Diliname

INTRODUCTION

There is no doubt that in 2009, and more specifically with the scenario that was left after the elections held in the CAPV- which clearly showed a unionist front formed by the PSOE and the POPULAR PARTY-, this set off all the alarms that make us see that Euskal Herria finds itself at a crossroads.

As has happened in the past, after the failed peace attempt and normalisation based on the Lizarra-Garazi Agreement, the failure of negotiations in Loiola in 2007 again plunged Basque society into despair and frustration after seeing once again, their hopes of achieving a normalised political setting and a lasting peace in Euskal Herria dashed.

ETA’s return to extreme armed violence and the reaction of the Spanish government’s authorities, not just PSOE but also PP, in dismissing and closing any future route to obtaining a dialogued solution to the Basque conflict therefore made Eusko Alkartasuna deeply ponder and analyse the threat that in this way was hovering over all Basque society: the risk of a conflict with political roots continuing, which drowns our Country and not only jeopardises its development and future, but that can exhaust unknown boundaries, boundaries that, in some areas could be very difficult to reverse.

Eusko Alkartasuna made an honorable and rigorous analysis of the situation and did not doubt in taking electoral risks. It was deeply convinced that a permanent solution to the Basque political conflict was only possible by joining up sovereign and independentist parties so as to achieve, through exclusively democratic, political and peaceful means, the Basque society’s majority support and overcome the statutory corset and the self named autonomous "improvement" that today grips these People in the Spanish state. Also to shape a new legal-political structure that recognises the existence of Euskal Herria as a People and their right to self government.

Today we can say without fear of making a mistake that at that time Eusko Alkartasuna, taking all the consequences, read it right. Today the active and permanent collaboration between the independentist men and women of this Country is even more necessary. The political and institutional scenario that resulted from the last autonomous elections in March, characterised by the unionist front made up from by PSOE and PP, has set off all the alarms and clearly shows that Euskal Herria finds itself at crossroads which makes it even more necessary, to combine political and social sovereign parties regarding strategic convergence of independent sovereignty.

It is precisely the fear that the Spanish government has of this challenge becoming a political and/or electoral reality that explains the detention, last 13th October, of leaders of the traditional abertzale left who seemed to advocate the political conflict’s solution via civil means. It was a legal and police style operation, which Eusko Alkartasuna immediately considered to be an attack, whichever way you looked at it, against the possibility of establishing a strategy that allowed the promotion of a new way of "making" a nation by political action which was exclusively democratic, as well as being a violation of the detainees’ basic rights.

So Eusko Alkartasuna denounced this publicly and because of it participated in the mass protest of 17th October in Donostia, as well as doubling its efforts in achieving a draft proposal to expedite a sovereign agreement that will face up to Spanish unionism combining forces with peaceful and democratic radicalism. This draft proposal was confirmed at the Political Conference that Eusko Alkartasuna held today, on 21st November 2009 in Donostia.

ACTUAL SITUATION

Eusko Alkartasuna states that the Spanish government, today headed by PSOE, has made a major new retrocession in what is referred to as recognising basic democratic rights, dismissing a dialogued way out of the political conflict and backing a repressive legal – police style solution. There have been many reactions, meetings, efforts, collaborations and reflections carried out regarding this around the national Basque area and in fact all of them already disclose the need of establishing bases that reflect the aspirations and will of all of us people who are in favour of Euskal Herria’s rights and sovereignty.

It is clear that what has been carried out up till now, with mistakes and right moves, is not enough. So, a draft agreement is necessary, firstly, about independentist sovereignty, for those amongst us who wish for a free and united Euskal Herria, to renew social and political strategies in a united way, leaving to one side fainthearted attitudes and going on to believe in our aspirations, to build up the lost confidence of the past, obviating mutual jealousies as a requisite.

To unite what is scattered, to change differences to consensus, all of this in the search for an instrument that will serve as a motor for Country’s independence, an instrument that should be characterised by the size of its dimension and plurality of its make-up, from a progressive and social justice point of view.

It is time to overcome separatism that for years has impregnated Basque politics and overcome fragmentation so as to gain strength in the only objective that must encourage all abertzale: the freedom of Euskal Herria.

It is the moment to react with all our strength for progressive abertzale to overcome the complex situation:

The people can wait no longer. Total sovereignty is indispensable to guarantee the survival and development of Euskal Herria.

OVERCOMING THE OBSTACLES TO UNITE THE ABERTZALES

It is necessary to admit that steps taken in the past have done no more than generate a measure of distrust that must now be overcome. These disagreements must be overcome once and for all, as they are based on the tendency of looking for dominant positions, in institutional routines that in some cases have awarded mere management above all strategic plans and above all on the non-acceptance by all of those for who the political-military plan is an insurmountable obstacle for the essential joining up of forces, but must form part of a sovereign union project’s hub.

However, even due to these past problems, we can today see the existence of a wide sector in the abertzale movement that favours studying a solely peaceful and democratic way in depth that will allow doors to open in recognition of our national reality and right to self-govern, and thus, to independence in the same way it considers the actual legal-political framework to have not been exhausted and broken by the State. Eusko Alkaratasuna is and will be in this position with total security.

HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY

Opportunities arise from many occasions of great crisis and threats. The shared analysis between the abertzales that under the actual autonomic framework is exhausted should lead to a shared reading that points to the need of tackling the challenges of the future from joining forces and the following the conviction that is also shared, which is that this uniting is incompatible with political-military strategy, not only due to ethical issues but due to practical strategies in a strategy that is totally rooted in the modern age of the 21st century.

