Basque author on trial in Chile for supporting Mapuche struggle

Basque writer Asel Luzarraga was arrested in December 31 2009 while making a graffiti in solidarity with the Mapuche struggle for land and self-rule. He was accused of "terrorism", specifically of planting two bombs in Temuko in December 2009, one of them when he was not in Chile and the other (not exploded) the very same day of his arrest.

In spite of the severity of the accusations he has been under home arrest (while simultaneously an order of expulsion has been issued as well).

There seems to no grounds whatsoever for the accusation other than being anarchist, solidarious with the Mapuche cause and possibly being Basque. There was a newspaper cartoon the other day that read: "everybody is innocent until proven Basque", funny maybe but way too real.

However the trial begins today.

Meanwhile the Mapuche struggle continues. Prisoners have been in hunger strike for many weeks already and are being force-fed by the authorities. Some may die soon. Mostly this struggle has gone unnoticed in the media, even in Chile itself. And that may be because, as Atilio Boron said, the Mapuches are not Cubans. Can you imagine anything like this happening in Cuba and not being first page in all the international media?

Well, if it happens in Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Morocco or Spain... it seems it is not news-worthy.

Kosovar independence "legal"

The International Court of Justice has declared that Kosovo's independence is perfectly legal in the frame of international law. The decision was taken by ten votes against four.

The resolution clearly states that no international law forbade Kosovo from unilaterally declaring its independence and that there is no norm in international law addressing this matter. Furthermore it declares that the Kosovar Assembly had power to take decisions that affected its legal status.

This is symbolically important because it means that any democratic assembly of any entity can unilaterally declare its independence on the eyes of international law. Chechnya can, Catalonia can, Scotland can, Abkhazia can... and the Basque Country can become independent at whim of its democratically elected institutions.

Your country or subnational area forms no any unified administrative unit, as may be the case with the Northern Basque Country or parts of Kurdistan? No big deal: each of its towns can declare their independence and then aggregate themselves in a larger polity at whim.

It may sound I am being sarcastic but I am not: this is real democracy, where the people decides at all levels. It is the test of true democracy: if you cannot swallow that, then you are surely a fascist, covert or openly.

However, touching ground, the reality is that a lot depends of what effective foreign supports you can muster. Abkhazia is independent because it is supported by Russia, while neighboring Chechnya is not because it is confronting Russia. Similarly Kosovo is independent because it has the support of NATO while the Basque Country or Kurdistan are not because Spain and Turkey are members of NATO.

But it is still a relevant resolution that I welcome. Since the decolonization process, when a lot of artificially formed states arose, specially in Africa but also in West Asia, challenging established borders has been a taboo. The taboo was broken by the many independences of Eastern Europe in the 1990s, however a new fetish was created: that in order to be able to self-determinate, the subject of that right had to be ranked as federative republic, a was the case of Croatia or Estonia. But that is nothing but a political fetish because producing such statuses or not is generally a historical decision of the factual state, some of which have been more understanding on the national issues, specially the Socialist ones, producing federal structures, while others have been not producing centralized Jacobin structures or intermediate regional autonomies, which may or not be what the various peoples really want.

In the case of Kosovo, it was not granted status of republic under Tito, which was their first demand in the late 1980s and early 1990s, only because the dominant ethnicity was not Slavic... and Yugoslavia was conceived as a Slavic state. So this very decision amounted to an act of racism, an injustice that would eventually cause the total disintegration of Yugoslavia. Because, let's face it: it all began in Kosovo.

Similarly the lack of capability of Spain to define itself in the plurinational terms of its reality will soon cause its implosion. It is something unavoidable when you have millions demonstrating at the streets crying at once: "we are a nation!" It's just a matter of time.

I often mention the conversation we had in Skopje in the winter of 1993 with a local liberal politician, where he claimed that a CIA agent had told him that Yugoslavia had lost its strategical relevance. Our interlocutor told him: I am glad to hear that. And the spy replied: I would not be so happy if my country would lose its strategical relevance.

