VENEZUELA'S SUPPORT OF ETA FUGITIVES COMPLICATES DISARMAMENT AND DISSOLUTION OF TERRORIST GROUP IN SPAIN

If you have ever wondered what ETA members do, when they engage in terrorist acts on Spanish soil, in support of Basque independence, and civilians die as the result, I will tell you. They relocate to Venezuela, where the government not only gives them safe haven, it actually supports them financially. Each month, ETA expats residing in Venezuela receive an official visit, where they are paid, in US Dollars last time I heard about it, a monthly subsistence for living expenses.

Six hundred dollars a week was the number given to me, and with the rapidly depreciating Bolivar, one can parlay those Greenbacks into a handsome sum each month. My point is, if ETA expats are living comfortably in Venezuela, and they face certain imprisonment upon return to Spain, what is their incentive to join in any political settlement with the Government of Spain ? More importantly, can there even be a meaningful, complete settlement, if some of the more militant members of ETA, with arrest warrants hanging over their heads, do not join in ?

Venezuelan billboard opposing extradition of ETA (Basques) to Spain

ETA may have renounced violence two years ago, but it is time for its fugitives to come home, face justice if necessary, receive amnesty on a case-by-case basis, an reintegrate themselves into society. So long as the Government of Venezuela accommodates them, and bankrolls their lifestyles, it may not happen.