Backing a sovereign unit must be undertaken because as we see that the joint action of the parties that defend the interests of the Spanish government have done no more than to dig up well-worn ideas of a cross-cutting nature. The abertzales that even today hold this theory shall be responsible for the consequences that can come from it in Euskal Herria’s survival.

In the same way, the tendencies that come from international settings (Scotland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Flandes, Quebec, Northern Ireland...) where the different affected states seem to assume the legitimate alternative of the recognition of independence make the international projection of our claim viable and lastly, the perception that a democratic way out of the Basque conflict is possible.

Finally, the enormous social-economic crisis allows us to visualise the social dimension of the independentist alternative and link this recognition to citizens’ everyday problems. To be independent to be able to better manage our resources in the quest for social justice and equal opportunities for all citizens.

In short, Eusko Alkartasuna confirms that now is the time to take a qualitative leap, overcoming all the difficulties and to join forces drawing up a common strategy that will serve as an impulse to drive Euskal Herria towards political normalization and peace, and towards independence.

There is a double and urgent need today to share analysis and generate empathies between organisations and people in the sovereign area, channelling common areas, not only physical but ideological, trying to generously give way on both sides, being conscious of the common objectives, because if not as time goes by this will favour the common adversary and the consolidation of its national project, Spanish or French, to the detriment of the Basque national project.

It is the time for unity in action to show all the institutions the political and social reality, the abertzale majority that they try to hide behind the application of the Law of Political Parties.

It is the time for unity in action to defend the basic principle of "all rights for all people and all towns"

It is above all, the time for unity in action with basic implications to build a common strategy between the sovereign independentists, who share a transforming political and social-economic project for Euskal Herria and make it a reality.

It is the time for unity in action for Basque society to encourage and be implicated in a movement on a national scale in which it is the only protagonist. It is only the people, once they begin, who can reach the goal together with the already organised political structures. The citizens must be the starting motor of this process.

THE PROCESS OF PARTCIPATION IN EUSKO ALKARTASUNA

Conscious of the need to take up a proposal to unite the sovereign forces, and in coherence with what was one of the actual National Executive’s first decisions, the militancy of Eusko Alkartasuna has undertaken an internal process of reflection during the last few months and at the same time the party's management has made many contacts and held conversations with different people in the political, social, union and cultural world of Euskal Herria.

From the dozens of notes that we have extracted from this participative method we can say that the EUSKO ALKARTASUNA’s militancy understands that the

Party is more necessary than ever, and it must reinforce its project not only on a theoretic level but also on an organisational one; it is still loyal to its founding principles even though some people say that it only believes in ideology, but it is an independentist Party in keeping with the 21st century’s social-democracy.

EUSKO ALKARTSANU is prepared to risk, as it has always done during its 23 years, national construction and the carrying out of pertinent actions to lead it to attain independence.

Eusko Alkartasuna’s members back, in keeping with its Party’s principles and identity signs, the creation of a sovereign common area as a platform to defend, and demand:

Eusko Alkartasuna’s militancy also manifests its will strive for strategic independentist unity of action without exclusions or vetoes of any kind, although calling for absolute clarity in each agent’s postulates and plans regarding the necessary assumptions, already explained in this document, to carry forward common tasks.

We have backed this. The men and women of Eusko Alkartasuna defend the independentist unity of action because it is the shortest and only way to a permanent solution of the Basque conflict, towards peace and political normalisation of our Country. It is the way of giving a suitable reply to the challenges that Basque society has to confront in the most immediate future. We firmly believe in a sovereign union, in its capacity of giving encouragement to Euskal Herria’s citizens as well as the ability to fight and to arouse its majority adhesion, with the unstoppable electoral force, to force the recognition of their right to decide, that is, their right to self-government by the Spanish and French governments and all the international community.

For this, from a position that is found in the Eusko Alkartasuna’s deepest roots, linking Euskal Herria’s past and present to the idea of progress and social justice in every way, understood in the social democratic terms of the 21st century, as well as in human rights, we present this draft Proposal to expedite a sovereign agreement whose objective is to achieve Euskal Herria’s independence.

CONCLUSIONS

1. EUSKO ALKARTASUNA, as an independentist and social-democratic party, following the political line approved at its last Congress of the 20th and 21st June 2009, promises to boost and develop the strategic constitution of an independentist sovereign area from advanced social-democratic leftist positions calling on all political, social and union parties that agree with this sovereign objective on the basis of an open and dynamic organisational mode that will allow the leadership to be shared amongst the participating parties.

2. In the same way, EUSKO ALKARTASUNA promises to do everything possible to join the unity of action in this sovereign independent area with other abertzale political or sovereign parties that defend the Basque people’s right to decide, understood as the basis to achieve a legal-political framework that will recognise the Basque people’s right to self-government and complete freedom for all political parties when democratically defending their ideological principles and political programmes.

3. EUSKO ALKARTASUNA considers that the strategic convergence of the sovereign independent forces is the only way to determinedly contribute to the final resolution of the Basque people’s conflict with the Spanish and French governments, who not only do not recognise it as a people, but use all their means so that it will disappear as such. Political normalisation and long lasting peace will be achieved to a great measure by peaceful political struggle of the Basque independent sovereignty.

4. EUSKO ALKARTASUNA unequivocally affirms that the use of violence, in whatever form, has no room in democratic political action and consequently, declares its total rejection to it indicating clearly that only political and peaceful means should be used to achieve the tactical and strategic objectives of Basque independentist sovereignty, on the basis of respect and development of human, individual and group rights.

5. EUSKO ALAKARTASUNA advocates the development on a short to medium term for the following actions:

Donostia, 2009-11-21