Why start in 1967? ETA was born before, in 1959, and if we look at what Julen Madariaga says, of the founders of ETA, in the book The Debt of Truth, in 1952, when EKIN was born, because according to him ETA was nothing but a change of name. But in 1967, ETA made the V. In the General Council, the string on deadly attacks was opened: “ETA Militarra (ETAm), ETA Political-Military (ETApm) and Autonomous Anti-Capitalist Commands (CAA) have left this root,” says the author.

In 1967, the first deaths would come after this strategy: The civil guard José Pardines and etarra Txabi Etxebarrieta. López Adam, as is well known, was a member of ETA in the 1960s and early 1970s, also took over the leadership of the organization and participated in the meeting.

Analysis of each action

According to the author, the dead are the hardest part of the armed struggle and, therefore, the analysis of the armed struggle has been based on the dead in this armed practice, both by acts of armed organizations – most of them by ETA – and by police or para-police forces. The book analyzes a total of 1,300 deaths, of which 842 have been caused directly or indirectly by Basque armed organizations, and the rest by security forces or police forces. This is how he explains his purpose: “It is, therefore, an action-oriented research. And not a return to the ideological explanations of researchers, friends or enemies about armed organizations.”

Each action analyzes who did, why, the State's response, what the media said at that time... in general, all the information he has found about that action, sometimes public and other clandestine: “To deepen the micro history of each action or event, to understand the interactions generated by violence and to show its meaning in the struggles of class or people.” In any case, “work does not want to establish the final truth, but to bring new raw materials to research.”

And what about names? He acknowledges that he has been afraid to mention names because he does not want to “give bellows to repression.” Many of the armed actions studied in the book continue to be investigated by the Spanish State and, as far as possible, will be judged and punished. Aware of this, the author explains that only he mentions the names of the people who appear in the media or in legal proceedings, that is, that they are already public. In his opinion, it makes no sense to make history without citing names, and many other researchers or people also cite them.

“Revolutionary violence”

Then it is seen that this is a work from the perspective of those who have engaged in the armed struggle, without rejecting that armed violence “comes from where it comes from”, from what he calls “revolutionary violence”. And, in his view, three conditions are required for this violence: “Liberating political objectives; strategy to achieve objectives; and limits of civic tendency, that is, appropriate actions”.

According to López Adam, in the presentation of the paper, “from the point of view of strategy, insurrection, the widespread war of the people, guerrillas or negotiation… different formulas have been tried. This trajectory has had ups and downs, conditioned by the politics and repression of the states, but in general it has been situated in the tradition of the revolts”. In his view, one of the most serious problems has been the “selectivity of actions” and as a result, “many people have felt that liberating ethics have been abandoned”. Therefore, the objective of the study is “to investigate the articulation between strategy and ethics... To understand the facts and face the restorative and reactionary attitudes raised that denies revolutionary violence, it is necessary to re-cite the analyses and representations that were once vital.”

The author and editor of Mayo, Luzien Etxezaharreta, presented the book on Wednesday in Baiona. The book has been edited in Basque and the price of each copy is 35 euros.