THE big issue in tomorrow's Spanish general election is supposed to be unemployment. With one in four of the active population out of work, the question of jobs will certainly concentrate the minds of voters, who are expected to return Spain's first right of centre government in 13 years, and the first since 1934 to replace a Socialist Party by democratic means.
But it was not unemployment which brought hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps a million, onto the streets of Madrid and Valentia during the election campaign. These were the biggest demonstrations the country has seen since the aftermath of Colonel Tejero's botched coup attempt in 1981.
The protests were a more or less spontaneous response, supported both by President Gonzalez and his main opponent Jose Maria Aznar, to a problem which strikes a much deeper chord than joblessness in the Spanish psyche Basque terrorism.
ETA (see panel) had struck twice in six days at the heart of democratic Spain. The first victim was the Socialist leader Fernando Mugica. The second was Francisco Tomas y Valiente, a veteran opponent of Franco's dictatorship, an independent minded former president of Spain's constitutional court and a well loved professor of law. Unarmed and unguarded, he was shot in the head as he sat at his Madrid university desk.
The killer was apparently a well known member of ETA's elusive and deadly Commando Madrid, whose picture appears on wanted posters all over Spain. He was unmasked, and walked away to a waiting car. The suspect was five years old when Franco died, and eight when the Basques democratically elected an autonomous government which has more local powers than any similar body in Europe. What would make a 25 year old Basque dedicate his life to political murder in today's Spain? And what makes a significant section of the Basque population actively support such militants?
The roots of the Basque conflict stretch far into the past, much further than the 40 year dictatorship of General Franco which spawned ETA. All nationalisms invent a romanticised past, but Basque nationalism had truly remarkable material to conjure with when it emerged as a political force late in the last century. Almost everything about the Basques is distinctive their history, physique, sports, music, dances, cuisine, and, above all, their language, Euskera.
Eat your heart out, Patrick Pearse these guys had it easy when it came to constructing a national identity. The Basques are arguably the longest established people in Europe. They may be a remnant of an ancient migration, 3,000 or more years ago, from the Caucasus to North Africa, which wig left stranded around the Western Pyrenees. Euskera bears no relationship to any Indo-European language. Its vocabulary is exotic, and its syntax bends the brains and twists the tongues of outsiders. "You live in Ireland, not the Basque Country" becomes Zu ez zara Euskadin bizi, zu Irelanden bizi zara.
National sports, taken very seriously, include rock lifting and log chopping. The txalaparta, a giant wooden xylophone beaten with sticks which can ring out from one steep mountain valley to another, is just one of half a dozen curious and ancient musical instruments. Basque gastronomic societies do strange and marvellous things with seafood and meat which have attracted salivating culinary experts from all over the world, and send clumsy cooks like this reporter into inarticulate ecstasy.
ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatuta Basque Homeland and Liberty) emerged when these traditions, and especially the language, were threatened by Franco's dictatorship, which harshly repressed all non Castillian culture. But they are all actively promoted by the Basque autonomous government. So what is ETA still killing for?
Carlos Rodriguez is in a position to know. He is a member of the National
Council of Herri Batasuna, the political coalition which gives unequivocal support to ETA's armed struggle. He may shortly follow two of his colleagues into jail, for exhibiting a video ink which ETA outlines its position. A mild mannered man, perhaps in his late 30s, he speaks softly but quickly, and is very difficult to interrupt. In a small room in HB's Bilbao office on Wednesday, he set out the position "Liberty and sovereignty are not quantifiable," he said. "You may have three parts of sovereignty in Northern Ireland, and we may have seven parts here, but a people must keep fighting until it has total sovereignty or it will lose its identity."
ETA's key demands will be familiar to Irish readers "recognition of the right to self determination, and integrity of the national territory." Rodriguez insists that if the Spanish government were willing to simply recognise these rights, the way they are actually exercised would be negotiable, without further violence. Until these demands are met and they unlikely to be, because their recognition would probably violate the Spanish Constitution he sees no alternative to confrontation, including armed struggle.