I recently mentioned that Europe as a whole is now losing strategical relevance as the geopolitical scenario moves to Asia and EU is totally unable to become a federation with a powerful self to compete in such a complex scenario and instead relies too much on the vassalage to the USA.

As Europe, and specially Western Europe loses its geostrategical importance, we can at least now hope for the much awaited scenario of internal decolonization, protracted for so long. Just like Eastern Europe experienced this decolonization with the demise of the USSR, Western Europe can only expect to achieve this democratic goal with the demise of NATO and EU.

I am Europeist but I am for a very different kind of united Europe, not this crappy marketplace for the oligarchs and commonwealth of fossil old glory polities. To build something decent, we have to demolish first.

Source of the legal details: Gara[es]

Catalans take Barcelona by millions!

We are a nation - Self-determination!

More than one million people, according to the city police, took to the streets in Barcelona today in defense of their Statute as the people and democratic institutions designed it, and not the mutilated remnant that the Spanish Constitutional Court would allow.

Catalonia has 6 million inhabitants, so these figures mean that practically every Catalan is supportive of the Statute. It also meant that the demo had major difficulties proceeding as planned because the people itself prevented it from advancing unwillingly, which happened at the rate of very few meters per minute, with streets and streets cramped with people and republican Catalan banners.

Sources: VilaWeb, Gara

This situation really pits Catalans and the Spanish institutions into a confrontational dead-end that can only be resolved with a radical change of the Spanish Constitution, something that the Spanish parties are not for.

Unlike the small Basque Country, Catalonia is a major demographic (and even greater economic) component of the State of Spain and it is very difficult to see how can it be ignored for long.

Canada's Aboriginal "insurgency"

Something I noticed a few days ago when reviewing the last year at Leherensuge was that I have proportionally many Canadian readers. With 34 million people, Canada cannot be considered a large country by population (it is by mere geographic size, of course) but still lists 4th among the readers of this blog, with some 1500 visits in the last 12 months.

So I imagine that they may be interested in reading this article by Jon Elmer at Al Jazeera on what seems to be growing conflict between the Aboriginal minority and the state on a long trail of unsolved problems such as poor services, poverty and effective inequality with other Canadians. They may also want to give their opinion, which I am interested in and I welcome.

Very briefly: Elmer points to the latest history where Aboriginal Canadians have resourced to blockades (what reminds me a bit of the actions of Native American communities elsewhere in the continent, particularly in Bolivia but also in other countries) threatening the economical infrastructure of Canada, largely based on extraction of natural resources and transport through nearly empty swathes of land that are mostly populated by Aborigines.

Aboriginal peoples constitute the largest ethnicity in the areas shaded in brown and magenta (this last represents Inuits)
(from Wikipedia)

This has been occasionally considered "insurgency" and suggested to be dealt as such via counter-insurgency methods such as those used in Afghanistan.

He also mentions how the number of Aboriginal Canadians in prison is totally disproportionate and that ethnic gangs are recruiting there. These gangs seem to be increasingly politicized and often resort to "Robin Hood" style of crime: robbing the rich and white to give, at least partly, to the poor and native.

The most recent case of blockade I know of happened just nine days ago, with police arresting the demonstrators including Acting Chief Benjamin Notaway of the Algonquin nation. While I don't know all the details it seems from the news article that the government is using in this case the typical Latin American method of promoting a corrupt minority faction as the official "representation". Well, actually that happens also here in the Basque Country... so not really surprised.

Feel free to discuss because to me it is a rather ill-known development (you won't read about this growing conflict usually in international media) but one which should not be hidden and that can eventually has important repercussions, I imagine.

Anti-Mapuche repression in Chile reaches Basques

Basque writer and musician Asel Luzarraga was arrested on December 31 accused of participating in a bomb attack against an official building in Temuco (Mapuche Country). Yesterday the Chilean authorities ratified the arrest, claiming that Asel is a "danger for society".

