Translated by Darrin Wood
The text that follows is from the first official communique released by the GAL which was read on Radio Popular in San Sebastian on December 14, 1983 after they had released Segundo Marey, mistakenly kidnapped by them ten days earlier.
Because of the growing number of assassinations, kidnappings, and extortions committed by the terrorist organization ETA on Spanish soil, programmed and directed from French territory, we have decided to eliminate this situation.
The Anti-terrorist Liberation Groups (GAL), founded with this object in mind, express the following points:
1. Every murder on the part of the terrorists will be met with the necessary response; not a single victim will be left without revenge.
2. We declare our idea to attack French interests in Europe since their government is responsible for allowing terrorists to act from their territory with impunity.
3. As a sign of good faith and to show gratitude for the gesture of the French government [the freeing of the four Spanish policemen who tried to kidnap Larraetxea] we are hereby freeing Segundo Marey, arrested by our organization because of his collaboration with the terrorists of ETA.
Comment by DK: This communique expresses a similar strategy to that expressed in the more pragmatic portions of EIR's articles on the ETA problem. Point 1 reflects, implicitly, the view that ETA is a grave threat to the Spanish nation requiring desperate measures. Points 2 and 3 reflect the idea that serious pressure must be exerted on France until (as one EIR article put it) French President Mitterand "comes to his senses" and stops harboring refugees allegedly linked to ETA. Within this framework, Point 2 represents the stick: the cross-border incursions of mercenaries into French territory; while Point 3 represents the carrot: the conciliatory gesture that is usually part of any effort to induce a government to rethink its policies. Of course Spanish officials were perfectly capable of concocting--and doubtless did concoct--this strategy on their own. But one wonders why they felt it necessary to meet repeatedly with the LaRouchians unless there was something more involved than being harangued about imaginary Jesuit and Black Guelph plots and being urged to break relations with Britain, arrest the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne and join with Latin American kleptocrats in triggering a global "debt bomb." Unfortunately, government officials around the world can sometimes be really, really dumb with or without LaRouche egging them on. Just look at Donald Rumsfeld and how he and his top aides were taken in by the propaganda disguised as intelligence findings of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress.