ETA's announcement 'not enough' for the victims

Relatives of jailed ETA activists reacted on Monday to the latest ceasefire announcement by the Basque separatist group, as Spaniards pondered whether the latest one holds anything different or will fail like the others.

Meanwhile, the Spanish government on Monday swiftly ruled out holding negotiations on a Basque homeland and rejected Sunday''s truce as a desperate gambit by an extremist group staggering after the arrests of its leaders.

ETA has announced 11 ceasefires throughout its history, the last of them in 2006, which it called permanent.

But in 2006 the truce was shattered when the group exploded a car bomb at Madrid airport, killing two people.

Other reactions

Benat Zarrabeitia, the nephew of an ETA activist who died in prison 24 years ago, and Ione Artola, a relative of two ETA prisoners, represent one of the more complicated issues facing a possible negotiated peace process in the Basque country: ETA prisoners and the policy of dispersion.

Artola''s son Ugaitz was sentenced to 46 years for attacking police stations and banks, under Spanish law these acts are considered a "form of terrorism". He is 33 years old. Her brother pleaded guilty to being a member of ETA, he has been in jail for the last 24 years; he is 48 years old.

As part of a policy of dispersing ETA prisoners, Ugaitz is in a prison in Galicia and Joseba her brother is in Terual.

ETA relatives have continually demanded that the prisoners be brought closer to the Basque country, a suggestion that has been rejected by the Spanish government.

Government reaction to latest announcement

Spain has claimed the new ceasefire is just another gambit by ETA in order to buy time, regroup and rearm.

After the 2006 truce, promising peace talks with the government ensued but quickly went nowhere, and nine months later ETA reverted to violence with a massive car bomb that killed two Ecuadorean immigrants in a parking garage at Madrid airport.

ETA''s last deadly attack was a July 2009 car bomb that killed two policemen on the island of Mallorca.

This time inside, not outside, forces appear to have prompted three masked ETA members to declare a cease-fire on Sunday in front of a ETA sign with a snake slithering around an axe.

While historically ETA has called the shots, the pressure for a new halt to violence seems to have come from the group''s own political supporters.