Footnote:
As the article below shows, racketeering is ETA's main source of cash... Now if, as I guesstimated in a previous post, ETA "rogues" carried out the Madrid carnage for the round sum of one million dollars, that should allow ETA to grant Basque shopkeepers and business people a "Revolutionary Tax Amnesty" for the next five years!!
Signs that ETA is preparing attacks
Spanish and French police made a number of high-profile arrests of ETA members in the past year. In March Spanish police arrested nine suspected members of ETA, while French police arrested the head of the organization's military wing, Jose Javier Arizcuren-Ruiz, along with five other senior ETA members. Two months ago a number of ETA activists were arrested in France after the group raided an explosives factory. It was only the latest in a series of robberies at munitions depots and factories.
The robberies were not the only sign that ETA was stepping up its operations. Recently the organization began collecting protection money, which it calls "revolutionary tax" from companies in the Basque country. The money gleaned in this way has been a major source of funding for the group's terrorist activity.
ETA's fight for an independent Basque homeland has cost nearly 800 lives since 1968. During the ceasefire there were no major terror attacks. However, there were almost daily attacks in the Basque region against property belonging to local politicians, or against post office vehicles and banks, which are seen as symbols of Spanish sovereignty.
Spanish Interior Minister Jaime Mayor Oreja was quoted by AFP as saying that five young men had been arrested in Getxo, near the Basque capital Bilbao. They were accused of planting a bomb earlier this year at the home of a local deputy of the Popular Party and hurling molotov cocktails at a Civil Guard barracks.
Sources: Agence France Press, BBC, Associated Press
ict.org.il |