Asel Luzarraga

The Basque writer has since the beginning rejected any relation with the attack. According to his family he is alright but "in state of shock" because of the unexpected accusations and arrest.

The Uruguayan NGO, Euskal Herriaren Lagunak (Friends of the Basque Country) has presented a writ at the Chilean embassy in Montevideo supporting his innocence and demanding his immediate liberation. His acquaintances have also created a blog asking for signatures in support of his freedom. The Basque Pen Club also asked for his release.

Internationalist NGO Askapena (Freedom) has declared that the only and true reason for Asel's imprisoning is that the Chilean regime does not want witnesses of its aggression against the Mapuche nation.

The Mapuche (also known as Araucanians) are a proud native nation of South America that remained independent, under just formal Spanish overlordship, until the 1880s, when Chile invaded the country. As result, the Mapuche people have suffered since then extreme poverty and marginalization, seeing their lands robbed by the Chilean state and colonists.

In the last decades though the Mapuches have repeatedly confronted the central state by either nonviolent or violent means, the return to democracy of Chile only saw makeup reforms in what regards to the indigenous nation and hence the conflict has spiralled, with brutal repression from the state that nevertheless has seen nearly no echo in the international media.

There are many parallels between Basque and Mapuche history in spite of being so different peoples: we are both aboriginal nations, invaded by foreigners and impossed alien laws against our will and our sovereign rights as nations.

Source: Gara.

Increase in repression of Kurds leads to street fighting

After commenting on Catalonia and Greece (I did not mention Greek financial troubles though, but it is the next "Dubai" or "Iceland" quite obviously), and in what seems to be the aggravation of the existing class and ethnic conflicts in Europe, it's indeed obliged to mention also the difficult situation that Kurds under Turkish occupation are going through again.

Never mind that sectors of the PKK have actively expressed their will for a peaceful solution, even turning themselves to Turkish authorities as a sign of such a determination. Turkey is a hyper-nationalist country with a weak identity that only seems to be able to exist as opposition to some "enemy", preferably weak and within its borders, just like its Western counterpart: Spain.

It seems that instead of looking for a solution, the Turkish Republic is again attacking its own citizens, just because they reject to be forced into the uniform corset of Turkishness. They have banned a major Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP).

It is the 10th major Kurdish party to be banned by the Constitutional Court, what strongly suggests that it is the high tribunal and the restrictive constitution the ones that needs to be banned instead.

The announcement has caused the 21 MPs of this formation to abandon all parliamentary activity without renouncing to their seats. It has also caused major protests and clashes in North Kurdistan.

Kurds make up between 20% and 25% of the population of the Turkish Republic but their language and culture have been essentially forbidden, though with some shy tolerance measures in the last decades, mostly makeup to show up at Brussels. Kurds demand recognition of their culture and identity and the eshtabilishment of a Kurdish autonomous regions where they are majority. Historically Turkey, based on an extreme version of the French Jacobine model of nation-state, instead has rejected any compromise with the minorities, causing the genocide of Armenians and the ethnic cleansing of Greeks. The approach to Kurds, mostly Sunni Muslims like Turks, were to call them "mountain Turks" and get their language and identity banned. This "solution" did not last for long and eventually Kurds took up arms against the invader state.

The conflict looks far from being solved because that won't happen while the Turkish state keeps its arrogant imperialist attitude.

Sahrawis could face death penalty

Seven Sahrawi citizens are being subject in Morocco to military trials for "treason". Their crime, to meet with the refugees at the Tindouf camps in Algeria and therefore having contact with the Polisario Front.

They were originally kidnapped by the occupation forces upon their return to West Sahara. Other five people were similary kidnapped but abandoned then in the desert.

The seven activists are jailed in the infamous high security prison of Salé, near Rabat. They are being accused of "attack against territorial integrity, against national security and meeting the enemy, and could even face the death penalty.

