Urgent Internationalist Action!

[greenscreen at gn.apc.org]

From: greenscreen (Umit OZTURK)

Dear comrades,

We want to send you our solidary and internationalist regards from
ASKAPENA  (Basque Solidarity with the Peoples), on behalf of the whole
Basque People.
Through this letter, we want to communicate you two things:
First of all, we would like to inform you about the Hunger Strike that
we will celebrate from 1st to 8th February 1997 in favour of the
REGROUPING OF ALL THE BASQUE POLITICAL PRISONERS IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY
(we send you some information about it).
Secondly, we would like to request your support, so that you send
faxes to some concrete addresses expressing the demand for the respect
of the rights of the Basque Political Prisoners.
We would like to thank you beforehand for any action that you would
celebrate,

=93To feel in the deepest of our soul any injustice committed against
anyone in any part of the World=94

Our best wishes,


The Basque Country, 19 November 1996.
ASKAPENA (Basque Solidarity with the Peoples)
Mikel Resa. Responsible for the Foreign Relations.

If you require any information more, do not hesitate to request it.



FOR THE REGROUPING OF THE BASQUE POLITICAL PRISONERS IN THE BASQUE
COUNTRY

Since ASKAPENA was founded, it has work with the objective of
answering to the necessity of building an Internationalist and Basque
Solidarity Movement in our country, the Basque Country;  assuming also
our own social and national liberation process as the point from which
we can promote the solidarity with the rest of the countries of the
world.

This necessity has its origin in the economical and political
relations imposed by the dominant development system, the capitalism
and its spreading to the whole world.

All this is shown clearly as we just face with the international bleak
prospect which involves us: the concentration of the investment in the
countries of the North, the payment of the foreign debt, the worsening
of the differences between the North and the South, the dual
development of the economy, the rising of the social differences, the
poverty in the countries of the North, the hard adjustment measures
imposed from the centres of the economical power, the continuous
reductions in the social expenses...

That supposes that the 87% of the world income ends at the hands of
only the 20% of the population. This is just a number, but behind it
we can find the dramatic situation of thousands of millions of people
condemned to the death, the hunger, the sickness, the biggest poverty
and the exploitation.

The capitalist system of accumulation has forced a process of
economical globalisation based in the relation world-market and the
neoliberalism is the practical application of the new instruments of
power and exploitation with which they try to stop the negative
tendency of the average profit rate and to start a new phase of
expansion for private interests, with a generalisation of the poverty.

This process of spreading, which generates powers against the nations
and the popular identities, forces us to be confronted to a common
enemy unfriendly and irreconcilably and forces us to develop a
radically internationalist solidarity and to struggle for the freedom
of our own countries.

Internationalism and independentism are the two sides of the same coin
which give sense to the Common Solidarity which we demand, and the
national liberation is the middle point towards which all the solidary
countries must direct.

That is why we send you this letter, to demand for the Basque Country
the same solidarity that ASKAPENA has shown with so many other
countries of the world. We are doing this because we assume our role
to make public the reality that comes from the prisons and we want to
strengthen the scream for freedom that comes from the streets of the
cities of the Basque Country.

The Basque political prisoners form the part of the Basque Working
Class which is more involved in the struggle for the freedom of the
Basque Country, and they are suffering the most hard consequences of
this armed political conflict which maintains the Spanish State
against our people.

The systematic violation of the most basic human rights ( dispersal,
aggressions, beatings, insults, continuous transfers among prisons,
arbitrary isolations, lack of proper health care in the prison with
the result of deaths, constant threats, obstacles for the juridical
defence...) constitutes the repressive measures that the Spanish State
imposes to the Collective of the Basque Political Prisoners and it is
another instrument also used against the political struggle with the
Basque National Liberation Movement.

We also must denounce the actitude of the Penitentiary Authorities as
they maintain arbitrarily in prison (kidnapped) nearly a hundred
prisoners who should be already out applying the law, because they are
suffering incurable sicknesses or because they have already served
three quarters of their sentence.

