IN VIEW of Herri Batasuna's ten years of existence, Zutik interviewed Josu Iraeta, a member of HB's national leadership.
F OR TEN YEARS, Herri Bat-
asuna has been the basic expression of Basque national resistance and of opposition to the political framework created by the reform. How would you describe the foundation of HB's identity?
You are right when you say that HB has been the basic expression of the resistance and opposition to the Spanish reform. A decade ago, HB came into existence as an electoral regroupment, which became the outlet for what a large part of our people felt. Later, its nature was more defined as "Popular Unity" and it had specific tasks to accomplish. But today, ten years later, we would characterize Herri Batasuna as a tactical and strategic alliance between the working class and the popular masses, engaged in accumulating strength and in a concrete framework, that of political negotiation leading to the putting into practice of the KAS tactical alternative.
Consequently, Herri Batasuna is developing its political practice in the context of the national and social liberation of Euskal Herria (the whole of the Basque territory and peoples). HB identifies with these goals and, in consequence, with those who struggle to obtain them. This is why it advances demands and protests. For HB, any national liberation process involves a whole series of objectives, and therefore one cannot look at it in isolation, whether this is in relation to those who are taking part or to the common enemy.
That is why Herri Batasuna, which knows both its enemies and the means they
December 26, 1988 • #154 International Viewpoint use, as well as the reality of Euskal Herria, is developing its political activity with firm resolve, in the aim of building a Basque state for our nation. The proof of the correctness of this activity is seen in the mass struggle and the constitutional struggle built in the course of these ten years. And this, not only through the electoral process (NATO, the European Parliament, and so on) but in the whole dynamic and whole activity developed by Popular Unity, a dynamic and activity which, as a reference point for the broader liberation movement, has been irreplaceable for the task of defending the movement's positions in Euskal Herria.
In consequence, Popular Unity has come up against and will continue to come up against repression. This repression is not only aimed at weakening Popular Unity, but also at introducing factors of division into the movement, between its different active structures. These attempts have failed up until now and will fail in the future, thanks to the cohesion and the progressive nature of Basque liberation positions. • Looking in from the outside, one gets the impression that early on within HB, social themes were more important than they are today. It seems that there is a somewhat one sided view of the national problem (or today, of negotiations) in all HB's areas of work. What is it like on the inside?
When you don't use a scientific method to analyze the political reality of a people (in all of its aspects, economic, social, cultural, and so on) it's easy to counterpose concepts that, as they belong to this reality, are a common expression of it. In this way, in south Euskadi all kinds of groups, with very divergent political positions, running the gamut from the reactionary right to the left, including dogmatism, reformism, Eurocommunism, social democrats, and what is called nationalism, have all tried to face up to the concept of a Basque nation and society. This in itself is already a misunderstanding of our people.
I want to begin by pointing out that the Basque national and social fact is situated in a very concrete context. Our situation in a highly industrialized Europe — with a strong proletarian make-up and an economic development subjected to international ebbs and flows - is not unrelated to the evolution of certain legal and political forms, in particular the French and Spanish states. As regards south Euskadi, with the 1978 constitution, the Francoist Reform sought to consolidate the privileges of an oligarchy based on exploiting and oppressing the working class and the popular layers. For me, it is obvious that the national consciousness of a people as highly proletarianized as ours defines both the objective and subjective conditions for establishing the basic criteria of a libera-
It is not a question of stumbling from one criteria to another. Both aspects are inseparable in the Basque liberation program. We simply want to adequately situate our reality. For the bourgeois state, it is essential to uphold the status quo, in its own class interest. That is why a break with the status quo, the breakdown of the present framework, favors the Basque working class.
Adopting a Basque national strategy involves scientifically understanding the contradiction that exists and is reflected by our people. This conception is therefore neither exclusivist nor one-sided, but approaches the problem in the only possible correct manner. And this is what interests
It is a mistake and a a misunderstanding to think that political negotiation is the basis of HB's work, an end in itself. In any process, one establishes areas of work, tactics and mechanisms. To attain certain objectives, an accumulation of forces is necessary. The political negotiation between the ETA and the oppressor Spanish state is a mechanism designed to get implementation of the KAS tactical alternative, and in any circumstance, this requires a favorable relationship of forces. The process of negotiation and the dynamic which has developed to achieve the KAS tactical alternative's goals thus continue to be tools for accumulating forces. • Occasionally one sees writings that contain the idea of a national front which would include the PNV, and EA. To speak more to the point about this, you have at times proposed to the PNV and EA a governmental accord on the basis of national sovereignty.
How do you perceive this question of a national front, given the history of Herri Batasuna?
The national front understood as an alliance, even a conjunctural one, with those parties of what is called Basque bourgeois nationalism makes no sense whatever in the Basque national liberation movement. It makes no sense and is not realistic in Basque socio-political conditions. HB is the only national front which answers the objective interests of the working classes and popular sectors.
The leaderships of the PNV and of EA and the economic and political forces they represent are in no way interested in changing the current political and legal framework, under the hegemony of the Basque people (which is to say the implementation of the KAS tactical alternative) and they are even less interested in an independent Basque state, that would also be socialist, united and eskaldun (Basquespeaking, of Basque culture).
