An end for Basque group?

MADRID, Spain - Europe's last big separatist militancy has been decimated by arrests and dwindling support. Now its outlawed political wing is rejecting violence and its leaders want to turn into legitimate politicians.

The whirlwind of events in recent weeks has set off an intense debate across Spain: Is this the beginning of the end for the Basque separatist group ETA, or will those hopes be dashed again?

The armed movement has not killed anyone in more than a year, and it formally declared a cease-fire in September. While nearly a dozen such truces have come and gone over the years, some believe this time something historic is afoot.

ETA "has never been as weak and cornered as it is now," Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez told parliament last week. "The end of ETA is near."

Besides ridding Europe of its last major separatist group, ETA's disappearance could rescue a Socialist government that is struggling with a 20 percent jobless rate and trailing conservatives badly in the polls with general elections 18 months away.

Weakened by waves of arrests and declining grassroots support, ETA has hinted it might go further this time on the path to peace. It is expected to issue a statement, perhaps in just a few weeks. Whether it will renounce violence once and for all is the key question.

ETA's banned political wing, called Batasuna, is now backed by some mainstream Basque parties and civic groups. It is vocal in its new position that shooting politicians in the head is not the way to gain some Basques' cherished but unlikely goal of their own country.

ETA has killed 825 people since it launched its campaign for an independent homeland in the late 1960s.

While other regions of Spain are constantly pushing for greater autonomy, most notably Catalonia, where Catalan is the dominant language, Spain's Basque region has always been the nation's separatist hot spot.

Batasuna has now called on its ETA arm to declare a permanent cease-fire that could be internationally verified.

Former Batasuna leaders say they want to form a new, legal party that can be a voice in the small but wealthy region of northern Spain, a proud patch that boasts its own ancient language and culture and already enjoys a broad degree of self-rule.

Txelui Moreno, a spokesman for the pro-independence movement, said Friday that the Basque region was living "a historic moment" after Batasuna's decision to reject violence.

Three weeks after ETA declared its latest cease-fire, two hooded members of the group gave an interview to the pro-independence newspaper Gara in which they said ETA was prepared, under certain conditions, to accept an internationally verifiable cease-fire.

An international group featuring four Nobel laureates and the Nelson Mandela Foundation is nudging Batasuna and ETA toward peaceful politics.

"I firmly believe that the political situation in the Basque country is on the verge of irreversible change," said Brian Currin, a South African lawyer who was involved in the peace processes in Northern Ireland and South Africa and instigated the international appeal seeking to shepherd the Basque region toward political normalcy.

Skeptics abound, and even the government denies any negotiations with ETA or Batasuna.

The opposition Popular Party is livid about the prospect of Batasuna's being allowed back into politics, saying this should not happen even if Batasuna condemns ETA - the magic words that Spain's government insists the party must pronounce to be legalized.

"No, because Batasuna and ETA are the same thing," the party's No. 2 official, Maria Dolores de Cospedal, told the newspaper El Mundo. She said ETA simply had to dissolve and acknowledge defeat. "There have to be winners and losers," de Cospedal said.

But there are optimists.

"Basque society is screaming out for peace, and those who do not want it are a minority," said Abel Corral, 30, a chef in Bilbao, the once-decaying industrial port city that has undergone a stunning face-lift over the last decades and now proudly boasts the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, its exterior a wonder of curving, flowing titanium plates.