Morocco is an authoritarian regime where the monarch's power is absolute. It is, together with Swaziland, the last monarchy of Africa. In the 1970s, Morocco annexed unilaterally the former Spanish colony of West Sahara against the will of the people, sparking the continuity of the anti-colonialist guerrilla. The annexation is not recognized internationally and Morocco is in fact an occupying power.

Source: Rebelión.
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30 years of Western Basque "autonomy": empty celebrations and demands of self-determination

The statute of autonomy that grants to the Western Basque regions certain self-rule within Spain, is now 30 years old. After more than a decade of such "birthdays" not being celebrated at all, the new undemocratic government of López has resuscitated the day but getting nearly no audience.

The pro-Spanish parties, that rule without popular support, thanks to judicial manipulation of the electoral scenery, have been the only ones to join the official events. Even the "open doors" day at Ajuria Enea, the residence of the Lehendakari (President), has only raised the interest of a few hundred individuals.

The largest Basque political formation, the conservative Basque Nationalist Party, declined again to participate in the calculated choreographies of the unionists and has instead asked again for the fulfillment of the statute in its integrity, something they have been demanding since the 1980s. The extremely "moderate" (pro-Spanish) speaker of this party, I. Urkullu, called instead for "a pact built on a new model of relationship, as is defined by the New Political Statute [Ibarretxe Plan] approved by the [Western] Basque Parliament", law that included the right of self-determination for Basques and that was blocked at the Spanish parliament without any second thoughts.

The PM by Eusko Alkartasuna (Basque Solidarity, center-left), J.M. Larrazabal, stated that the statute is impossible to recycle, as it is such a "disfigurated and deteriorated" legal frame cannot be revived. He asked for a wholly new legal and political structure that includes the right to self-determination.

The so-called Gernika Statute was approved in 1978-79 and was only half-way to the huge self-rule that Basque provinces enjoyed before the Carlist Wars and id not acknowledge the right of Basques to self-determination. For these reasons, more than 40% of Western Basques chose abstention in the referendum of 1979. Additionally many of its capacities have never been fully implemented, as the Spanish government has made an issue of retaining such competences. In many cases the Basque Government had to act unilaterally in order to partially transfer such attributions.

Nowadays only the unionists support it, as even the most moderate of Basque nationalist formations is demanding to move over into a new more democratic frame, truly representative of Basque collective will. The more or less legal fraud in the latest elections, putting a unionist proconsul in Ajuria Enea, clearly against popular will, has only aggravated the "constituional crisis" that the Basque Country is going through.

Source: Gara.
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Interview Ahmed Zakayev, exiled PM of Chechnya

Again I find a most interesting interview at Gara newspaper, this time with the leader of the Chechen government in exile, A. Zakayev. I translate it here to English as I think it is quite interesting:

Gara: 20 years have passed since the Berlin Wall was demolished and 10 since the beginning of the Second Chechen War. Would have changed anything if Gorbachev would have managed to fully implement the Perestroika?

Zakayev: No doubt. The catastrophe of Chechnya began with the collapse of the USSR, Yeltsin recognized the republics that broke apart (Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan...) but decreed that the Republic of Chechnya-Ingushetia would remain under control of Moscow. If Gorvachev would have managed to introduce all his reforms, both economical and political, today the USSR would be something like the European Union.

G: You were Minister of Culture in the government of Djokhar Dudayev until his death in 1996. What kind of leader was he?

Z: Many lies have been said of him. He has been called "bandit", "fanatic", "intransigent"... But in fact Dudayev was an intelligent and dialogant person, nothing like the image that Moscow has been trying to "sell". In November 1994 promised me that he would do everything possible to prevent the war and in December he received a telegram from the Kremlin calling for a negotiation round at Vladikavkaz (North Ossetia). Against the opinion of many in his cabinet, who were against any sort of negotiation, Dudayev confirmed his assistance. But Moscow canceled the meeting and the war began soon after that.

