Basques detained in swoop

Press, 26 March 1981, Page 7

Basques detained in swoop

NZPA Reuter Madrid The Spanish Prime Minister (Mr Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo) was today to meet the leader of the Basque regional government to explain Monday's decision to use the military in the fight against Basque political violence.

The Madrid meeting will be held against the background of a crack-down on suspected separatist supporters in the Basque country, where 110 people died in political violence last year. Political sources said Mr Calvo Sotelo wanted to enlist the unequivocal support of the Basque Premier (Mr Carlos Garaicoechea) for the central Government’s latest campaign against the Basque separatist organisation E.T.A. (Basque Homeland and Liberty). The killings of two senior Army officers by suspected E.T.A. guerrillas in the northern region last week prompted Mr Calvo Sotelo and his key Ministers to give

the Armed Forces a direct role for the first time in combating Basque political violence.

In a main address to Spanish military commanders yesterday' King Juan Carlos urged the Armed Forces to respect the country’s young democratic institutions, shaken to their foundations by an abortive military coup a month ago.

Mr Garaicoechea held meetings with Basque political leaders yesterday in preparation for his discussions with Mr Calvo Sotelo. The leaders of the radical coalition Herri Batasuna (Union of the People), considered close to E.T.A.’S violent military wing by Spanish authorities, declined to join the talks.

Spokesmen for Herri Batasuna, the second political force in the Basque country after Mr Garaicoechea’s moderate Basque Nationalist Party, said 32 of their members were detained by security forces only hours after the Madrid authorities an-

nounced they had given the military a direct role in a stepped-up anti-E.T.A. campaign.

Police sources said 26 people suspected of having direct links with E.T.A. military had been detained and were being questioned under the country’s “anti-terrorist” regulationsModerate Basque opinion, expecting tougher measures, reacted with some relief to Mr Calvo Sotelo s decision to give the military an antiguerrilla role alongside the national police and Civil Guards. But Mario Onaindia. a leading member of another Basque radical coalition, Euskadiko Eskerra (Basque Left), said he believed the decision was potentially dangerous. Meanwhile in Madrid, the Spanish Government has asked Soviet authorities to recall “as quickly as possible” Yuri Ivanovich Buchkov, director of the Spanish-Soviet Sovhispan firm, according to reliable sources.