Revolutionaries campaign in the
Spanish elections
THE BASQUE revolutionary nationalist party, Herri
SPANISH STATE campaign would permit the creation of a pole of electoral regroupment for all the sectors that were fighting throughout the liberación
Batasuna (HB), got 2% of the vote in the June 10 elections to the European parliament, gaining one seat in
Strasbourg. The vote of the ruling social democratic party dropped from 44% in the 1986 legislative elections to 39%.
Thanks to its alliance with far-left forces, HB got a better result than the Basque bourgeois nationalist parties. The
Euro-election coincided with elections for municipal governments and the governments of some autonomous regional authorities. The social democratic losses were most marked in the municipal elections. They held an absolute majority in only one of Spain's ten largest cities.
A disastrous action by ETA on June 19, however, cast shadow over the campaign by HB and the far left. A bomb exploded in the parking lot of a supermarket in Barcelona, killing 15 people, including two children. Mass protest demonstrations were organized, the largest one including
300,000 to 500,000 people according to the Madrid press.
Gerry Foley interviewed Jose Bikila in Paris on June 28, who describes the campaigns of the Liga Comunista
Revolucionaria (LCR — the Fourth Internationalist organization on the Spanish-state level), and its Basque affiliate, the Liga Komunista Iraultzailea (LKI).
To what extent were the LKI and the LCR able to intervene in the elections that have just been held
A. In the election of European MPs, the most important thing was our support for
Herri Batasuna (HB). We had two objectives. The first was a united response to the government's decision that the Euro-
MPs should be elected on the level of the state and not the nationalities. Secondly, since Herri Batasuna's decision to run a campaign throughout the state gave us a chance to build a state-wide campaign in support of the revolutionary nationalists.
Q. Were you able to work with Herri
Batasuna in the campaign?
A. The first contacts were not at all satisfactory. Herri Batasuna told us that it wanted a campaign run by its party in which the other parties would play a purely supporting role. We said no. Outside of
Euskadi we wanted full autonomy for the support bodies formed in each nationality or region so that, based on some common accords, there would be the possibility to take up the concrete problems in each area. Herri Batasuna thought it over and rectified its position. We then reached an agreement
It had three axes. The first was explaining the need for a Europe of the workers as opposed to a Europe of big capital, the police Europe, the Europe of NATO and of the Common Market. The second was solidarity with Euskadi, meaning not just with the fight for the democratic rights of the nation but also with the Basque national resistance. The third point was a commitment to solidarity with the workers who at the time were taking up struggles or were still fighting, or where the effects of their struggle continued.
2. Wasn't there a danger that such a campaign focused on the Basque national question would divert you from offering a general alternative for workers throughout the Spanish state facing the effects of the
A. We thought that the Herri Batasuna de lan
Spanish state, not only against the system but also on concrete questions. That is what happened.
Many support committees organized throughout the Spanish state. They made it possible to unite revolutionary nationalist organizations in Catalonia and independents who are not in these organizations, but who thought that the time had come for a united vote against the government. This was in addition to the two key organizations on the scale of the Spanish state -the Movimiento Comunista and the LCR
Besides this, we were able during the campaign to reach important sectors of the working class. We managed to hold rallies in factories in Madrid and Barcelona, which we were unable to do in any of our previous campaigns. The workers who attended of course asked us why we were supporting HB, which enabled us to explain the national question. But these rallies also gave us the opportunity to pose the alternative to this government.
This campaign also made it possible for us to reach out to wider sectors. For example, the meeting in Barcelona brought together 2,500 people. The meeting in Madrid also attracted 2,500, the one in Grenada, 1,500, and there were many other smaller rallies of 600 down to 100.
The solidarity vote outside Euskadi was around 120,000. If we add this to HB's vote in the Basque country, which increased to 250,000, it comes to 370,000 votes, which is a considerable vote.
Q. How did HB's vote in Euskadi compare with the vote for the other nationalist parties?
A. For the first time, there was a decline for nearly all the political forces except for HB. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) suffered a debacle. The split from the PNV
7
led by Carlos Garaikoetxea just held its vote. And the PSOE went down.
On the other hand, the PNV, which ran July 13, 1987 • International Viewpoint
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SPANISH STATE in coalition with a sector of the Galician nationalist movement, still got the biggest vote in the Basque country. But it did not get a Euro-MP. Garaikoetxea's party (Eusko Alkartasuna, a split off from the PNV) got a Euro-MP thanks to its alliance with the Esquerra Catalana and with a Galician communist organization. This party made an important advance, particularly in the municipal elections, electing mayors in San Sebastián and in Vitoria, while the PNV only held on to the mayoralty of Bilbao.
On the Spanish state scale, we think that these elections were a real disaster for the government. It still has no big rival to its left or its right, but it suffered major erosion. It lost 1.5 million votes, and the impact of HB was strong. In fact, during the campaign the government was visibly nervous because of the impact that the HB campaign was having.
2. So, if the PNV got the most votes in Euskadi but still did not get a Euro-MP then it was the far-left vote in the rest of you ran a different sort of campaign.