Some of the Basque political parties, as the PNV, have play the role
of the collaborators, helping in the design and improvement of the
machinery of repression, adding special punishments to the relatives
or friends of the prisoners who are forced to drive hundrends and even
thousands of kilometres in order to make a visit, with the risk of
traffic accidents which unfortunately have happened, sometimes even
dying some of them.

The situation of anguish which the Basque political prisoners are
enduring becomes more insulting when the responsibles and murderers of
the GAL and other paramilitary groups, responsibles for the death of
nearly 30 refugees and two political representatives of the Basque
popular will, are in the streets with impunity.

We know that the regrouping in the Basque Country of the Basque
Political Prisoners is another step towards the amnesty and the
freedom of the Basque Country, which tries its legitimate right to
self-determination to be respected. A basic democratic right in order
to decide in peace its own future.

We also know that this right is not going to come easily, only with
the effort of all of us. Before ending, we want to ask you for your
support in order to make this message public in your own organisations
and in order to organise some actions in solidarity with the
Collective of Basque Political Prisoners who are in unlimited hunger
strike since 9 September to demand the respect of their rights and
their regrouping in the prisons of the Basque Country.

Internationalist greetings.



INFORMATION ABOUT THE BASQUE POLITICAL PRISONERS AND SOME CONCRETE
PROTESTS

Nowadays, in the Basque Country, we have around 550 political
prisoners serving sentences in the prisons of the Spanish and French
States, around ten people deported for political reasons and thousands
of refugees in other countries.

We are dealing with a political conflict, the one between the Basque
Country and the Spanish and French States, as the Basque Country is
fighting for the right of its people to Self-Determination, to be
recognized by both states. And, perhaps, the clearest and strongest
consequence of that conflict is the political repression that our
country and people are enduring.

At this time, the 550 political prisoners are dispersed in more than a
hundred prisons in both states. Their relatives and friends must drive
sometimes more than a thousand kilometres every week in order to visit
them. Illegally, they are taken far away from their homes, against
what the Spanish and French laws state (the Spanish and French laws
state clear that the prisoners must serve their sentences near from
their cultural and social environment), and against the international
law adopted in both states. But, this is a punishment added to the
sentence of the prisoners and carried out also against the relatives
and friends of the prisoners.

This illegal policy is not something isolated but the most important
measure linked to other ones as the violation of the human rights in
the prisons (tortures, bad treatments...). The Basque society has
demanded the respect for the civil rights of the Basque Political
Prisoners many times and during the last year it has stressed the
necessity of taking them back to the Basque Country, their country.
This would be the best step if we want to secure their rights and
physical and psychological integrity.

In spite of the efforts of the Basque people, in spite of the popular
demands for the compliance of the law, nowadays our prisoners are
still dispersed all around the Spanish State and dispersed and
isolated in the French prisons, enduring some imprisonment conditions
which are against the minimal rights of the human being, and also the
laws of both states.

Anyway, we are also conscious that the solidarity which the Basque
population has always maintained with the political repressed and the
constant support is a unique and fundamental strength which can make
possible a solution for this situation, being abandoned the strategy
of prison dispersal, which is based in the pressure and blackmail
against the prisoners and their families. A good sign of all this are
the mobilizations, but also the thousands of initiatives of the
citizens in the different villages, towns and neighbourhoods all
around the Basque Country (demonstration, hunger strikes, sit-ins,
sabotages against the institutions and economical interests, motions
approved in more than a hundred council halls...), which, in spite of
the silence of the majority of the mass media, to make the situation
of the Basque Political Prisoners a central issue in the Basque and
Spanish politics.


