Image copyright EPA Image caption French police have begun opening the weapons caches listed by Eta

Basque militant group Eta has begun handing over its remaining weapons, ending the last insurgency in Western Europe.

At a ceremony in the southern French city of Bayonne, an inventory of weapons, and their locations, was passed to the judicial authorities.

French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl hailed the move as a "major step".

Eta killed more than 800 people in some 40 years of violence as it sought to carve out an independent country straddling Spain and France.

It declared a ceasefire in 2011 but did not disarm.

Mr Fekl said the inventory included eight sites, and a police operation was under way to secure them.

The caches contain 120 firearms, three tonnes of explosives and several thousand rounds of ammunition, according to a spokesman for the group which mediated between Eta and the French authorities.

What is Eta?

The group was set up more than 50 years ago in the era of Spanish dictator General Franco.

Its goal was to create an independent Basque state out of territory in south-west France and northern Spain.

Its first known killing was in 1968, when a secret police chief was shot dead in the Basque city of San Sebastian.

France and Spain refuse to negotiate with Eta, which is on the EU blacklist of terrorist organisations.

It has taken years to convince Eta members to disarm without getting anything in return, says the BBC's Lyse Doucet, in Bayonne.

She says she has been told about 100 hardline fighters still oppose the move.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Eta killed hundreds of people over 40 years

How can we be sure Eta has really given up its weapons?

French police have begun checking the list of sites handed over on Saturday.

There is also the International Verification Commission (IVC), set up in 2011 to monitor Eta's progress towards disarmament.

It is not recognised by the French and Spanish governments, but it does have the backing of the regional Basque government in Spain.

In 2014, the IVC reported that Eta had taken some of its weapons out of action, but the Spanish government dismissed the move as "theatrical".

The Spanish government does not believe Eta will hand over all its weapons, Reuters quoted a government source as saying.

How did we get here?

Slowly, and with many false starts.

Eta's first ceasefire was in 1998, but collapsed the following year.

In 2006, it made another pledge to lay down arms that, too, proved to be illusory. In December of that year, it bombed an airport car park in Madrid, killing two people.

Four years later, in 2010, Eta announced it would not carry out further attacks and in January 2011, it declared a permanent and "internationally verifiable" ceasefire but refused to disarm.

In recent years, police in France and Spain have put Eta under severe pressure, arresting hundreds of militants, including leadership figures, and seizing many of its weapons.

Eta's political wing, Herri Batasuna, was banned by the Spanish government, which argued that the two groups were inextricably linked.

'A moment we have been waiting for' - the BBC's Lyse Doucet in Bayonne

A simple ceremony in a city hall ended Eta's bloody campaign for independence. In an elegant high-ceilinged room, five people sat around a plain square table as early-morning light filtered through heavy drapes.

Bayonne Mayor Jean-Rene Etchegaray welcomed them to a "moment we have all been waiting for". After a few short speeches, French Basque environmentalist Txetx Etcheverry approached the table with a bulky black file, with a dozen blue folders. From where I sat, I could see it included photographs as well as text.

The dossier was handed to international witnesses including Italian Archbishop Matteo Zuppi and the Reverend Harold Good, who played a role in the Northern Ireland peace process. French security forces discreetly secured the area and the Spanish government raised no objections to the ceremony going ahead.

Ram Manikkalingam of the IVC called it a "new model of disarmament and verification which emerged from Basque society".</s>Basque separatist group Eta has begun surrendering its weapons to French authorities.

The group handed over the locations of eight weapons caches in a ceremony in the southern city of Bayonne yesterday.

French interior minister Matthias Fekl said it was a ‘major step’ towards peace.

Eta militants killed more than 800 people in a 43-year campaign as they tried to carve out an independent country straddling parts of France and Spain.

They declared a ceasefire in 2011 but did not disarm.

Mr Fekl said the weapons caches contained firearms, explosives and ammunition.</s>PARIS (AP) - The Basque separatist group ETA has formally given French authorities a list of eight locations of its weapons, ammunition and explosives in a crucial move toward disarmament.