A. There is there a long tradition of forms of unity on the left, which have not been absorbed by Herri Batasuna, the consejales del pueblo [people's municipal councillors and so on. Morcover, both the Movimiento Comunista and our party still have more substantial support there than in the Basque nation as a whole. On the basis of these two factors, we considered that in Navarra there was the possibility to run a united slate for the municipal elections and for the local parliament.
This state got a good electoral result, a very good one in the municipal elections, getting 2,300 votes in Pamplona and about 20 city council seats in about 18 municipalities - three in Tudela, for example. Two of the 20 were members of the LKI. The result for the parliament was modest, but significant: 6,800 votes.
Q. Who was in this coalition?
A. It was called Batzarre [assembly] -the Assembly of the Basque Left. It included the MK (the Basque Movimiento Comunista), the LKI and independents.
l. Who are these independents exactly?
A. There were two broad categories, people from the old united movement in Navarra and activists in the anti-NATO movement, the women's movement and so on.
Q. The city council members are the same type, activists in the various social movements? They are based on movements?
A. Yes. They are not electoralists.
Q. So, the LKI has two council seats. Do you have a policy for local government representatives?
A. I think that a revolutionary council member can and must do two things. One, take part in all political and social struggles arising from the situation of the Basque working people. Unfortunately not a day goes by in which in one municipality or another they do not arrest and torture people, and often the local protests, insists that the rights of the arthe Spanish state that
EUSHADILJICHA gave HB a seat in
A. Yes, of course.
If HB has a deputy, it is because of the solidarity vote in the rest of the Spanish state.
rested person be
In many towns, there are factories in crisis, factories that are throwing the workers onto the streets. I think that this is an area where a council member can with political forces in the rest of Spain el paro y combativa have an impact on
HB?
A. The campaign gave them a chance to get to know each othpropose a position of solidarity with those workers. In towns, there can be activities around ecology or the anti-nuclear struggle — the Basque people er. We think that it may lead to a change in HB's alliances. Until now, not officially but semi-officially, it por una Europ Busine contra has oriented exclula querra sively toward an de proble have a tradition of nuclear-free towns. There is also work that can be done in the area of fighting male chauvinist aggressions. The ques-
"didanion
alliance with radical
Galician and Catalan nationalists, and also with the pro-Soviet la party. In this camuna cultura contra tortura paign, it had a very la represión big conflict with the
Galician nationalists, who ran by themselves, and of course it had no contact with tions of municipal administration are more difficult, but action is possible there also.
2. What effect has the ElA bombing in Barcelona had?
A. In the campaign itself, in the discusthe pro-Soviets. It is to be expected that this has prompted some reflection in
HERE BATA SIN AD
HB.
Q. In Navarra, which is a Basque
8 province but not included in the autonomous Basque area,
International Viewpoint • July 13, 1987 sions that we held after the speeches, this theme came up: what would happen if ETA carried out an action with negative implications? Our position was quite clear. We consider that the existence of the violence is the direct result of
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por por un mundo en paz y liberación de. lan misjeres
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the national oppression of Euskadi. Therefore, we will never support police or political repression in response to the actions of the armed activists.
What is more, we think that this violence will disappear only with the national liberation of Euskadi. And therefore, we have always said that the continuation of the violence is the responsibility of the government.
In this campaign, we said many times that we disagreed with actions by ETA, and that if there were actions with which we disagreed, we would explain why. This action had quite negative effects for the campaign itself and for the political situation.
No one is more grieved by deaths than we. We are grieved especially by deaths of workers. And we are doubly grieved when these deaths are manipulated by this government.
The government has utilized this action to overcome the erosion it suffered in these elections. It was an action with a tragic human cost and high political costs. And it was also an action, and I am choosing my words carefully, that was quite disloyal to all those in Catalonia who defended HB's campaign. And I say "disloyal" because it was precisely in Catalonia where HB got most votes.
2. How do you evaluate the protest demonstration against the bombing?
A. It included hundreds of thousands. Such a large demonstration must have had a deep social impact. I think that the very fact that ETA felt obliged to make a public self-criticism reflects the fact that they have realized the magnitude of their blunder.
I sincerely hope that the compañeros of ETA and Heiri Batasuna go beyond a mere self-criticism about a wrong choice of a target, that they will also make a self-criticism based on political considerations about how we must win all the workers of the Spanish state and of the oppressed nations for an overall struggle against the government.
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2. These are two opposite examples aren't they, a positive example and a negative example?
A. Yes. I would cite the election campaign as a positive example, and also the position that HB took before the campaign in solidarity with the workers at Keinosa. [On the Reinosa struggle, see /V 121.]
Q. What impact has the backlash from this action had on the LKI and the LCR?
A. Today, the entire bourgeoisie, the nationalist bourgeois and the Spanish state bourgeoisie, as well as the reformists, have taken this excuse to jump on us like wolves demanding explanations and and arguing that we are responsible. I have been abroad for a week. But I have received information here that there have been slogans on the walls saying "The MK and the LCR supported ETA, now they have to pay, pay with their lives." There have been threats and all sorts of pressures. * los trabajadores contra el paro