Among these initiatives,  we have to stress the rotate hunger strike,
in periods of a week- which groups of 15 people are carrying out in
the Buen Pastor Cathedral in Donostia (San Sebastian) since 18
December 1995. If, at the beginning, the relatives and the pro-amnesty
popular organizations were the driving force and the contributors of
the initiative, it became a people=92s initiative immediately. Many
people and organizations from different parts of the Basque Country
have taken part, but also intellectuals, artists, workers, young
people, feminists,.. and many others from different countries solidary
with the struggle of the Basque Country and the respect of the human
rights. This hunger strike will finish only when the objective, the
transfer to the Basque Country of all the Basque Political Prisoners
and the respect of their rights are achieved. The hunger strike in the
Buen Pastor Cathedral has become the symbol of the solidarity of the
Basque population and the popular organizations with the political
prisoners.

With the same aim, the Collective of the Basque political prisoners
started on 15 January this year a permanent and indefinite struggle, a
struggle carried out in different ways, and from 9 September they
decided to go on with an indefinite hunger strike. By this way, the
Collective of prisoners is expressing its determination and wish to
achieve its objectives, the regrouping and the respect of the human
rights, and in the same way, is expressing also what the power is
permanently rejecting that in spite of the imposed dispersal they
build up a collective, a political collective, and that the prison
dispersal policy has failed and that any strategy which tries to
capitalise them will also fail.

Due to this initiatives and their influence, some of the different
movements, institutions and even political and institutional leaders
who supported and even helped for the succeeding of the prison
dispersal policy recognise that this policy =93violates and is against
the human rights of the prisoners and their relatives=94. An example of
this is the new resolution adopted by the Human Rights Commission of
the Parliament in Gasteiz recently, which demanded to the Spanish Home
Office the immediate transfer of all the Basque prisoners to the
prisons in the Basque Country, along with other measures to secure
their rights.=20

>From 1st to 8th February 1997, ASKAPENA will be taking part in the
Hunger Strike being carried out in the Buen Pastor Cathedral in
Donostia for a week. Through this report we would like to inform you
about this one week-hunger and also about the situation of our
prisoners. Along with the hunger strike, we will try to denounce the
situation on this issue and we will be holding different meetings and
conferences on other issues in the Buen Pastor Cathedral.






NOTE- VERY IMPORTANT

While the members of ASKAPENA are on hunger strike, it would be really
interesting if you could send faxes denouncing the situation of our
prisoners to the following addresses:

=B7 Faxes of support during our week, from 1st to 8th February 1997. We
will get and use them in order to celebrate a press conference.
 Fax: 0/34/43/473627 or 0/34/45/280847
=20
=B7 Faxes or letters To the attention of the President of the Spanish
State;
 Sr. Jos=E9 Mar=EDa Aznar-Presidente del Estado Espa=F1ol.
 Complejo de la Moncloa, 28071 Madrid.
 Spanish State.
 Fax/phone: 034/1/3353535
=20
=B7 Faxes or letters To the attention of the President of the French
State;
 Mr. Jacques Chirac-Pr=E9sidence de la R=E9publique (Palais de L=92Elys=E9e)
 55, rue du Fg St honor=E9, 75008 Paris
 Fax: 0/33/1/47422465
=20
=B7 Faxes to the Spanish Embassies in your country, demanding the
respect of all the Basque Prisoners to stay in the Basque Country and
their regrouping.

All the activities that you could develop, would serve to the fair
struggle that we are carrying out as a People.

Well, receive solidary and internationalist greetings.

The Basque Country, 19 November 1996
ASKAPENA (Basque Solidarity with the Peoples)
Mikel Resa. Responsible for the Foreign Relations.


ASKAPENA=92s contact address:
Mikel Resa. Foreign Relations
Apto:728, Gasteiz, Alava, The Basque Country, Spanish State.
Phone/Fax: 0/34/45/280847
Email: askapena at eusnet.org


posted by:


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     |  Umit Ozturk, Editor, Green Screen News          | =20
     |  PO Box 10386, London N16 8RQ, United Kingdom    |
     |  tel/fax: +44-(0)171-2493624                     |
     /) email: greenscreen at gn.apc.org                   (\
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