French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl said a police operation was underway Saturday to find and search the arms caches.

"It's a great step, an unquestionably important day," Fekl said.

French Mayor of Bayonne Jean-Rene Etchegaray, fourth left, delivers his speech ahead of the announcement by Ram Manikkalingam, third left, president of the Verification Commission for disarmament of ETA, the Basque separatist group, that ETA handed over its arms in Bayonne, southwestern France, Saturday, April 8, 2017. The Basque separatist group ETA, inactive for more than five years, handed over its arms Saturday, putting a finishing touch to a 43-year violent campaign that claimed the lives of over 800 people mostly in Spain. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

Representatives of the self-appointed Peace Artisans activist group, acting as mediators in the disarmament process, told reporters that the total number of weapons included 120 firearms and three tons of explosives and ammunition.

"We hope that with this the movement can move forward to a long-lasting peace in the Basque country," Mixel Berhokoirigoin said.

He said fellow activists were deployed at each location until French authorities arrive to take possession of the weapons.

The International Verification Commission, in charge of verifying the process, said in a statement Saturday that the list of caches communicated to them by the Peace Artisans group "was immediately conveyed to the relevant French authorities, who will now secure and collect ETA's arsenal."

Inactive for more than five years, ETA had said it would hand over its arms, a historic step following a 43-year violent campaign that claimed 829 lives, mostly in Spain.

Disarmament is the second-to-last step demanded by France and Spain, which want ETA to formally disband. The organization hasn't said whether it would do that.

A spokesman for the ruling party in the Basque Country's regional government in Spain called the disarmament "historically relevant."

"It's important that the disarmament takes place because each and every (weapon) has its history," Joseba Egibar said, as reported by Europa Press. "It's the history of who carried them and the pain and suffering of so many years."

Joe Wilson contributed to the story from Barcelona, Spain.

Ram Manikkalingam, third right, a member of the commission overseeing the Basque group ETA's ceasefire, announces delivery of ETA weapons to French authorities, surrounded by others, from left, Jean Noel Etcheverry, Bishop Matteo Zuppi, Jean Rene Etxegarray, Mayor of Bayonne Michel Tubiana and Reverend Harold Good during a press conference in Bayonne, southwestern France, Saturday, April 8, 2017. In a letter Friday to the BBC, the Basque sepratist group ETA declared itself a weapons-free organization after giving up its entire arsenal to civil society groups. It confirmed the mediators, who call themselves "peace artisans," would complete the disarmament Saturday in southern France, as announced earlier. (AP Photo/bob Edme)

Ram Manikkalingam, third right, president of the Verification Commission for disarmament of ETA, the Basque separatist group, poses for the media with French Mayor of Bayonne Jean-Rene Etchegaray, right, and other members of the Verification Commission ahead of announcing that ETA handed over its arms in Bayonne, southwestern France, Saturday, April 8, 2017. The Basque separatist group ETA, inactive for more than five years, handed over its arms Saturday, putting a finishing touch to a 43-year violent campaign that claimed the lives of over 800 people mostly in Spain. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)</s>The armed Basque separatist group ETA has formally given the French authorities a list of location of its weapons, ammunition and explosives.

The International Verification Commission, in charge of verifying the process, said "this information was immediately conveyed to the relevant French authorities, who will now secure and collect ETA's arsenal".

The commission said it "believes that this step constitutes the disarmament of ETA".

Inactive for more than five years, ETA had said it would hand over its arms, a historic step following a 43-year campaign of violence that claimed 829 lives, mostly in Spain.

Disarmament is the second-to-last step demanded by France and Spain, which want ETA to formally disband. The organisation has not said whether it would do that.

Ram Manikkalingam, center, president of the Verification Commission for disarmament of ETA, the Basque separatist group, announces that ETA hand over its arms, in Bayonne, southwestern France, today. Pic: AP</s>An international watchdog group confirms that Basque separatist group ETA has handed over the location sites of their weapons to French authorities.

Disarmament is the second-to-last step demanded by France and Spain, which want ETA to formally disband. The organization hasn’t said whether it would.

