Dirty War, Clean Hands

For three years the GAL ('Anti-terrorist Liberation Groups'), created mayhem in the French Basque Country, where ETA had its 'sanctuary'. In 1986 the French government began to hand over ETA suspects to the Spanish police in large numbers and the GAL campaign stopped. But this dirty war had already created widespread support for ETA in the first generation of Spanish Basques to grow up under post-Franco democracy, and its consequences reverberate to this day. The GAL's links to the Spanish security forces, and finally to Gonzalez's own cabinet, have been revealed by controversial magistrates like Baltasar Garzon, despite all the resources of 'state secrecy'. The investigations continue and Garzon is still attempting to establish the full extent of the relationship between the former Spanish Government and the GAL's death squads.