G: In any case, you won the First Chechen War (1994-96), and enjoyed then of som form of self-rule until the second war began. How was that period?

Z: I beleive that you should re-formulate your question. Who told you that we won the war? 80% of Grozny was destroyed but I never saw even a single broken window in Moscow. Those three years were some of the darkest ones in the history of Cechnya: more than 100,000 people died and as many were left homeless too. The Republic was completely ruined, people lived at the edge of desperation because mere survival was a huge challenge. In the peace agreement, the indemnizations to be paid by Moscow were determined, but none was ever fulfilled. We were the true victims of that war and even then it was said that we had won.

The Chechnyan government of that time, including myself, was guilty of excessive relaxation. In such situation it was easy for Moscow to manipulate its members. The situation reminded of how an adult in kindergarten manages the children at whim: conducting them, making them argue...

Sergei Primakov, the then Foreign Minister of Russia, anounced that they would break relations with anyone recognizing the independence of Chechnya. Nobody did, nor was there any European organization that would send a single ruble to Chechnya.

G: Can you describe in further detail that interference from Moscow?

Z: Since the very moment when the ceasefire was signed in September 1996, Russia began getting ready for the next war. It was not the end of a conflict but the beginning of the preparations for another one. The Russian secret services initiated a campaign to divide the Chechnyan people and prepare everything for the war to come.

They soon realized that the most effective way to split Chechnyan society was through religion. It was then when the Arabs began arriving to the country. All them brought money, money that never reached the leader of the Republic, who was then Masjadov, but that ended in the pockets of whoever was able to raise a combat unit. Most of them were opposed to the government.

A second area of intervention were the media. In the First Chechnyan War, journalists from all around the world had direct access to the country and said the truth about what happened there. Moscow wanted to prevent that at any cost, and the murders and kidnaps of journalists became common currency, in order to scare them. Then it came the turn of NGOs, beginning by the Red Cross itself.

Finally it was necessary for Russia to supress those who wanted to invest in Chechnya without passing through Moscow. I recall now those British Telecom engineers who arrived to the Republic to restore telephone lines: they were kidnapped and beheaded.

Our only achievement in that period was to prevent civil war among Chechnyans, something that Moscow wanted to provoke through the usual means.

G: You have denounced the alleged "close cooperation" between Arabs and Russians. Which are the grounds for that claim?

Z: In the USSR years there were many more foreigners from the Middle East than from anywhere else. Chechnyans are traditionally Sufi Muslims, while Wahabbism is a current only recently imported by Arabs and Russians, outside of genuine Islam. If all that money that came with the Arabs would have dropped directly from Moscow, Chechens would not have accepted it because it would mean treason. There were like 1500 Arabs in Chechnya and all of them had a visa stamp at Moscow. No one of them had entered the Republic illegally as it was claimed. The Kremlin knew perfectly who went to Chechnya and what for.

G: Do you still mantain that Putin killed Litvinenko?

Z: For Moscow there is people who just must be suppressed, regardless of whether these are Aslan Masjadov, Sergei Litvinenko or Anna Politovskaya. And Putin is so cynic that he doesn't even bother hiding that! They killed Politovskaya in October 7th, Putin's birthday. The press talked a lot about the "gift" for the Russian President. Putin was in a foreign country but did not took long for him to declare that, effectively, he did not like Politovskaya but that he had no connection with the murder.

G: When Litvinenko died you made another declaration in which you described him as "meaningless traitor" and when you said that there was no evidence that connected him with the FSB. Putin never thought that the British would find out that this death had been caused by polonium.

Z: Everybody knows who Putin is. We all know that he was the one who ordered the kids of Beslan killed, gas the crowds at Dubrovka Theater or blow up those apartment buildings that were the pretext for the Second Chechnyan War. What is most scary is that Putin is still a key piece of international politics, who is treated with respect by so many European leaders. Chechnya will be the first one, Georgia the second one and I can assure you that the third one will be Ukraine.

