San Sebastian.— The herriko tabernas (taverns of the village) were for years the symbol of the social influence on ETA. These establishments would collect money for the band, and they were making propaganda of terrorism with impunity. Until, in 2002, a ruling of the National court ordered their closure, still half-way by judicial delays.
At the entrance of the herriko taberna Country, in the calle Juan de Bilbao, San Sebastian, a sign announces the threat of legal closure "by spreading the basque culture" that goes bleeding to death little by little the 100 establishments that remain in the Basque Country. Over the bar hang pictures in tribute to ETA prisoners, and in a piggy bank green collecting money to help the cause. The bar plays rock music in basque, and the pintxo (pincho) and the zurito (half a glass) of beer are cheaper than in any other corner of the cosmopolitan San Sebastian, a city so rich that there are stores that sell slipcovers design for surfboards.
Although many citizens who suffered from the extortion and violence to feel offended by them, the herriko tabernas have become a curiosity, a museum of a past that many young basques are unaware (so they claim academic research) and a memory decadent to the days of glory of the ETA. Five years after the last murder of the band, in the Basque Country there are few traces of activity of a gang that killed more than 850 people.
The Basque Country votes today his regional government. In this climate of reconciliation (or of oblivion, according to critics), the left pro-independence EH Bildu —heiress of the political arm of ETA, which is now considered a pacifist— he risks losing his second position in front of the ascending left Spanish we Can, that steals each time more votes. Victory seems assured for the Basque Nationalist Party, with endorsements possible of the Socialist Party or the Popular Party.
waiting for the polls, the streets are plastered with election posters of Arnaldo Otegi, candidate formal of EH, despite the fact that the Constitutional Court confirmed that it is disabled for public office. Otegi is the most controversial of the Basque Country: has gone through the jail, after leading the branch policy of ETA, but a large part of society gives the credit of having been a negotiator is vital to the end of terrorism.
The Basque Country, thanks to its industrial strength, has stood up better than the rest of the country the economic crisis. Their unemployment is 12%, versus 21% in Spain. It is an oasis of well-being and that underpinned the peace. A former journalist who lived through the end of the violence, explains the evolution: "In the building where I work, the bar run by two people with family members of ETA in prison. There, take coffee people of the people’s Party, the Nationalist Party, and it is increasingly difficult to identify someone by the ideology. Before, there were parallel societies. This would not recognize anyone who lived through the violence: seems to be Sweden."
ETA not yet delivered the weapons, but his time seems to past. In the festival the international of cinema of San Sebastián, a symbol of the prosperity of the city, this week’s screening of the documentary film "The end of ETA". In him, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, a former socialist minister of the Interior, speaks for the first time about the process thanks to the terrorists decreed in 2011, the "termination" of the violence. "I think that is the best end", he says, "but for the victims there are that build a story of what happened in the Basque country, and what happened was that the democracy won and ETA lost."
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