STOP SPANISH FASCISM!!

A Cairde,

2002 is gone and it left us, the Basques, with nothing else than more pain and more suffering. 2002 is gone and there are more Basque political prisoners than ever before, numbering a total 650. Through 2002 we have seen the spanish iron hand closing its fist stronger than ever over our small country. In doing so the spanish government was not alone, the french government came to his aid whenever they needed mainly extraditing Basque POWs even when there was a great risk for them of being tortured while under spanish custody.
23,655 military and policemen to the service of both states were responsible of the nearly 3,000 military-styled checkpoints located all over our country and the searching of 300 Basque homes and premises. Through the past year spanish/french/basque police corpses arrested 634 Basques and 127 out of them suffered torture while in custody.
But this is not enough for both states and they banned 52 marches and rallies, that’s their new policy. They try to keep our messages out of our streets but they’ll not get it. Prove of it are the 311 people arrested during demonstrations and the 147 injured during the said demonstrations.
But the states we are living under do not know of measures and have taken another step in their repression: two more organisations were banned in 2002 (a youth independentist group and the POWs support group that came to substitute those already banned in 2001). So, what can we say about freedom of speech for us, Basques? It simply does not exist or at least that’s what they are trying to, and to be honest hard they try.
And if 2002 was a hard year for us we can say 2003 will be even harder. After only two and a half months of the new year we have seen, among many others, massive raids which amounted 34 arrests in a fortnight, the closure of the only Basque language daily paper EGUNKARIA, and Batasuna, our legal political party is due to be banned before the local elections which are to be held in May.
But if 2002 left us pain and suffering it also brought us more determination and courage to get our goals. Through history, the Basques have many times heard they/we were conquered. Well, they were not and we will not. We will show the spanish and french the same resistance our ancestors showed to other foreign invaders such as Romans, Arabs, Goths...
I would also like to finish this wee letter by sending the best of my regards to all my friends in the Six Counties.
GDM
Spanish-occupied
Basque Country