Selfdetermination

The issue of the right of selfdetermination is not a new one in the spanish political agenda and it is indeed deeply rooted in its contemporary history; with changing levels of intensity, it is certainly in the Basque Provinces where this matter stirs most of the passions and the only part in Spain where it has even pushed political actors to resort to the fateful tool of terrorist violence. The opresion allegedly exerted by Spain would have its main expression in the denial of the right of selfdetermination, which would then, according to the supporters of the most radical brands of basque nationalism, serve as a full justification for the use of violence, targeting not only armed and police forces, but also political representatives and any other sectors of civil society.

The aim of this article-essay, although mainly focusing on the basque case, is not a discussion about the reasons of the evolution of the political conflict until the present stage; I shall not either position myself defending particular political views, what I am mostly aiming is simply to use the basque case in a prospective way to build up a general theory that could serve as tool to apply to any situation in which political actors confront themselves around the issue of selfdetermination. Although the specificities of each case make hard for the political scientist to create such a "guideline" to follow with the target of providing a pervasive and satisfactory solution that could fit every actor in any context, I endeed deem useful to base a theoretical explanation on an ideal case (for which I will try to make abstraction of the specificities of the basque case) as a general pattern to help facing such issue. As dealing in the most abstract layer, this article cannot provide detailed solutions for conflictual situations imbeded in the self-explaining logic of each case, which should therefore be sought by the politicians involved, but is fully complementary as a conceptual framework from which any attempt of solution should start.

Before starting to discuss the core assumptions of the essay, I should introduce the concepts I will use for it. The concept of sovereignty, which will be obviously capital in this case, will be divided in two different kinds, external sovereignty and internal sovereignty. As the first I understand what is commonly understood as sovereignty among scholars of International Relations, that is the state in which a country stands under the conditions of the Westphalian System, implying thus the unexistence of any hierarchy of nations and therefore, putting it simply, full independence; as this is the final goal of any maximalist nationalism, it is easy to understand. Under internal sovereignty, which could be interpretated from the conceptual lense of democracy as the right of people to decide upon politics (following the principle of majority rule) we should understand however such sovereignty from a liberal point of view, where decisions are taken by consensus in order to guarantee and enhance the civil rights of each individual. Therefore from this point of view the decision of selfdetermination is not simply about setting the procedure to allow a nation to decide about independence by a sheer amount of votes cast over the treshold of 50 % ; for both sovereignties two different procedures are to be set: for the external we could accept simple majority, but once that independence has been reached, the principle of a consensual constitution should be something that all actors must agree upon; independence cannot be the excuse to stablish a new regime where "losers" are to be punished for their commitment to the previous state. The development of both concepts taking as an example the basque political conflict should bring about a clear undertanding of the chosen conceptual scheme.

As the reader might already know the present situation in Spain regarding the issue of the independentist terrorism has changed since ETA called for a "definitive ceasefire" in the last month of march. Following the political guidelines ("Declaracion de Anoeta" of December 2004) set by the political branch of the terrorist organisation, Herri Batasuna (HB), this ceasefire should lay the conditions for the onset of a dialogue process with two paralel negociations: one that would involve exclusively the Government and ETA and that would deal with the issue of the prisoners and the disolution of the band, and another one, around which should gather all political actors of the Basque Country to settle the institutional framework. Obviously the outspoken goal of HB is to bring forward to the "political board" of all basque political parties (including HB, in spite of its illegal status) the reivindication of the right of selfdetermination; the problem is that if both negociacions are not unlinked enough as to deter ETA to go back to the terrorist violence, whethever the decision of the political actors is, the principle of separation would be flawed, for although not discussing about political matters, ETA would still discuss them in a negative way: it would stay out of them as long as its political branch reaches the right of selfdetermination, which unfortunately will be the most likely scenario for the future negociation.

