Protests After Spanish Police Arrest Leaders of Banned Party

Basque nationalists came out in protest yesterday after Spanish police arrested almost the entire alleged leadership of a political party banned for its links to Eta.

Police raided a meeting on Thursday night where the old guard of the Basque separatist party Batasuna was allegedly handing over the reins to new, younger leaders, arresting 23 people.

The raid was ordered by the leading anti-terrorism judge Baltasar Garzón after a tip-off from the police that the party's leaders were meeting in the town of Segura in the northern Basque region. The raid is part of an ongoing operation in the Basque country that includes the arrest of Batasuna's leader, Arnaldo Otegi, who has been in jail since June for defending terrorism. Among those taken on Thursday was Joseba Permach, who has been Batasuna's main spokesman since Otegi's arrest.

The only spokesman for the party not now in police custody, Pernando Barrena, described the actions as "revenge" by the government after the peace process broke down following Eta's attack on Madrid airport last December that killed two people.

Posters calling for demonstrations appeared in Basque villages last night. The Basque newspaper Gara called the arrests "a declaration of war".

The government defended the raid, saying that the judiciary was independent and free to carry out any operations it considered necessary. It is not yet clear what charges those arrested will face.

The justice minister of the Basque regional government, Joseba Azkarraga, described the arrests as "political opportunism", adding that it seemed "very suspicious" that the raid had been carried out with elections set for next spring.

The conservative opposition People's party (PP) has long accused the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of being soft on separatists, and the reaction to the raid highlights the central role Basque politics will play in the elections. Yesterday the PP welcomed the arrests but Leopoldo Barrera, a senior PP member in the Basque region, added: "I also say that we need an explanation for why this didn't happen earlier."

The arrested leaders have been transferred to the Basque city of San Sebastian, from where they are expected to be moved to Madrid for questioning. It is not the first time Batasuna leaders have organized clandestine meetings, and they had been warned by Judge Garzón that they would be detained if they did so again.

Batasuna was outlawed by Spain's supreme court in March 2003 on the grounds that it was the political wing of Eta, which has been blamed for more than 800 killings in bombings and other attacks since the 1960s in a campaign to establish an independent Basque state.

Meetings of the Batasuna leadership during the ceasefire were considered part of efforts to bring an end to regional violence. Now, however, they have taken on a different character in the eyes of the judiciary.