Inactive for more than five years, ETA had said it would hand over its arms, a historic step following a 43-year violent campaign that claimed 829 lives, mostly in Spain.

French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl said a police operation was underway Saturday to find and search the arms caches.

PARIS—The Basque separatist group ETA has formally given French authorities a list of eight locations of its caches of weapons, ammunition and explosives in a crucial move toward disarmament. The Spanish government called on the rebels to “ask forgiveness from its victims and disappear.”

Spain “will not make any evaluation of the handing over of weapons today by ETA until they have been analyzed by French authorities and justice,” Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said in a televised statement.

Spain called on the ETA to “announce its definitive dissolution, ask forgiveness from its victims and disappear.”

“The government will not alter its position: Terrorists cannot hope to receive any special treatment from the government nor immunity for their crimes,” the minister said.

Representatives of the self-appointed Peace Artisans activist group, acting as mediators in the disarmament process, told reporters that ETA surrendered 120 firearms and three tons of explosives and ammunition.

“We hope that with this the movement can move forward to a long-lasting peace in the Basque country,” activist Mixel Berhokoirigoin said.

He said fellow Peace Artisans were deployed at each location until French authorities arrive to take possession of the weapons.

The International Verification Commission said in a statement that the list of caches given to them by the Peace Artisans group “was immediately conveyed to the relevant French authorities, who will now secure and collect ETA’s arsenal.”

The caches are in southwestern France, a region historically used as a support base by ETA.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets of Bayonne to celebrate the peace. Many sang slogans calling for convicted ETA members to complete their sentences in their homelands.

Many Basque separatists have pushed for convicted members to serve their time closer to their homes, not scattered around Spain and France. The Spanish and French governments have refused.

Rev. Harold Good, a Methodist minister who helped in overseeing the Northern Ireland peace process, called on authorities to “bring the prisoners home, to their families . . . above all, those who are frail by sickness and by age.” He was cheered by the crowd.

The president of the Basque Country’s regional government in Spain called the disarmament an “important step with historical value.”

“It certifies that there should have never been any ETA victim,” Inigo Urkullu said in a public statement. “All the victims are part of this success.”

When speaking about victims, Basque nationalists usually take into account the ETA militants and supporters killed during the “dirty war” led by government-sanctioned counter-terrorism groups.

The president of the Victims of Terrorism Foundation, Maria del Mar Blanco, whose brother was kidnapped and killed by ETA in 1997, called for “nobody to rewrite history.”

“The bad guys are still the bad guys. The good guys — we the victims of terrorism — are still the good ones,” Blanco told Spanish national television.

Javier Maroto of Spain’s ruling Party Popular said the disarmament is “a step forward, but it’s not enough.”

In contrast, the pro-independence leader of Sortu, a Basque separatist party linked to ETA, said “the armed struggle is over, but the fight for the same ends goes on.”

“As of tomorrow we need to keep working on the issues of the prisoners, the victims and the demilitarization of the country,” Arnaldo Otegi said.

A handful of ETA members are still on the run. Hundreds of killings also remain unsolved, and the arms caches could help lead authorities to some of the perpetrators.</s>Sign up for one of our email newsletters.

PARIS — The Basque separatist group ETA on Saturday gave French authorities a list of eight caches where police found weapons, ammunition and explosives — a crucial move toward disarmament and a definitive end to its decades-long violent struggle to carve out a homeland on the French-Spanish border.

The Spanish government urged the rebel group to “ask forgiveness from its victims and disappear.”

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said police have searched each site and discovered, in containers and bags, “dozens of handguns and rifles, thousands of pieces of ammunition, several hundred kilograms of explosives and products that can be used to make explosives, several hundreds of detonators and timers.”

A detailed inventory of the ETA weapons caches is underway and the results of French authorities' technical examination and other elements of their investigation will be given to Spanish justice authorities, Molins said.

Inactive for more than five years, ETA said it would hand over its arms, a historic step following a 43-year violent independence campaign that killed 829 people, mostly in Spain.