First of all we should discuss to which extent all tools are to be legitemily used to defend the right of selfdetermination and to determinate who is entitled with it. When we compare the basque situation with cases as for example, the current occupation of Cisjordania by Israel, the huge gap separating both is stricking; it is also understandable why the quantum of violence unleashed in Palestina is much bigger. Without explaining which differentiates both cases, what should be pointed out is that it is not the denial of selfdetermination that makes them equal, but rather that the rights with which the individual is entitled in each case makes them radically different; the difference radicates in their rights as citizens (from a constitutionalist point of view), while the spanish citizen living in the Basque Country lives under the protection of a liberal constitution, the palestinian individual (denied of every condition of citizen) is subjected to a full arbitrariety.
Before determining if a nation is entitled with the right of selfdetermination, we should determinate if its individuals are entitled with civil rights and liberties, respecting this order, so every change in the status of any nation should be done on the basis of the respect of it.
The Basque Country, although granted one of the most extensive autonomous status in europe, and possibly in the world, has not any right of self-determination granted in the Constitution of Spain, but the guarantees enhanced by this are provided as full spanish citizens to every individual from the Basque Country; even if a large majority of Basque (which has not been clearly the case) claimed the independence and would in consequence feel the outrage of being denied its right as a Nation, no external actor could position itself as "representative" of this feeling and lead a fight that contradicts the most basic principles of consensual liberalism. Maybe civil disobeyence and secesionist moves from the autonomists institutions could be regarded as legitimate, but never resorting to means that are both opresive and represive as ETA has resorted to, as an embryo of totalitarian state to be. But the outracious character of ETA's acts is even more stricking bearing in mind that so far it has never been clear wether a majority of Basques were inconditional supporters of the Independence; indeed a majority of Basques side with nationalists parties, but among the different nationalists parties and currents, only a part are pro-independentists. What ETA has been pretending to do is to interpretate the "true" will of the Basques, given a situation in which the "intoxication" of "collaborationist" nationalists doesn't operate and the "coaction" of the spanish state is absent; the incoherence of this (along with its tragic death toll for three decades) is that the Basques would be "free" only once the Basque Country is independent. That would be democracy understood in the other way round, instead being the citizens who decide for the status of the territory, the territory would grant the Basques its status (as citizens or serfs), and knowing the etno-stalinist ideology of ETA, this "territory" would not be precisely a realm of freedom for the disidents and traitors.The fact is that what dogmatic nationalist dub as betrayal of the moderate nationalists that indulge in collaboration with the spanish state, playing therefore a role in the institutions, is actually shared by their voters that have been renewing their confidence upon their management. Unless we accept that the spanish presence and the remote (or inexistant) posibility of Spain using the francoist represion anew(actually according to HB, this is currently the case) to stiffle the basque independentism is strong enough as to lame the will of most of the Basques, ETA's claim is fantastic. The maturity of spanish democracy is enough as to rule out claims like these.

However the ambiguity of moderate nationalisms and its late radicalisation have born evidence that a change of status could be desired by a certain majority of Basques. In the previous cease-fire in 1998 an alliance supporting self-determination of all nationalists parties, HB, the moderate EA (pro-independentist) and PNV (autonomist but with a blur rupturist mindset since the accesion of its candidate Ibarretxe to the Head of the autonomous Basque Region) crumbled because of the protracted "low-intensity" violence exerted by ETA and its renewal of terrorism after unsuccesfully pushing the autonomous government to a definitive rupture with Spain. The last independentist challenge to the spanish government came with the so called "Plan Ibarretxe" (after the name of the basque prime minister) that proposed a semi-independence granting the Basque Country a similar status to Puerto Rico as an associated state; after being rejected by the spanish parlament it was definitely withdrawn from the political agenda due to the sluggish support to the PNV in snap elections in the autonomous region that failed its main goal: bringing about an absolute majority to the ruling coalition and thus turning the electoral contest into a plebiscite of the plan. However the Plan Ibarretxe guidelines were nevertheless supported by more than 5o % of the basque parlament and in the elections, definitely a similar amount of votes was cast supporting either revisionist or rupturist options, what is indeed the first time in the history of the democracy in Spain; as the PNV-EA coalition didn't want to "share" its new-brand independentism, it adopted a low profile, enhanced by the critical parlamentary situation it is going through in this new legislature, but if the threat of terrorism really fades, this new context might help creating a more solid alliance of all basque nationalisms. If this was to happen it would be difficult to deny the right of selfdetermination.

Now let's imagine that the scenario brought forward in the last paragraph comes into being. Should Spain simply reform its constitution to grant the right of selfdetermination to the Basque Country? The answer is a conditioned yes. As it was explained in the beginning this could be only the condition to vow for the external sovereignty, but the actors that claim for independence, should accept that any independent Basque Country should elaborate a constitution that fits both sensibilities, independentists and non-independentists to avoid the rule of one community over the other; in this case a consensual constitutional rule would enhance the respect of bilinguism and special designation (through enhanced majorities, as for example 2/3 0r 3/5 of the parlament) for the constitutional court and the judiciary bodies. Such political devices would definitely thwart the dreamt independence of ethnic nationalism, and empty it of any effectivity for their policies of cultural uniformisation. If nationalism regards such conditions as inhibiting the will of a Nation, no matter if the nationalist feeling soars over the magic treshold of 50 %, since the duty of Spain as a constitutional state would be first to ensure the self-determination of the individual over the self-determination of any Nation. Accepting that a sheer majority is enough for the onset of a process of self-determination, once the will for secesion is clearly expressed, the condition of relinquishing the monopoly of violence to the new state should be based on the materialisation of a multilateral pact between all sensibilities that ensure a fair constitutional order. The present autonomous constitution of the Basque Country is the fruit of a pact between the majority to enable the nationalism to fit into the spanish state, so if independence had to occur, a pact should enable non-nationalists to fit into the newly-born Basque Country.

Eric Pardo