"We appeal to all the people and militants of Euskal Herria to participate in the brigades"
- Urtzi Iriarte (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1995) is a member of Askapena. After a two-year break, internationalization brigades are being organized in summer to learn about experiences from other countries and return them to Euskal Herria.
After two years of standstill, the brigades have re-launched. Have the difficulties created by the pandemic been over?
We have made a two-year stop because there were no conditions for travel, but the political objectives are maintained. Moreover, in view of the recent international situation and the measures being taken as an excuse for the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe it is more necessary than ever to continue this work. We've been organizing groups for 35 years and learning from international experiences. The aim is to reach as many peoples as possible.
What are the brigades?
The brigades are tools based on round-trip solidarity. They are useful for different actors and peoples, for example, to make alliances. In the Brigade the one who goes abroad knows the other people and at the same time explains the reality of our people. They serve to share wrestling tools and to bring what they learned outside to Euskal Herria. Many times we say that the work of the brigadists starts above all back, sharing here what they learned during the trip, both in the agents involved, in the village, etc.
In the presentation they said you are not going to do political tourism, help or give revolutionary lessons...
That's it. To the people who come to our brigades we tell them that we cannot go to give lessons, that we must reject paternalistic practices or that the objective of these journeys cannot be individualistic. The brigades are collective instruments and, therefore, it is also necessary to collectivize what has been learned there, in this case contributing to the liberation movement of the Basque Country.
Where do you usually send the brigades to?
We have gone to Latin America, especially because we have a lot to learn from the processes of recent years. Also in the Middle East. Moreover, since Euskal Herria is dependent on the French and Spanish States, we have also chosen alliances with other peoples of Europe. This year, in addition to other brigades, we will be organising those of the Catalan countries, Southern Italy and Greece.
In Latin America we organize the brigade of Venezuela to learn about the practice of the Bolivarian revolution, especially the experience in the services; in Bolivia we know its process to know its peoples and its struggle for languages; in Argentina and Uruguay we analyze the workers power, especially with the experiences of the occupied factories and in Uruguay the historical memory, collecting in 1994 the events of the Filter; in Brazil we know the agricultural movement, all about the In the Middle East, we traveled to Palestine to learn about its political conflict.
Askapena was born 35 years ago. How about you as a movement?
OK. We continue to work because we see the need for such an organization in Euskal Herria to work on internationalism. If we make an assessment of these 35 years, it cannot be positive, because we see that objective conditions are getting worse. The working class is becoming more and more exploited and we see the urgent need for alliances. A few years ago, a trial was held against Askapena at the Spanish National Hearing in relation to the arrests of 2010, which they tried to outlaw us, but they did not succeed and here we continue to work, as we said, internationalism.
They have denounced the war in Ukraine and the expansion of NATO...
Imperialism needs war to keep accumulating profits, and damage is always paid by the working class. The Atlantic bloc, via NATO, continues to develop imperialism. It should be remembered that the war that has taken place in Ukraine began in 2014, when he confronted the Donbass. We have decided to continue to denounce the behaviour of Atlanticism in this global struggle of hegemony, as well as the situation of Donbass. The European Union is primarily responsible and it is up to us to do a work of conscience, of what is happening, of what NATO’s interests are and what the picture is beyond what political parties and the media tell us.
How long is registration in the brigades open?
The deadline expires on 19 April. To get information brigadak@askapena.eus write a message to We appeal to all the people and militants of Euskal Herria to participate in the brigades to contribute to the construction of Euskal Herria internationalist and to organize and fight for Euskal Herria.
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