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binjuring 113, including many tourists, who were the main btarget), agreed to an autonomy plan that it hoped would satisfy bthe Basques. Of course, the move only encouraged separatist bsentiment (more than half the elected Basque Parliament was beither for independence or for much more “autonomy,” and the bETA, whose members train in South Yemen, keep blasting their bbombs). The retreat of the Madrid government as it allows the bflying of the red, white, and green Basque flag (the Ikurrina), bcontrol of police, and education (in the Basque language) will bguarantee an eventual Basque republic. bThe second major candidate for separatism is Catalonia, bthe northeast province of six million people, with proud Barce- blona as its capital. In 1932 the Catalonians won a measure of blocal autonomy known as the Generalitat. Franco abolished it, band after his fall the demand for its restoration erupted. The bCatalan flag—yellow with four red stripes—began to fly, and bstickers appeared: “I am a Catalan” and “Read, write and bspeak Catalan.” bThe Madrid government agreed to the reactivation of the bGeneralitat, and thousands welcomed back, from a thirty-eight- byear exile, the Catalan leader, José Tarradellas, who led them bin the Catalan national anthem, “Els Segadors.” He told a bcrowd: “We must be the vanguard of freedom and democracy of ball the people of Spain.” These include the Galicians in the bnorthwest and the Andalusians in the south and the Canary Is- blands—all clamoring for “autonomy.” Said the pro-Franco pa- bper El Alcazar: “This paves the way for the disintegration of bSpain.” France: Basques, Corsicans, Bretons bThe border between Spain and France separates more than btwo countries. In the words of the French Basque separatist bgroup Eneata (“Ocean Wind”): “It is a crime against nature band a wall of shame, like the one dividing Berlin.” What the bgroup means is that the frontier is artificial, for it divides the bSpanish Basque country from the French Pays Basque, and the bday will come when “Spanish Euzkadi is liberated. . . . French bEuzkadi will join us” in a single Basque state. The reason that bviolence against the French has so far been limited is that the bETA in Spain needs the French Basque region as a sanctuary for b
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