File spoon-archives/marxism-news.archive/marxism-news_1997/97-02-23.213, message 31


From: NCP-AT-geocities.com
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 20:48:08 GMT
Subject: urgent internationalist action


>Comments: Authenticated sender is <askapena-AT-[10.128.179.2]>
>From: "Askapena Araba" <askapena-AT-eusnet.org>
>To: ncp-AT-geocities.com
>Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 18:37:28 +0000
>Subject: urgent internationalist action
>
>
>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,
>
>"To feel in the deepest of our soul any injustice committed against
>anyone in any part of the World"
>
>Our best wishes,
>
>
>The Basque Country, 19 January 1997.
>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's 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 "violates and is against
>the human rights of the prisoners and their relatives". 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.
>
>>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:
>
>* 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:  0/34/45/280847
>
>* Faxes or letters To the attention of the President of the Spanish
>State;
> Sr. José Mar=EDa Aznar-Presidente del Estado Espa=F1ol.
> Complejo de la Moncloa, 28071 Madrid.
> Spanish State.
> Fax/phone: 034/1/3353535
>
>* Faxes or letters To the attention of the President of the French
>State;
> Mr. Jacques Chirac-Présidence de la République (Palais de L'Elysée)
> 55, rue du Fg St honoré, 75008 Paris Fax: 0/33/1/47422465
>
>* 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 January 1997
>ASKAPENA (Basque Solidarity with the Peoples)
>Mikel Resa. Responsible for the Foreign Relations.
>
>
>ASKAPENA's 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
>
>
>ASKAPENA (SOLIDARIDAD VASCA CON LOS PUEBLOS)
>Relaciones internacionales
>Mikel Resa
>Tel/Fax : 45 28 08 47
>E-mail: askapena-AT-eusnet.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
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