The Hague, 27 October 2011 – UNPO General Secretary, Marino Busdachin, welcomes the recent statement by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna declaring an end to the group’s fifty year armed struggle. Following the group’s call for arms decommissioning talks in September 2010, Busdachin expressed the hope that the move would “mark an absolute and unqualified commitment to the principles of nonviolence.  

As the membership organisation for unrepresented people and unrecognized territories, the UNPO recognizes the opportunity that the October 2011 announcement offers, inspiring autonomy movements around the world to continue to adhere to nonviolent principles and utilize the tenets of negotiation and protest as they seek the rights to which they aspire.

Familiar with, and respectful of, the courage it takes to enter into such negotiations. UNPO wishes to express its most sincere congratulations to all parties: the former armed movement in the Basque country for the initiative to call for an international mediation team; the government of Spain for accepting the offer; and all the members of the negotiating team.

Many important discussions of autonomy, as well as cultural, political and linguistic rights remain unresolved and UNPO will closely follow the progress to come. UNPO also look forward to additional support and capacity being given to bodies such as the United Nations Standby Team of Mediation Experts so that other nations and peoples can seek support on how to follow the same peaceful path as that we have seen taken in the Basque Country.

In the wake of the precedent set in the Basque Country, it is up to the international community to reach out and replicate the process in still unresolved situations throughout the world where people and nations are caught in the same tragic deadlock and international negotiation is needed to make the difference. This is particularly true for all the unrecognized people and nations who have already renounced violence and have not yet been rewarded for their embrace of nonviolence as instrument of their choice in the struggle for self-determination.

For more background information to this statement, see here