The fact that 85 per cent of the Basque electorate rejects such means carries no weight with him. Sovereignty, as defined by HB, must be defended by any means necessary, it seems, and ETA's guns will not be silenced by votes. With cool, impassive logic, he proceeded to suggest he disclaims any direct knowledge the strategy behind ETA's latest campaign.
"Seen from the Basque country, Tomas y Valiente was not a great democrat but a man who helped impose the Spanish Constitution on the Basques, who had rejected it by referendum. I believe that ETA is accelerating a process a peace process, evidently by putting pressure directly on senior figures in the State, rather than ordinary policemen. In parallel, there has been an upsurge in the struggle on the streets, sabotage, attacks on Spanish interests here."
These things are, he believes, grounds for optimism, the necessary storm before the calm of a negotiated settlement. He cites the IRA's pre ceasefire London bombs as a point of deference.
Consuelo Ordonez's brother Gregorio, is the first person cited by Rodriguez as a victim of this new strategy of pressure. He was a prominent leader of the right of centre Partido Popular, and was shot by ETA a year "ago. Today Consuelo Ordonez is running for the Senate as an independent in the PP list. She arrives in a smart San Sebastian cafe with at least one bodyguard. She herself has also been a target of the street violence which has been the distinctive feature of this phase of the Basque "intifada". Any demonstration against ETA, however peaceful and from whatever source, is now inevitably met with a counter demonstration of HB supporters, whose attitude is, shall we say, robust.
Molotov cocktails and burnt out buses have long been part of the repertoire of pro ETA protests. But they used to be directed against the police and Guardia Civil, themselves no slouches at violent action in the bad old days of Franco, and for many years afterwards. Now, however, the targets are as likely to be other Basque citizens, who have become far less passive in their response.
This new dynamic seems to be the opposite of the Northern Ireland peace process. ETA and HB have become increasingly isolated, even from the Basque Nationalist Party, which draws on the same roots and aspirations and has held the presidency of the autonomous parliament for 17 years.
There is no sign of a Basque Gerry Adams emerging to bridge the gap. More than a year ago, ETA kidnapped Josemari Aldaya, owner of a small company called Alditrans, and are holding him for ransom. Every Thursday, workers from the company join peace activists in silent protest outside the Good Shepherd church. Every Thursday they fare greeted with pro ETA slogans, and, in Consuelo Ordonez's case, a rock.
It hit me on the head and knocked me down, she says, matter of factly. "I was lucky they didn't get me in the face." She is 34, animated and dynamic, a novice to politics by her own admission, shaken into action by her brother's assassination. She believes the route to peace lies in a combination of civil resistance to terrorism coupled with firmer police action. "The fundamental principle is for enough people to say `Stop Now' to ETA. Negotiation has been tried and got nowhere. Killing people should not give 15 per cent of the population a privileged position. The only language they will understand is that they must pay for what they do, that killing is not acceptable and has legal consequences." This straightforward message will attract more votes than ever in tomorrow's elections, but as always, it cuts no ice with the other side, which has its own victims, its own bereaved families. Down in the cellars of the Buen Pastor, Edorta Aguirre is involved in a hunger strike demanding the return of 600 ETA prisoners to the Basque country. Ask him about his attitude to the families of men kidnapped by ETA and he looks at you blankly "We have no attitude. They get TV coverage every day. Our relatives don't."
Upstairs, the TV cameras are indeed focused on several hundred supporters of the kidnapped Josemari Aldaya, who stand in dignified silence. Asked for a quote, a worker looks around nervously an says: We make no declarations." Across the street, two rows of heavily farmed Basque riot police hold back hundreds of HB demonstrators.
Weirdly, it is the police who are wearing balaclavas. Unlike Franco's Guardia Civil, these are local boys and must not be recognised. The HB slogans are explicit "Aldaya, shut up and pay up" "Long live the military wing of ETA" and, blood curdlingly, "Pim, Pam, Pum", the mocking chant in praise of the voice of the automatic pistol.
The divisions on the street reflect the rift in Basque society with brutal clarity, and seem unbridgeable. Whoever wins tomorrow's elections will need more than common wisdom if peace is to have any chance at all in this beautiful country.