Keep up the good work.

France´s relentless collaboration the past decade or more has helped resolve many of the outstanding captures of ETA terrorists. Once considered political refugées under Franco, clearly now the world has seen ETA purely as terrorists. Thank you.

This week the Spanish police also uncovered an apartment near Denia used to keep their explosives. Hopefully with interrrogation we will know what their next objective was.

http://www.euronews.net/2009/10/11/e...-breakthrough/

Read the same information today on eitb.com. It's nice they caught a couple more, but until they stop the flow of cash, and change the mindset of a few others, ETA will continue, although they are nothing more now than a band of common criminals.

Here is a naive question. Where does ETA's cash come from?

Bank robberies, an occasional kidnapping and the constant revolutionary tax and of course foreign entities yet all to be determined.. (and probably drug dealing indirectly. This last is my opinion)..

It is common knowledge about the robberies, kidnappings and revolutionary tax to profitable businesses across Pais Vasco.. you either pay up or get out. Or they kill you or a family member or threaten to do so as you live in a state of terror.

They are more fascist than Franco. Most of the members now were BORN into democracy.

We have acquaintances who had to leave the area and have been given new identities by the government to escape from the persecution, as they refused to pay the HEFTY yearly tax (based on earnings).

Others have been assasinated.. (the father of one friend while we were skiing together).

really really tough.

And not only a FEW support ETA and its causes.. they have thousands of followers. From clergy to city hall mayors. Actually ETA members are considered heroes by their clan. There are many pro-ETA activites around that either are broken apart once they begin.. or in some cases authorized, many times under the name of a pseudo organization.

I have tried to understand all of this. This organizations' existence was easier to "understand" during Franco's regime, but much after that.. non-members cannot find an inkling of a justified cause.

"collaboration" has a very specific meaning to Europeans speaking English which kinda confuses the message here. I thought you were being very ironic.

Still Viva la Belle france

Not at all..


I don't see how the word "collaboration" in THAT sentence could EVER have been misinterpreted.

Ah, perception is all grass-hopper

bilbo.. are you being funny.. or what? I am sorry but I just don't understand. I'm assuming this is a light-hearted comment.

Anyway.. I agree.. "Vive la France."

Well in an international blog there are always going to be difficulties of communication. These are partially down to perception and partially down to specific local meanings of words. "Collaboration" to me is the word that describes what the invaded European countries had to do under the Nazi occupation and would be a cause to be shot (or if female tarred feathered and shot). Hence the start of your document has completely different meaning than you might have expected hence your confusion/stroke anger at my perception. No its not funny and probably is a major cause of war or high stress situations. Hence my attempt to offer you a comfortable different perception.

Keep the faith
Bilbo

"And not only a FEW support ETA and its causes.. they have thousands of followers"

Is there really evidence for this?

In Northern Ireland, all available research shows there are three groups of Catholics:
- real supporters of the IRA and its recent, more violent, splinter groups. Probably almost all known to the police by name, and numbering dozens or possibly a couple of hundred
- passive opponents of the IRA. The overwhelming majority: not prepared to confront the IRA, but not at all in favour of anything the IRA or its splinters do.
- "they're bastards. But our bastards". Neither for nor against the IRA. But they tolerated its behaviour during the Troubles because they honestly believed the authorities weren't to be trusted, and were biased in favour of Protestants, who they thought wanted to wipe them out. This group wouldn't report on IRA crimes to the authorities because of a mixture of fear and belief the IRA were less bad than their Protestant enemies

This last group - who seem roughly to correspond with the "thousands" you call "followers" didn't (and don't) follow the IRA for a second. They were "tolerators" rather than "followers" - and that tolerance was based on a reasonably well-founded mistrust of a police force they saw as hostile.

Haven't many of the police in the Basque provinces been brought in from elsewhere in Spain - and therefore are easily seen as an army of occupation?

No, the police force in the Basque country, the Ertzaintza, are Basque. The National Police, those in the dark blue uniforms, are brought in from different parts of Spain. It's typical throughout the country, a way of protecting the families.

Some of the older members of the Ertzaintza had ties to ETA during and following the Franco era, but that is changing with the younger Ertzaintza members, all of whom are well educated and live in their communities. As the new generation has taken over, things have changed. It’s the same with the Guardia Civil, fresh new faces and a different outlook, no longer tied to Franco.

Patxi Lopez, the new President (Lehendakari) of the Basque country has vowed to put an end to ETA, but it will take a lot of effort, cooperation and time. ETA supporters include those who remember Franco and his party, many whom are still in the government, but ETA itself is no more than a mafia.

If you know anything about the recent history of the Basque people, you will understand that it will take time to get over the haltered many still feel, especially those who remember the bombing of Gernika on market day, Monday, 26 April 1937.

bilbo.. I am not angry.. of course! ..Just sorry to have confused anybody, that's for sure. The French HAVE been collaborating with the Spanish police.. on those terms.. it has been a joint venture, which is what collaborating would mean, against a common enemy in this case. But actually similar to your meaning, I guess, but applied to this partnering.

bilboburgler, I think you're applying one specific use of the word "collaboration" as if it were the only meaning. To me (and I am a native speaker of American English), it's an ordinary, everyday word referring to a joint venture, exactly as lincasanova used it.

My company might describe a collaboration with another company on some joint project. Two volunteer organizations might collaborate on a fund-raiser. None of this carries the slightest tinge of "collaboration with the Nazis".

Actually.. bilbo.. it is only the specific consequences of the collaboration against the nazis when CAUGHT that you are referring to.. not the act of collaborating.

Anyway.. enojgh of this dictionary stuff! I am just glad a few more of these B***ards are off the streets.

Now, if our judicial system would just keep the serial rapists locked up.
Ay..yay..yay.

Now that we are all friends, can you imagine what the world thought when George Bush said he was going to have "a CRUSADE against terrorism"

That word has much more sinister connotations to non Christians.

Colleagues and confreres are called "collaborateurs" in France.