Increased police pressure leaves ETA weaker than ever

The mounting pressure that the various police forces of Spain, France and the Basque Country have exerted since the end of ETA''s previous ceasefire in June 2007 means the armed organisation now finds itself thoroughly weakened, and in probably one of the worst situations of its fifty year existence. Since the end of the previous peace process, nearly 200 arrests have been carried out against ETA activists, six of their political and military heads have been brought down, various networks of weapons caches dismantled and attempts thwarted to set up military bases in Portugal and Catalonia.

On May 21st 2008, the Spanish Civil Guard and French Gendarme arrested four members of ETA on the outskirts of Bordeaux. Among the detainees was Francisco Javier López Peña, also known as Thierry, believed to be the organisation''s political leader. His arrest highlighted the serious differences of opinion held by his division and that headed by Garikoitz Aspiazu, Txeroki, over the management of recent negotiations with the Spanish Government.

Txeroki himself was arrested by police just five months later, on November 17th, during an operation carried out in the Pyrenean region of Cauterets. Spanish security forces were satisfied they had got hold of ETA''s number one. Police took less than a month to arrest Txeroki''s successor, Aitzol Iriondo, detained on December 8th in Gerde in Southeast France. The pressure mounted against the upper echelons of the organization did not end there: On April 18th 2009, five months after the capture and arrest of Iriondo, police managed to detain Jurdan Martitegi Lizaso near Perpignan (France). 2009 also marked the end of the road for two other prominent members of the group''s political and military apparatus: Asier Borrero, arrested in July; and Aitor Elizarán, captured on October 19th in Brittany (Northwest France), who Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba described as "head of the political apparatus, responsible for giving orders to ETA and the nationalist leftwing".

The circle was completed with the capture in Normandy on February 28th that same year of Ibon Gogeaskoetxea, who police believed to be the main chief of his military branch.

The first three months of 2010 were particularly hard on the infrastructure of ETA. Thirty members of the armed organization were arrested, at the same time as 2,000 kilos of explosives were seized by authorities. Among the various blows received by ETA in this period: The dismantling by Basque police of a group based in Ondarroa (Biscay) believed responsible for organizing a number of attacks, including one carried out on a local police station; the arrest on February 13th between the towns of Asteasu and Villabona of Ibon Beobide who police claimed was attempting to set up a new commando of people from Gipuzkoa and Biscay without a police record, and whose capture led to a chain of further detentions; there were also three further arrests in Catalonia, where security forces suspect ETA was attempting to create a new network.

Even more significant was the organization''s frustrated attempt to set up one of its logistics bases in Portugal. Suspicions were first aroused following the arrest on January 10th close to the Portuguese border of two ETA members following the pair''s dramatic getaway in a Civil Guard vehicle. Suspicions were confirmed shortly after on February 5th when police discovered a safe house containing 1,500 kilos of explosive material in the Portuguese town of Obidos.

The organization''s infrastructure of weapons storage has also been seriously affected over the past year: Last August, police in France uncovered a network of arms caches belonging to ETA, from which a large amount of material was removed.

On May 20th, the French Gendarme, working alongside the Spanish Civil Guard, arrested Mikel Karrera Sarobe, suspected military chief, along with Arkaitz Agirregabiria, Maite Aranalde and Eñaut Aramendi, in an operation described by the Spanish Home Office as the "the most important since the fall of Txeroki".