Basque National Liberation Movement

The Basque National Liberation Movement (Spanish: Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Vasco, MLNV; Basque Euskal Herri Askapenerako Mugimendua) is an umbrella term that comprises all social, political and armed organizations orbitting around the ideas of the illegal armed organisation Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), proscribed internationally as a terrorist organisationPDFlink| [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2006/l_144/l_14420060531en00250029.pdf EU list of terrorist organisations] |43.6 KiB , 29 May 2006] .

The wide variety of organizations and their different levels of belonging to this political space made this name very common in the 80s and 90s.

The MLNV has suffered in the past decade a judicial persecution that has brought many of its members to jail and illegalized many but not all its elements. Generally the judicial actions were in connection with the direct links between ETA and many of these organizations.

Some of the most relevant organizations that can be considered to have formed part of this political current are:

Armed organizations

*ETA militar (ETA(m))
*ETA political-militar (ETA(pm), disbanded in 1977)
*Street violence (Kale Borroka) street gangs [Spanish Guardia Civil, [http://www.guardiacivil.org/quesomos/organizacion/organosdeapoyo/gabinete/cap/nota02.jsp] "Kale Borroka and ETA's Strategy" (in Spanish)]

Political parties

*Eusko Abertzale Ekintza, EAE-ANV ("Basque National Action", integrated successively in the different electoral fronts of the MLNV (see below).
*Herri Alderdi Sozialista Iraultzailea, HASI (People's Socialist Revolutionary Party, illegal, always run in the successive MLNV fronts until the formation of Batasuna), it was considered the political arm of ETA
*Herri Batasuna, HB ("Basque Union", an electoral coalition formed by both parties and independents)
*Euskal Herritarrok, EH ("We Basque Citizens") was the moniker under which the coalition previously known as Herri Batasuna took part in elections in 1998 and 1999.
*EH changed its name again and refounded as Batasuna ("Union", a political party, not a coalition) in 2000.
*Euskal Herrietako Alderdi Komunista, EHAK-PCTV ("Communist Party of the Basque Homelands") had been a tiny a political party which came to be known to the public when it announced in 2005 that it would assume Batasuna's guidelines after the latter was banned in Spain according to the "Ley de Partidos".

Other relevant organizations

*Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak (LAB) ("Nationalist Workers' Committees") a legal trade union.
*Jarrai (In English, "Follow", a youth organization), became Haika and later Segi, all of them were declared illegal in 2006.
*Koordinadora Abertzale Sozialista (KAS), for a long time an actual political organization that envelopped most of the entities mentioned in this article. Its poorly-known KAS Platform was the political manifesto of the MLNV in the 1980s.

References