Disarmament is the second-to-last step demanded by France and Spain, which want ETA to formally disband. The organization hasn't said yet whether it would.

Spain “will not make any evaluation of the handing over of weapons today by ETA until they have been analyzed by French authorities,” Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said in a televised address. “The government will not alter its position: Terrorists cannot hope to receive any special treatment from the government nor immunity for their crimes.”

Spain called on the ETA to “announce its definitive dissolution, ask forgiveness from its victims and disappear.”

Representatives of the self-appointed Peace Artisans group, who are acting as mediators in the disarmament process, told reporters that ETA had surrendered 120 firearms and three tons of explosives and ammunition.

“We hope that, with this, the movement can move forward to a long-lasting peace in the Basque country,” activist Mixel Berhokoirigoin said.

The caches were in southwestern France, a region historically used as a support base by ETA.

Some 20,000 people gathered in the streets of Bayonne, in southwestern France, to celebrate the peace. Many sang slogans calling for convicted ETA members to complete their sentences in their homelands.

Many Basque separatists have pushed for convicted members to serve their prison time closer to their homes, not scattered around Spain and France. The Spanish and French governments have refused.

The Rev. Harold Good, a Methodist minister who helped oversee the Northern Ireland peace process, urged authorities to “bring the prisoners home, to their families ... above all, those who are frail by sickness and by age.” He was cheered by the crowd.

The president of the Basque Country's regional government in Spain called the disarmament an “important step with historical value.”

“It certifies that there should have never been any ETA victim,” Inigo Urkullu said. “All the victims are part of this success.”

When speaking about victims, Basque nationalists usually take into account the ETA militants and supporters killed during the “Dirty War” led by government-sanctioned counter-terrorism groups.

The president of the Victims of Terrorism Foundation, Maria del Mar Blanco, whose brother was kidnapped and killed by the ETA in 1997, called for “nobody to rewrite history.”

“The bad guys are still the bad guys. The good guys — we the victims of terrorism — are still the good ones,” Blanco told Spanish national television.

Javier Maroto of Spain's ruling Party Popular said the disarmament is “a step forward, but it's not enough.”

In contrast, the pro-independence leader of Sortu, a Basque separatist party linked to ETA, said “the armed struggle is over, but the fight for the same ends goes on.”

“As of tomorrow, we need to keep working on the issues of the prisoners, the victims and the demilitarization of the country,” Arnaldo Otegi said.

A handful of ETA members are still on the run. Hundreds of killings also remain unsolved, and the arms caches could help lead authorities to some of the perpetrators.</s>The Basque separatist group Eta, which has promised to give up all its remaining arms by Saturday, has handed over the weapons to members of “civil society” in France, one member of the group has said.



“We have the political and technical responsibility for Eta’s disarmament, and it has been done,” Txetx Etcheverry, a Basque environmentalist, said on Friday.

“Eta has handed over its weapons to civil society. They are on French soil,” he said.

Etcheverry gave no other details about the purported arms transfer or the contents of the arsenal itself, saying they were “confidential”.

The separatist group is thought to have given French authorities information on the location of arms stashes, according to sources in Spain.

Eta, founded in 1959, says its pledge confirms it has brought the curtain down on its armed campaign for a Basque homeland, a territory that straddles the border between northwest Spain and southwest France.

In Madrid, the government on Saturday dismissed Eta’s disarmament as a unilateral affair and bluntly warned that the group – which it denounces as a terror organisation – could expect “nothing” in return.

“It will not reap any political advantage or profit,” said Inigo Mendez de Vigo, Spain’s culture minister and its government spokesman.

“May it disarm, may it dissolve, may it ask forgiveness and help to clear up the crimes which have not been resolved,” he said.

EU parliament member Maite Pagazaurtundua, whose brother was killed in an Eta attack, put her weight behind a petition “against impunity” for the separatist group which gathered over 15,000 signatures within 24 hours.

Analysts say Eta’s arsenal is estimated at 130 handguns and two tonnes of explosives.

The group, blamed for the deaths of 829 people in a string of bombings and shootings on both sides of the Franco-Spanish border, says it gave up its armed campaign in 2011.