G: Last February, the president of pro-Russian Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov offered you to return to Grozny. In what stage are the negotiations at this moment?

Z: The press has speculated a lot about the negotiations on my suppossed return to Cechnya. I have been in fact in discrete but continuous contacts with representatives of the Russian Government since 2001. In the last two meetings in Oslo and London with Abdurajmanov (Kadyrov's delegate), I insisted in making public these meetings if what we want is in fact to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. On this day anyhow the conditions for my return to Chechnya do not exist. Returning to Chechnya now would be becoming accomplice of a regime whose decissions are made in Moscow.

G: Which is the current situation of insurgency, both in Chechnya and the rest of the Caucasus?

Z: Doku Umarov (self-proclaimed "Emir of North Caucasus") is just another victim of the provocations of the FSB but not for that reason can I agree with his ideology nor his view of the conflict. Suicide bombings are totally alien to Chechnyans. Dudayev and Masjadov said that in the past and we have been repeating the same for all these 20 years: at the beginning of the 1990s, Russia had a problem with Chechnya, 20 years later the problem is spread from the Caspian to the Black Sea. This is the result of trying to solve a political problem by force.
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Catalans demand self-determination in Brussels

Some 10,000 Catalans and supporters from various other nationalities demonstrated yesterday in Brussels demanding the EU authorities the recognition of the right of self-determination for the Catalan nation.

The slogan: "We want a Catalan state". Besides Catalan four-barred banners, ensigns from other opressed nations of Europe and the Mediterranean could be spotted as well: Basque, Breton, Flemish, Corsican, Venetian and even Berber flags were present.

"Spanard who doesn't jump" was one of the cries heard in Brussels.

Source: Gara.
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Kosova could give good example

Serbian foreign minister has said that "Kosovo's indepedence has provided a toolkit for insependentists in Europe and beyond". Apparently Russia is considering to recognize Abkhazia and South Osetia (but not Chechnya) and some Palestinians are already demanding the formal creation of a Palestinian state if negotiations with Israel "are to succeed".

Looks good. What next? I have already mentioned Chechnya, that declared its independence almost two decades ago. Of course there's the much more dubious issue of Northern Cyprus (as it's merely a Turkish colony in fact) but also more importantly Kurdistan, including maybe 1/5 or 1/4 of Turkey's territory and population.

The Russians of Transdnistria, who declared their independence under Moscow's protection are happy. But one should not forget that Russia itself has many territories (autonomous republics and others) that have non-Russian majorities.

But the most interesting situation will be in Western Europe. In the UK the Scottish nationalism is quite strong these days, while in Spain Basques and Catalans could maybe take their own unilateral decissions. France is not exempt: Brittany and Corsica, as well as some overseas territories like Kanaky, have more or less important nationalist movements - and German identity is again on the rise in Alsace as well. Italy could eventually face some issues specially in Sardinia, Friuli and the Southern Tyrol (aka Alto Adigio) but also hase afced in the last times growing regional secessionism specially in the North. And let's not forget that Belgium is on the verge of breaking apart.

And, of course, there are many other natinal issues elsewhere: Western Sahara, Berbers, the ethnic puzzles of artificial post-colonial states, specially in Africa, southern Azerbaijan and eastern Kurdistan in Iran, Uyghuristan and Tibet in China (plus the issue of Taiwan, that is not really an ethnic but political issue), etc.

We are maybe entering a phase of history when decolonization and self-determination could become more and more widespread. After all that's what democracy is about: the power of the people. And many peoples all around would prefer to break apart from their forced historical "marriages" (or even slavery).

I am really glad that the artificial constructs of estabilished borders (borders that often are quite recent creations, but anyhow) and states are being challenged and defeated. It's a great act of democracy and self-determination. It's what freedom really is about.

I really hope that the somewhat hysterical Serbian "prophecy" becomes true. Let's break the chains of artificial borders, let's be free. For some of us this has been a very long centenary struggle and the happy end still has to arrive.