (Batasuna) is an element, as crimes against humanity," the order said.

Batasuna draws 10 per cent of the votes in the Basque country and neighbouring Navarre in regional elections and 30 per cent in provinces in municipal elections. It has changed its name twice and several leaders have been jailed for Eta connections.

The conservative nationalist Basque Nationalist Party which runs the Basque autonomous government has warned that an outlawing order will deepen confrontation and will not end the conflict.