A history of ETA truces

Since its formation in 1959, the armed Basque nationalist group ETA has called a truce on several occasions, though the expected announcement of a subsequent ceasefire has not always materialized.

Some truces were relevant purely to specific objectives; for example, a promise not to attack either prison guards or Basque police agents, or the ceasefire that was declared for the whole of the Catalonian region.

28-01-1988: First truce
The first offer of a truce came on January 28th 1988. A few days before, an accord had been signed ''for the pacification and normalization of the Basque Country'' at the Basque Parliament, better known as the ''Ajuria Enea Pact''. Within the backdrop of this agreement, ETA declared a 60-day ceasefire and even made contact with the Spanish Government, though no meeting ever took place. Before the sixty days were up, the armed group kidnapped businessman Emiliano Revilla.

08-01-1989: Meeting in Algiers
Several months after being kidnapped, Revilla was finally released. On the first anniversary of the ''Ajuria Enea Pact'', on January 8th 1989, talks began in the Algerian capital of Algiers. The basis for the talks came when ETA announced a unilateral two-week truce. Attending the talks were Eugenio Etxebeste, known as Antxon, and Rafael Vera, as the key representatives of ETA and the Spanish Government respectively. After accusations on both sides of a lack of willingness to reach an agreement, three months later ETA declared it would once again be active "on all fronts".

10-07-1992: Following the fall of ETA''s military leadership in Bidart (France)
The next truce was not until July 1992, when ETA announced a 60-day armistice. A few months previously, in March 1992, the leadership of ETA''s Bidart military wing was brought down. Among those arrested was its chief, Francisco Mujika Garmendia, or Pakito. Around the same time, conversations between the PNV and Herri Batasuna (HB) led to the route of the planned motorway to Leitza (previously an ETA target) being modified.

23-06-1996: ETA makes offer to newly-elected PP
Four years passed before a new truce was declared. In March 1996, the conservative Popular Party of Spain won the general election and four months later ETA invited the new Government to make contact. The armed group held a 7-day ceasefire which was not acknowledged by Government President José María Aznar. One year later, ETA carried out probably its most shocking attack within the Basque community to date: The kidnap and assassination of 29-year-old PP councillor for Ermua, Miguel Ángel Blanco.

16-09-1998: Longest ceasefire to date
Conversations held between the ruling Basque nationalist coalition PNV-EA and ETA, plus the signing of the Lizarra-Garazi agreement, led to the armed group calling its longest ever ceasefire in September 1998. It was unconditional and indefinite.

The PP Government called it a "ceasefire trap" but nonetheless entered into negotiations with heads of the organization.

The nationalist leftwing (HB) signed a governance agreement with the remaining nationalist parties, in which it backed an end to violence and the use of exclusively democratic means.

440 days later ETA called an end to the ceasefire, blaming the PNV and the EA.

In the years that followed
After that, the political situation was marked by a resumption of violence. One attack, which ended the life of Basque Socialist politician Fernando Buesa, led to nationalist party EH (later Aralar) breaking away from the (Governance) pact. In the autonomous region''s presidential elections of 2001, both the Socialist and Popular Parties failed to wrestle power from the nationalist PNV.

Subsequently the ''For Liberties and Against Terrorism'' Agreement, known as the ''Anti-terrorist Pact'', was signed which led to Batasuna being declared illegal.

In 2004, Spanish Socialist Party leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was elected to power and in the following October French police arrested ETA''s top chief, Mikel Antza.

22-03-2006: Permanent ceasefire
On March 22nd 2006, ETA declared another truce, this time hinting at a "permanent ceasefire". Consequently, the Spanish Government initiated - what was to later prove - a doomed peace process, which saw them entering negotiations with ETA in Geneva. Concurrently, the PNV, PSE-EE and Batasuna held talks at the Loyola Basilica in Azpeitia.

On October 31st of the same year, these three political parties sealed a document entitled "Bases for dialogue and political agreement" which recognised the national identity of the Basque people, supported a commitment among State institutions to uphold any decision made by the Basque people regarding their political future and guaranteed all Basque citizens that their rights would be included within international law.