It has sought to negotiate its dissolution in exchange for amnesties or improved prison conditions for roughly 350 of its members being held in Spain and France.

Around a hundred of them are serving sentences of more than 10 years.

Eta also wants an amnesty for its members who are living under cover, which antiterrorism experts in France and Spain estimate at about 30 people.

Etcheverry said weapons “experts” would carry out “a series of checks” on Saturday, referring to a verification body that includes a former Interpol secretary general, Raymond Kendall, which is not recognised by either the French or the Spanish governments.

According to sources with knowledge of Eta’s disarmament initiative, the weapons cache will be identified by map coordinates, enabling it to be found.

French police are on standby to take possession of the weapons, officials have told AFP.

An event is planned in the French Basque city of Bayonne on Saturday to mark “Disarmament Day”, but Etcheverry warned that peace could be harder to find.

“Disarmament does not mean peace,” he said. “The French and Spanish governments must help to resolve all the consequences of this conflict.”

Eta is still considered a terrorist group by the European Union.

The head of the regional Basque government in Spain, Inigo Urkullu, last month called on the Spanish and French governments to “show ambitious vision and open direct lines of communication” with Eta.

But the Spanish government rebuffed the plea and instead demanded that the group “dissolve” and never reappear.

In a newly published letter, Eta said the process of disarmament had been “difficult”, praising the autonomous Basque authorities while accusing Spain and France of being “stubborn”.

Spanishinterior minister Juan Ignacio Zoido had already made clear on Wednesday that there “would be no negotiations nor concessions” to Eta members in exchange for disarmament.</s>Basque militant group Eta has begun the process of handing over arms in southern France, ahead of full disarmament announced for Saturday.

Basque environmentalist Txetx Etcheverry said that some weapons had already been handed in.

But he provided no other details to the AFP news agency about the transfer or what arms had been handed over, arguing that such details were "confidential".

Eta says it will hand over all its weapons and explosives.

Eta killed more than 800 people and wounded thousands in over 40 years of violence aimed at Basque independence.

The group declared a ceasefire in 2011 but did not disarm. Spain refuses to negotiate with Eta.

Sources in Spain told news agency AFP that the separatist group were believed to have provided details to French authorities on the whereabouts of its arms hideaways.

The pledge to disarm came in a letter obtained by the BBC, confirming earlier reports about Eta disarmament plans.

The letter, dated 7 April, says that "after giving up all its weaponry (arms and explosives) to Basque civil society representatives [Eta] now is a disarmed organisation.

"We want to warn that still the process can be attacked by the enemies of peace. The only real guarantee to succeed are the thousands of people gathering tomorrow [Saturday] in Bayonne [south-western France] supporting the disarmament."

Speaking on Friday, Spanish government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said Eta "will get nothing from a democratic state like Spain".

He demanded that the group not only disarm, but also clarify who carried out past Eta attacks.

Read the text of the Eta letter in English here and in Spanish here.

In recent years police in France and Spain have put Eta under severe pressure, arresting hundreds of militants, including leadership figures, and seizing many of the group's weapons.

A key figure in Eta's move away from violence is believed to be the leader of the pro-independence Basque left, Arnaldo Otegi, who has served several jail terms for his links to the organisation. However, some Eta prisoners criticised him last year for compromising too much on their behalf.

Spanish media have speculated that Eta may not have many weapons left, after so many successful police operations.

Eta was set up more than 50 years ago in the era of Spanish dictator General Franco. Its first known killing was in 1968, when a secret police chief, Meliton Manzanas, was shot dead in the Basque city of San Sebastian.

In 2014 the International Verification Commission of international inspectors said Eta had put some of its weapons out of action, but the Spanish government dismissed the move as "theatrical".</s>Basque militant group Eta has handed a list of eight arms caches to the French police through intermediaries, sources close to the matter told Reuters on Saturday.

The surrender of its weapons is expected to end the group’s more than four decades of armed struggle that gained it notoriety as one of Europe’s most intractable separatist movements.

