SPAIN: QUE SE VAYAN! (SECURITY ASPECTS OF THE BASQUE PROBLEM)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80T00634A000400010006-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 20, 2006
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: August 31, 1978
• Content Type: IM

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
National Foreign Assessment Center
31 August 1978'
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
SPAIN: Que Se Vayan! '(Security Aspects of the Basque Problem)
Key Judgments
In the wake of renewed violence last month in Spain's
troubled Basque region, the Madrid government appears to be toying
with the idea of allowing a native Basque police force to assume
responsibility for public order. This would remove a major irri-
tant from the Basque scene, but there are serious obstacles:
-- Neither Madrid nor the Spanish military would accept
the replacement of national police by a Basque force;
at best the Basque units would supplement existing
security forces and take over some of their more
confrontational chores.
Basques have a strong antipathy to uniforms and would
be loath to join even a regional police force.
The Madrid government is concerned that the only people
who would join are terrorist and other extremist in-
filtrators.
It would probably be a year or so before the Basque
force could become effective.
This memorandum was prepared by the Office of Regional and
Political Analysis. Questions and comments may be addressed to
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The government's position is complicated by the military,
which is leery of Basque efforts to break away from Madrid's
control. So far the military hays not been directly involved
in the Basque troubles, but there are recent signs that Basque
terrorists have decided to provoke the armed forces. The
military is not likely to intervene unless the situation de-
teriorates dramatically, but the generals may press King Juan
Carlos to crack down on "law and order," or even encourage him
to change the government.
Even if Basque police units come into being, it is difficult
to be sanguine about prospects for controlling terrorism in the
region. Terrorists will continue to ply their trade until the
Basque population can be persuaded to take a strong stand
against them. The underlying concern of the Suarez government
is that continued violence and military pressure will combine
to undermine the consensus politics on which the structure of
Spanish democracy,.rests.
The renewed wave of violence last month in the troubled Basque
region of Spain highlighted the long-standing hostility between Basques
and the national police, while reminding the government that it has not
yet established firm control over its own security forces. Madrid
appears to toying with the idea of allowing a native Basque police
force to assume responsibility for public order. This would remove a
major irritant from the Basque situation, but there are serious ob-
stacles to such a move, and in any case it would take time.
The violence last month, which left two Basque demonstrators dead
and many injured, was triggered by the savage overreaction of Armed
Police units in Pamplona to provocations by Basque radicals. It cul-
minated in the sacking of Renteria, a San Sebastian suburb, by riot
control troops of the Armed Police--an act that Interior Minister
Martin Villa termed "totally incomprehensible." The government moved
quickly to limit the damage, dismissing the civil governor of Navarra
and the two commanders of police units alleged to have killed the two
demonstrators; the officers and men of the Armed Police who rampaged
through Renteria were arrested and are likely to be court martialed.
More recently, a new police chief has been appointed in Bilbao.
"When a policeman dies; eyerone'celebrates"
The hatred between Basques and the two components of the national
police--the paramilitary Civil Guard and the Armed Police--is deep-seated.
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Two of the three Basque provinces, Vizcaya and Guipuzcoa, fought against
Franco during the Civil War and he never forgave them. The Basques were
persecuted economically and culturally, and Franco harshly repressed all
signs of Basque nationalism. The security forces--who, as: a matter of
policy, were recruited outside the Basque provinces--became the instru-
ments of that repression.
The national police have traditionally been the major target of the
Basque terrorist organization ETA. When Basques are killed by the police,
demonstrators chant "ETA, ven alos;" (revenge them). As the leader of
the Basque Revolutionary Party (EIA)--the only party from the Basque
abertzale ("patriotic" left) represented in the lower house of the Spanish
parliament--commented recently, "In the Basque country, when a policeman
dies, everyone celebrates."*
In Euskadi--as the Basques call their region--the national police
are considered an army of occu ation.
Even the 20 percent pay differential for
serving in e asque p inces is not enough compensation for the Civil
Guard and Armed Police, who feel like sitting ducks for ETA snipers and
whose children are harried and beaten up at school. On I August a
spokesman for the National Professional Association of Police said that
the majority of the Armed Police stationed in the Basque region wanted
to leave because of the "intolerable" circumstances and living conditions--
an admission that will encourage the ETA.