The PNV and EA, in essence, have the same political project. They are separate organizationally only as a result of the progress made by the Basque national liberation movement.Through their leaderships, they are linked to the oppressor Spanish and French states, to the European
BASQUE COUNTRY Common Market of the monopolies and to international capitalism. Their function is to legitimize any legal framework which that stands in the way of the movement. Thus, defending the interests of the so-called Basque bourgeoisie, their purpose is to hold back the struggle of the movement as a whole.They want to divert the struggle of Basque working people against the oppressor states into an internal struggle between "Basques themselves". There is only one way you can interpret their moving to higher and higher stages of collaboration in order to support the police-black propaganda answer to the "Basque problem" that our enemies have been concocting
For all of these reasons, I must say that the only national front bringing together the popular and working sectors of our people is HB. It has a clear function in the framework of a truly alternative political program, a political program that once won will offer an adequate road forward. • Egin, HB's weekly paper, regularly publishes a historical review that states "ten years is nothing".
However, this does not really fit with an idea that is beginning to catch on that the solution to the big problems is going to arrive shortly, or before 1992.
It seems to us that the relationship of forces is not as certain as all that, and that in order to get to that stage there would need to be, among other things a big change in the state of the labor movement. It seems this is seen differently within HB. How about it?
The answer is simple. It should, I think, be clear to everyone that within the complexity of the political situation in south Euskadi and, fundamentally, in the Spanish state as a whole, to set 1992 as the date for a solution to any problem is notion of nearly infantile naivety.
In the first place, 1992 is only a reference date. The year 1992, the deadline for the implementation of the "Single Europe Act" (which will cause many serious prob lems for our people) is the target time set for a projected solution, by means which imply the liquidation of the liberation process, to the problem posed by our people's liberation struggle for the Spanish state and to Europe.
With its single market, the "freedom" of financial circulation, of the job market, and so on in the context of a political militarism whose expression - rejected by the Basque people - is NATO, Europe is demanding internal order. The social-democratic government of Felipe Gonzalez is charged with imposing it. The year 1992 is a key date for this government, not for Basque working people.
For us, it is only a reference point which enables us to firm up, along with our people's political and social structures, the goals of Basque national construction. To do this, the development of all forms of struggle in essential and rule of the 11 workers' movement is part of that. *
International Viewpoint #154 • December 26, 1988
REAGAN's plan for the Caribbean, put into practice after
January 1, 1984, has brought a deepening of the international division of labor to the Caribbean islands, as well as a fall in the standard of living, and a spectacular growth in social inequalities.
In the major countries of the region, pressure is mounting for radical change. But the North American military threat remains a powerful dissuasion.
ANDY BROK
EAGAN's plan for the Caribbean,
R also known under the initials CBI
(Caribbean Basin Initiative), is the result of a twofold concern of the North American ruling class. First, to restructure the Caribbean economies to provide a larger opening for American exports and private investment, notably from
North American firms; and second, to relaunch economic activity in the private sector, and in that way stem the rise of revolution stimulated by the Grenadan and
Nicaraguan revolutions, the armed struggle in El Salvador and Guatemala and the consolidation of the Cuban revolution.
The plan calls for placing additional funds at the disposal of local private sectors and governments. It removes import barriers for the entry into the United States of products manufactured in the 22 countries benefitting from the CBI. Corresponding reforms are expected from those countries
"benefitting," such as privatizations, opening to foreign investment - especially through the creation of industrial free trade zones, devaluations, and debt conversion
12 into foreign investments.
With the 1983 invasion of Grenada, the
White House went even further in demonstrating that it would use any means to preserve capitalist interests in the region. The Grenadan revolution represented, in fact, a serious danger for imperialism. It showed the English-speaking peoples of the islands a road towards social and national liberation that was much more realistic than the parliamentary reformism they inherited from their colonial past.
### Centuries of foreign domination
Overall, the Reagan plan has achieved its first objective. According to a recent study by the United States Congress, between January 1, 1984 and 1988, new and follow-up investments bringing in foreign currency in the 22 CBI countries reached a level of $670 million for a total capital investment of $1.5 billion. These investments have supposedly directly created around 100,000 jobs. Some 47% of the new investments are by American companies, as against only 37% from Caribbean firms.
Even though the countries in the region have been dominated for centuries by foreign interests, these investment figures show the extent to which local capital is subordinated or relegated to the role of a junior partmer in the only dynamic sector of these economies, that is to say the one directed towards foreign markets.
### Decline of traditional exports
In fact, this wave of investments is only beginning to hit some of the countries in the region, in particular Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, which offer considerable "comparative advantages" to laborintensive firms: among the lowest wages in the world (between $0.40 and $0.80 an hour), zero taxes, no import duties in the United States, and physical proximity to this big market. Currently, within and outside of these free-trade zones, more than 200,000 women workers (and a smaller number of men) work in assembly factories (textiles electronics, shoes, sporting goods, jewelry, toys, and so on). In view of the past rate of growth and the projects underway, the number will approach 400,000 by the end of 1990.
However, economic reflation is far from being achieved. Owing to the decline of traditional exports such as sugar cane, bauxite and oil, the restructuring of Caribbean economies has not brought an increase in the value of exports. Imports from the region to the US even dropped from $9.2 billion in 1983 to $6.5 billion in 1986.
Moreover, the relaunch affects only soine activities like assembly and tourism, which are easily shifted to different countries or regions. Each country plays its own game to attract agricultural investments, tourists and assembly work. One example in this last sector, which leads in job creation, is
----- pull-quotes on this page -----