ETA announces end to violence

SPAIN (El País) The Basque terrorist group ETA, which for 43 years has been responsible for a campaign of terror that has cost the lives of more than 820 people in Spain and France, announced on Thursday that it has decided to put an end to its violent struggle and called on the governments of both countries to begin a dialogue for a peaceful political solution for a Basque independent state. In a statement published online by the pro-independence newspapers Gara and Berria, ETA said that it has taken "a clear, firm and definite commitment" to "end the armed confrontation." The move comes just four days after an international panel led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, meeting in San Sebastián, issued a recommendation calling for ETA to give up the armed struggle and for the Spanish government to discuss the possibility of moving the estimated 700 ETA prisoners closer to their families in the Basque country. Mediators also want ETA to agree to a verifiable ceasefire. ETA has been dealt a series of blows by the governments of Spain and France. Four of the group's military leaders were arrested in succession in a string of busts between 2008 and 2009. Leaders of the outlawed Batasuna party, along with radical abertzale left members, also joined the call on Tuesday for ETA to lay down its arms.

ETA man, posing as Pole, arrested in Cambridge

Centre, at Cambridge Squash Club

SPAIN/UK (Agencies) Eneko Gogeaskoetxea, 49, considered to be one of the Basque terrorist group ETA's military bosses, was arrested on Monday as he was having his morning coffee at his home in Cambridge. He had been living in the university city, passing off as a Pole named Cyril Macq, for some time. Accused in Spain of having taken part in the assassination of an ertzaina (Basque Country regional policeman) in October 1997 at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. He was using the name of a Polish citizen and was supposedly an executive at the Cambridge Squash Club, where a Spanish member recognized him and informed the embassy. Gogeaskoetxea is an IT expert, as well as one in explosives. One of the ten cases against him had him disguised as a gardener working at the Guggenheim Bilbao, where he allegedly placed a series of large planters, in one of which was the bomb that killed the policeman, although the explosives were aimed at King Juan Carlos, who was visiting the museum for its inauguration.