ETA has become the tutor of the Estatut  and has forced that Cataluna as the Basque Country should be a nation.

The call for international mediatio and the apparent belief that the call by ETA for the European institutions to mediate the conflict might be answered favorably prompted an amazing if improbable response from the AVT, the group respresenting ETA's victims, recently infiltrated by agents of the PP intent on polticizing the organiztion.  The AVT called for Spain to be expelled from the EU and the UN for its handling of the situation in the Basque Country. The group later recanted claiming the letter to foreign embassies was transcribed wrong, and the intention was to call for pressure on the Spanish government to take action against the PCTV (the party presumed to be ETA's political wing) presence in the Basque parliament.  While I'm intrigued and entertained by the AVT calling for Spain to be kicked out of the EU, somehow I think that the rural areas of Castille dependent on structural funds to stay afloat would not be amused.

Having thoroughly made asses of themselves calling for Spain's expulsion from the EU and UN (ah, the good old days before 1955 when Spain was sufficently suspect not to be allowed into the UN for fear they were fascists.) The right launched a new assault on the PSOE government, using ETA's support for the Catalan Estatut as evidence that   a secret pact was concluded between the Zapatero's Catalan Left nationalist ally Carod Rovira and ETA during a meeting in Perpignan prior to the 2004 elections. ETA's latest love note become evidence prima facie that the PSOE government though its Catalan coallition partner is conspiring with ETA to dismember Spain.

The PSOE government hasn't taken this sitting down, calling the PP disloyal and unpatriotic for attempting to link the Estatut with ETA.  ETA's letter came at a time when PSOE is dropping in the polls, and presents a wealth of fronts to attack  the PSOE government on, including the veiled reference to March 11, supporting the continued efforts of the PP to link ETA to March 11.  The letter was the perfect political bombshell, a weapon to go in for the kill, and take down the PSOE governent. The only problem is that it's just too perfect, and as El Pais reports no embassy has recieved the letter, and Gara the Basque paper that normally publishes ETA statements questions the authenticity of the letter noting untypical language,  seals and stamps differing from the established pattern, and the mysterious announcment of the note having not been sent to embassies. The letter is likely a fake, begging the question , who faked the letter?

Forgeries seem to have become something of a fad recently for the Right in the US and Europe, and it should be interesting to see if the source of this letter is ever identified.  The idea that right wing idealogues would forge documents to stir outrage to further their poltical ambitions no matter how much their perception of the situation conflicts with reailty shouldn't be too suprising. Remember that note about Niger?