Que Se 1a n!
Understandably, policemen under this kind of pressure will overreact
under provocation, and it is easy to say that there will be no lasting
solution to the "Basque Problem"--or even peace in which to work out a
solution--until the last Civil Guard and Armed Policeman has left Euskadi.
Que se Vayan:--roughly "(National Police) Go Home:"--read the posters that
have recently covered the walls of Basque cities, and the cry has even been
taken up in parliament, the Cortes, by the lone EIA deputy. It is less
'This is probably Zess true now than it was a year or so ago, when
the ETA concentrated on killing policemen who had a record of brutality
against Basques under Franco. Most of these officers have now been
transferred to Zess sensitive regions, and the ETA is reduced to killing
at random. More and more innocent Basque bystanders are getting hurt.
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easy to work out a plan for their withdrawal that is both realistic and
acceptable to Madrid and the Spanish military. Even the EIA and other
abertzale parties concede that the withdrawal will have to be gradual,
and that local police forces will have to be recruited and trained to
fill the vacuum. This process could take a year or more and is un-
likely to be initiated until after the constitutional division of powers
between Madrid and the autonomous Basque government has been accepted by
all sides.
No one in a position of responsibility is seriously considering a
withdrawal of all of the national security forces soon. Rather, the
idea is to push them more into the background, letting local police
handle some of the more highly visible work involving confrontations,
like controlling crowds and fighting street crime. According to infor-
mation received by the Spanish newsmagazine Cambio 16, Martin Villa is
thinking of establishing a force of about 400 men in each Basque province
to supplement the 5,000.members of the national police already there.
He has acknowledged that these local police forces would derive from the
historical tradition of the pre-Civil War provincial police: The
Miqueletes in Guipuzcoa, the Minones in Alava, and the Forales in
Vizcaya.
According to Cambio 16 there is general agreement between Martin
Villa and his counterpart on the Basque General Council, Socialist
Txiqui Benegas, that the officers of these local police forces must
be "professionals"--that is, trained in military academies. They would
be chosen by the autonomous regional government of Euskadi from lists
supplied by Madrid.
Filling the ranks presents a more difficult problem. Basques have
developed a strong distaste for national uniforms particularly those
of the security forces, even those Basque politicians who are the
staunchest advocates of a regional police force are concerned that
not enough young Basques can be persuaded to join. The other side of
that coin is the fear, especially in Madrid, that the only people to
join would be members of the ETA and other extremist infiltrators.
One alternative would be to expand the role and powers of the
existing but largely ineffective municipal police. The municipal
police, too, tend to be maquetos (born outside of Euskadi), but at
I, least they do not wear the hated uniforms of the Civil Guard and the
Armed Police. During the recent violence in Pamplona, for example,
4 municipal policemen moved with impunity through hostile demonstrators
intent on provoking clashes with the Armed Police.
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to a_, ~
Some Basque politicians, argue that the important thing is. not so
much that the police be Basques as that they be under the control of
the Basque autonomous government. It is,, however, highly unlikely that
the Basque government will be allowed to exercise full control over the
police forces. Martin Villa pointed out in a press conference that local
police would still come under national control and would be headed by
"officials or chiefs of the Armed Forces, the Civil Guard, or the Armed
Police." The new draft constitution in fact stipulates that the national
state has exclusive authority over public security, though within that
limitation the door is left open for the creation of regional police
forces by the autonomous regions- (Article 143.27).
For the government, the problem is complicated by the knowledge that
other regions will soon clamor for the same right to an autonomous police
force. Madrid, therefore, tends to emphasize a general, watered-down
formula that would be widely applicable. Basques, however, argue that
theirs is a special case that requires a tailor-made solution.
Terrorists have-chosen-us for victims ...it is an honor."-
In any case the military--ever sensitive to Basque efforts to break
away from Madrid's control--would not stand for a completely autonomous
regional police force. Until recently, the military as such has not been
directly involved in the Basque Problem.* There are signs, however, that
the ETA has decided that its best--and perhaps last--hope of spoiling
whatever constitutional deal Prime Minister Suarez and the moderate
Basque Nationalist Party may be considering lies in provoking the sleeping
military giant.
-- On 18 June an ETA commando group forced its way into the
headquarters of the military governor of Guipuzcoa, possibly
intending to kidnap the governor.
-- On 11 July, following the violence in Pamplona, Basque ex-
tremists dynamited the railway line between San Sebastian
and France--an important line of military communication.
-- On 21 July terrorists (ETA or, perha s, the leftist group
GRAPO acting in conjunction with ETA) killed a general and
his aide in Madrid--the first purely military assassination
in recent years.
*Most senior officers of the Armed Police are on detached duty from
the Army; at least one Army officer acting in this capacity has been killed
by the ETA.
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-- On 28 August terrori.s.ts. killed four policemen i.n three different
regions of northern Spain, including two in Euskadi.. The attacks
were clearly aimed at demonstrating widespread terrorist coopera-
tion there, and provoking the police or the military into an
overreaction.
oL
a
The ETA apparently hopes to get the military to press for a government
crackdown on public order in the Basque provinces or, better still, to
order a military occupation of Euskadi.. In its "program book" of 1964,
the ETA spelled out the reasoning behind this goal. If deteriorating
public order results in a military takeover, the terrorists will step up
their guerrilla activity:
The enemy, like a colossus who is stung by many bees,
loses control of himself, becomes infuriated to the
point of paroxysm, and hits out blindly to the right
and left. We have then achieved one of our major goals:
To oblige our,adversary to commit 1,000 stupid moves
and acts of barbarism. The majority of his victims
are innocent people. Thus, the people, up to then more
or less passive and waiting to see what happens, become
outraged against the colonialist tyrant and, by way of
reaction, move completely to our side.
The military is girding for more attacks. After the assassination
of the two officers in Madrid, Defense Minister Gutierrez Mellado issued
a terse communique:
Terrorists have chosen us for victims. It is an honor.
Possibly others in our ranks will fall. But above us
all there is Spain, which will not break apart because
of that.
Both government and military seem to realize that military intervention
in Euskadi would play into the ETA's hands. As an admission of the
government's failure to control the situation, such intervention would
have far-reaching political implications. Moreover, the military is
neither trained nor equipped to perform a public order role and it does
not appear to relish the prospect.
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If you can't trust the police, whom can you trust?
The government has taken steps to,set up an anti-terrorist force
called the Special Operations Group that will be part of the Armed Police.
It will be patterned after similar antiterrorist units in Western Europe.
Outlook
It is difficult to be sanguine about a question that is as complex
and deep-rooted as the Basque problem, especially where good will is so
i conspicuously lacking. On the positive side, however, the government
has the backing of the Socialists and Communists in its efforts to stymie
the terrorists.** The establishment of a local police force offers a
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glimmer of hope--not for a lasting solution of the whole political,
cultural, and economic problem, but fob a respite from the continual
bloody clashes between demonstrators and police that have initiated
so many of the cycles of violence in the region. This, in turn, could
provide the opportunity for cooler heads on both sides to prevail.
A regional police force will not appease the ETA any more than
past amnesties and concessions on political autonomy have. The hard-
core terrorists will settle for nothing less than an independent
Marxist Euskadi; even an autonomous region governed by the moderate
Basque Nationalists--who represent the vast majority of ethnic
Basques--would be inimical to the ETA goal. For Basques, therefore,
the stark choice is becoming increasingly evident as the government
nears a modus vivendi with the Basque Nationalists: they must be
either with the ETA or against it.
Among Basques who responded to a poll published this summer in
Cambio 16, the support for ETA's armed struggle was only 4 to 8 percent
in the three Basque provinces, but 8 to 15 percent still expressed a
general support for the ETA.* Although 32 to 39 percent opposed the
ETA, 33 to 37 percent were neither for nor against. The government
will have little chance of stamping out ETA as long as such a large
portion of the population remains apathetic.
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The poll was taken Zast October.
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