Days ahead of its official dissolution, Spain’s Basque separatist group ETA issued an apology on Friday for the decades-long campaign of violence, “pain and irreparable harm.”
"We want to show our respect to the dead, to the wounded and to the victims of the actions of ETA... We sincerely regret it," it said in a statement released in the Basque newspaper Gara.
ETA waged a nearly four-decade campaign of bombings and shootings to establish an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southern France.
At least 829 people were killed before the group announced a permanent ceasefire in 2011.
"We know that, forced by the necessities of all types of armed struggle, our actions have harmed citizens who were not responsible. We have also caused serious wrongs which are irreparable. We ask forgiveness to those people and their families", it said.
In its statement to Gara, its traditional means of communication, ETA said it was not alone in being responsible for the violence in the Basque Country.
"Suffering existed before the birth of ETA and continued after it ceased its armed struggle," it said.
The group has been severely weakened in recent years after police arrested hundreds of its members, including its leaders, and seized several of its weapons stashes.
The Spanish government welcomed the apology and said the group had been defeated “with the weapons of democracy.”
“The victims, their memory and their dignity have been decisive in defeating ETA. ETA should have apologized for the harm caused in a sincere and unconditional way a long time ago,” the Prime Minister’s office said.
ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna - Basque Country and Freedom) was founded in 1959 and arose from anger and frustration among Basques, who have their own language and culture, from political repression under Spain’s ruler, General Francisco Franco.
The campaign, which included political assassinations as well as bombings aimed at the general populace, escalated in the 1960s into violence that was reciprocated by the Franco dictatorship.
Spain's 2.2-million-strong Basque region is now gearing up for the dissolution of the group.
On Thursday, an international mediator, Alberto Spektorowski, said that "failing a last-minute surprise" ETA would announce its dissolution on May 5 or 6.
"The declaration that ETA no longer exists will be very clear," the Israeli academic, a member of the International Contact Group, told Basque radio EITB.
"I cannot say what words they will use but no one will be left in any doubt," he said, adding that the announcement would be made across the border, in the French Basque region.
