At Indy-media Ireland, Cormac Mac Gall examines the situation in Basque Country, where 700 Basque political prisoners remain incarcerated in France and Spain, without adequate medical care. In addition to the mental illness this causes in prisoners serving long terms — including life — tuberculosis has erupted among the prisoners, threatening prison populations with a possible life-threatening disease.
While ETA has respected the now year-old armed truce with Spain, the fact that Basque political activities supportive of Basque independence remain banned by the Spanish Government — all the while that police harassment continues in a form familiar to what the IRA and Sinn Fein experienced in Northern Ireland — means that a settled peace is yet fragile there.
As was experienced in South Africa by the victorious ceasefire of the African National Congress — that later led to the presidency of Nelson Mandela — solidarity demonstrations remain active and well-attended in Basque cities like Bilbao, Pamplona and San Sebastian.