Some sympathizers and friends of the Party have recently coincided in pointing out the "radical difference" that there is between the armed actions carried out in the last months by the GRAPO and those carried out by ETA. In fact, such difference has always existed and it comes, not so much from their actions and operations, but from the different politic and strategic conceptions that guide the activity of both organizations. This also determines their character. ETA, as it is well known, is a military organization which proclaims itself the "vanguard" of the Basque people in its struggle for independence; while the GRAPO only consider themselves as the "armed wing" of the working-class and people's resistance, whose aspiration is not other than to get rid of the yoke imposed to it by the fascist and monopolist State of the Spanish oligarchy. Apart from that, it is true that the GRAPO are more selective in the search of their military targets. They also try to choose the most favourable politic moments to carry out their actions. On the contrary, ETA seems to guide itself by the criterion that "everything is allowed". Even in this case, we are not going to resort to the easy option of accusing ETA for its "indiscriminate" actions or to the hypocrite lamentations on the innocent victims that they have provoked.
In relation to this, the position of our Party is clear and unchangeable: above anything, we consider that the true responsible for those and other deaths are the Government, the repressive forces and the political parties that support them. Never can these losses of lives and other lamentable facts be separated from the policy of oppression and plundering that the imperialist and fascist Spanish State exerts on the peoples and nations subdued by him; those deaths cannot be separated from the dirty war, the torture, the falseness and the irrational intransigence so many times shown by the successive governments of Franco and the monarchy in order not to yield to the legitimate rights and vindications of those peoples and nations.
This position does not impede us to recognize and to criticise (we have done it on several occasions) the narrow-mindedness of the nationalist policy and all those ETA actions that we consider mistaken. In any case, it is precisely there where we have to continue putting the emphasis, since it has been that policy, materialized in the so-called "negotiation strategy", the one that has led them to the blind alley in which they are nowadays. The "indiscriminate", badly conceived and improvised armed actions are the result of that situation to which their politic blindness, combined with the policy of spreading confusion in people's minds and the terrorist strategy practised by the government, has led them. Nowadays, we can appreciate in all its extension the failure of that aim with which they have only achieved (apart from appearing almost everyday in the front-pages of the newspapers) to foul their own nest. Of course, they will not be able to get out of the awkward situation in this way. Moreover, it will happen the contrary: if they persist in this kind of actions, ETA will be discredited even in front of its own supporters and it will continue to inflict an immense damage to the just cause that it defends. It is not by chance that the repressive forces have precisely now decided to carry out the physical elimination of the Basque militants in a systematic way. The fact is that ETA itself has handed them on a plate the chance to do it. This is a tragic mistake that must be corrected as soon as possible, if they really don't want to continue playing the game that is more convenient for the government.
It is completely evident that throughout that way there is no way out, and it would be good to admit it. But as it seems, for the nationalists this recognition is very hard to do. Would they rather bang their heads once and again against the "negotiation" wall? We hope they don't. Anyway, we cannot lose sight of those who, taking advantage of this chance, make repeated proposals for capitulation and hasten to occupy the parliamentary seats. So much blood and sacrifices for that? This is the eternal contradiction in which the most radical Basque nationalist movement struggles, due to the lack of a politic and strategic approach which considers seriously the overthrowing of the State together with other forces interested in that same objective.
Something very different, and even opposed to it, are the actions that the GRAPO are carrying out. As we outlined at the beginning of this commentary: everybody has been able to see the care that this organization puts in the selection of its targets, at the same time that it tries to make their open armed actions coincide with the most favourable politic moments. We have had a clear example of this conduct during the imperialist aggression against Iraq. As it can be remembered, in the critical moment of that aggression, the GRAPO blasted with powerful explosive charges the pipeline that provided oil to the US aircraft that flew from Spanish ground to bomb the cities and towns of that country. Another example has been the execution of the torturer doctor José Muñoz Fernández who forced the feed of the prisoners during the hunger strike that they maintained for more than a year; or the blowing-up of Galavis' chalet, a former General Manager of Prisons responsible for the death, during another prolonged hunger strike, of the militant of our Party Juan José Crespo Galende. And we could give hundreds of examples like these.
All this results in a considerable help to the movement of the masses and an unquestionable contribution to the raise of their political consciousness. We have already explained on other occasions that this tactics is in line with the general strategy oriented to denounce the injustices, to weaken the regime of the oligarchy, to accumulate revolutionary forces and to gain the support of the workers in order to continue the struggle with a bigger strength and bravery. This is what we define as "the line of resistance" advocated by our Party among the workers and other people's sectors. The GRAPO follow this line. Hence, they have never carried out actions that could be considered harmful for the masses and their political movement at any moment of their already long path of armed revolutionary struggle. They have not carried out any action of this type nor will they be able to do it in the future, as long as they apply a just politic and military line in accordance with the interests of the revolution and the people.