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Spain to go after ETA in Venezuela, calls on Chavez to help
Granada, Spain, Mar 7, 2010 (EFE via COMTEX) --
Spain will increase its efforts to
pursue people linked to the ETA terrorist group who have settled in
Venezuela, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said
Sunday, adding that he was confident that Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez's administration would help in this task.
Zapatero said in a press conference at the end of the 1st
EU-Morocco Summit in this southern Spanish city that he sees a
willingness on Caracas's part to cooperate after Spain's National
Court said that Venezuela could be cooperating with the Basque
terrorist group ETA and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
or FARC, guerrilla group, who had formed an alliance.
The prime minister said that they were going to more intensively
follow the movements and activities of "a small number of members"
of ETA who have lived in Venezuela for many years to maintain the
"maximum determination" in the pursuit of the terrorists "in
whatever spot or continent they may be."
Spain has worked for years to control the activity of people who
have links to ETA in the South American country and to request
extraditions "when there could have been feasible circumstances,"
Zapatero said.
"It's a task that we're performing in a continuous manner" and
"now we're going to intensify it," the prime minister said.
The first step will be for National Police and Civil Guard
director Francisco Javier Velazquez to travel to Caracas in the
coming days.
The governments of Spain and Venezuela issued a joint communique
Saturday reaffirming their fight against ETA terrorism and repeating
their commitment to continued cooperation in the judicial and law
enforcement areas.
The differences between the countries erupted last Monday when
National Court Judge Eloy Velasco tried six suspected ETA members
and seven suspected FARC members for allegedly conspiring to stage
an attack against Colombian officials, including President Alvaro
Uribe, in Spain.
In his verdict, the judge also considered that there were
indications of the Venezuelan government's "cooperation" with the
suspected FARC-ETA alliance.
Two days later, Chavez said he had "nothing" to explain to
Zapatero, who had asked him for an explanation about the judge's
allegations.
ETA, an acronym for the Basque language words for Homeland and
Freedom, has killed more than 850 people since taking up arms in
1968 to seek a Basque nation comprising parts of northern Spain and
southern France.
The FARC has battled a succession of Colombian governments since
the 1960s. EFE
cpg/bp
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