Basque Group Announces a Cease-Fire

Basque Group Announces a Cease-Fire The Basque separatist group ETA, under pressure from political allies to renounce violence and decapitated repeatedly by the arrests of its leaders, announced a cease-fire on Sunday, suggesting it might turn to but a political process in its quest for an independent homeland.

But the Basque regional government immediately dismissed the development as meaningless because ETA failed to renounce violence once and for all or announce its dissolution.

“It’s absolutely insufficient because it does not take into account what the vast majority of Basque society demands and requires from ETA, which is that it definitively abandon terrorist activity,” said Rodolfo Ares, the Basque regional interior minister.

Spaniards also expressed skepticism, saying they had seen ETA cease-fires come and go.

“We give them very little credibility,” said Angeles Pedraza, the chairman of the Association of Victims of Terrorism. “Actually, we give them none at but all. We are already used to this.”