(Basque) Eta declares halt to armed conflict

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Half a century of bloodshed in Spain's northern Basque country has come to a historic close after armed separatist group Eta finally renounced the use of arms and sought talks with the Spanish and French governments.

The announcement that one of Europe's bloodiest groups was calling a final stop to the use of bombs and bullets was made by three masked leaders of the group in a video on the website of the Basque Gara newspaper.

"Eta has decided the definitive cessation of its armed activity," they said.

Eta was following a peace script put together with the help of mediators led by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan after a year in which it had observed a unilateral ceasefire.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/20/eta-spain

[elleng]

1. Not the first time; hope this lasts.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Keypoint...they have made this claim before

[99th_Monkey]

2. Interestingly, the Basque area is the Worker-Ownership Capital of the World

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondrag%C3%B3n

And because of that I'd bet that they are pretty much insulated from
all the nasty shit coming down in the rest of Europe. Hell even their
banks are worker-owned co-ops.

[Hardrada]

3. How does Catalonia rank. They used to be strong syndicalists.

[K8-EEE]

4. I'm half Basque -- my grandparents escaped Franco

It's true they have a great liberal tradition and the Basque were always great resisters to Franco's fascism which of course got them bombed but you can't kill ideas with bombs, not for long.

[Odin2005]

6. The Basques are awesome, and their language is nuts, LOL!

[K8-EEE]

7. Sooooo nuts! They say that the devil tried for 7 years to learn it and only learned the word for

"no" which is why the Basques are so untainted, LOL!

[Odin2005]

8. LMAO!