Basque paper changes name

[Harold F. Schiffman]

New York Times,

February 21, 2003

Basque Paper Changes Name After ETA Link

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 2:50 p.m. ET

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- A Basque newspaper that was shut down over suspicion
on aiding the armed separatist group ETA came out Friday with a new name
and a vow to keep publishing. A day after being shut down by police,
Egunkaria renamed itself ``Egunero'' and published a 16-page edition with
a banner headline proclaiming: ``Closed, but not quiet.'' Egunkaria means
``newspaper'' in the Basque language. Egunero means ``every day.''

Egunero dedicated all of its coverage on Thursday's police raids that
closed down its offices across the Basque region and neighboring Navarra.
Police arrested 10 executives of Egunkaria's publishing company and
editor-in-chief Marcelo Otamendi. They also seized documents and computer
equipment. Xavier Lekuona, Egunkaria's assistant director, denied the
newspaper has links to the ETA.

``We are going to continue with the same drive that we were born with and
we'll continue as an homage to the detained and to the readers of the
newspaper,'' Lekuona said. Authorities say the newspaper was a
communications tool for ETA -- alleging that when police arrested ETA
commando groups, Egunkaria alerted other operatives. Egunkaria was Spain's
only Basque language newspaper, with a circulation of 15,000.

National Court Judge Juan del Olmo described Thursday's closure as
temporary while he probes the fund-raising network of the separatist group
ETA. Police shut down another Basque-language paper, Egin, in 1998. The
paper, also accused of aiding ETA, has never reopened although no one at
the paper has been tried. A march to protest the closure is scheduled for
Saturday in the northern Basque city of San Sebastian.

ETA, which stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom in the Basque language,
has killed more than 800 people since it began attacks in 1968. Its stated
goal is to carve out an independent Basque country in land straddling
northern Spain and southwest France.