Original: Spanish
On 18 September 1998, ETA declared an indefinite truce of its terrorist activities.
In the Basque Country and throughout Spain the hope for a better future has been re-kindled after 30 years of political violence and more than a thousand deaths.
The Socialist International Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean, SICLAC, meeting in Caracas on 25-26 September 1998, adds its own support to this hope for a better future and calls on ETA to lay down their weapons indefinitely, in order to allow for permanent reconciliation to take place and for the peace process to develop.
Democracy and freedoms in Spain provide for all parties to have the right to exist, accepting any political aim as legitimate. But the defence of these rights should be upheld by means of speech and the ballot box and never by murder or by the use of weapons for the purpose of blackmail.