The hidden caches could include about 130 handguns and two tonnes of explosives, according to French anti-terrorism experts.

The orchestrated handover in the French city of Bayonne will not dissolve the group, which declared a ceasefire in 2011 after killing more than 850 people during a campaign for an independent state in northern Spain and southwest France.

Anger among Basques at political and cultural repression under General Francisco Franco led to the founding of Eta (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna - Basque Country and Freedom) in 1959.

Following Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s, the Basque region gained more autonomy and the group’s continued bombings and assassinations caused public support to wane.

Eta’s first known victim was a secret police chief killed in San Sebastian in 1968. Its last was a French policeman the group shot in 2010.

A year later it chose not to disarm when it called its truce, but has been severely weakened in the past decade after hundreds of its members were arrested in joint Spanish and French operations and weapons were seized.

In a symbolic gesture in 2014, Eta released a video showing masked members giving up a limited weapons cache to verifiers.

The remaining arsenal, while difficult to keep track of, probably contains hundreds of guns and much more explosive material, “maybe 20, 100 times more” than was consigned in the symbolic handover, says Paddy Woodworth, journalist and author of Dirty War, Clean Hands, a book about Eta.

The group’s first revolutionary gesture was to fly the banned ‘ikurrina’, the red and green Basque flag, before the campaign escalated in the 1960s into violence that was brutally reciprocated by the Franco regime.

In 1973, Eta targeted Franco’s heir apparent Luis Carrero Blanco by digging a tunnel under the road that he drove down daily to attend Mass.

They packed the tunnel with explosives and blasted Blanco’s car over a five-storey building, killing him instantly.

The assassination changed the course of history, as the removal of Franco’s successor led to the exiled king reclaiming the throne and Spain’s progress to a constitutional monarchy.

At the peak of the violence, attacks including a 1987 car bomb at a Barcelona supermarket, which killed 21 including a pregnant woman and two children, horrified Spaniards and drew international outrage.

Eta called a permanent ceasefire in March 2006, but it was shattered by a massive bomb attack at a parking lot at Madrid airport that December which killed two Ecuadorian immigrants.

Eta victim Gorka Landaburu, who lost his thumb and was left blind in one eye after a letter bomb detonated in his home in 2001, welcomed the disarmament and said lessons had been learned.

“This must never happen again in our country,” he said, standing by the sea in the Basque resort of San Sebastian.

“I hope no one ever picks up pistols and bombs to defend an ideology ever again.”</s>French police officers collect plastic bags at a hideout used by Basque separatist guerrillas ETA in Saint Pee sur Nivelle, southwestern France, on Saturday. The armed Basque independence group ETA, inactive for more than five years, is to hand over its arms Saturday, putting a finishing touch to a 43-year violent campaign that claimed the lives of 829 people mostly in Spain. | Photo Credit: AP

The Basque separatist group ETA has formally given French authorities a list of eight locations of its weapons, ammunition and explosives in a crucial move toward disarmament.

French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl said a police operation was underway on Saturday to find and search the arms caches.

Representatives of the self-appointed Peace Artisans activist group, acting as mediators in the disarmament process, told reporters that the total number of weapons included 120 firearms and three tons of explosives and ammunition.

“We hope that with this the movement can move forward to a long-lasting peace in the Basque country,” Mixel Berhokoirigoin said.

The International Verification Commission, in charge of verifying the process, said in a statement Saturday that the list of caches communicated to them by the Peace Artisans group “was immediately conveyed to the relevant French authorities, who will now secure and collect ETA’s arsenal.”

Inactive for more than five years, ETA had said it would hand over its arms, a historic step following a 43-year violent campaign that claimed 829 lives, mostly in Spain.

Disarmament is the second-to-last step demanded by France and Spain, which want ETA to formally disband. The organization hasn’t said whether it would do that.

A spokesman for the ruling party in the Basque Country’s regional government in Spain called the disarmament “historically relevant.”

“It’s important that the disarmament takes place because each and every [weapon] has its history,” Joseba Egibar said, as reported by Europa Press. “It’s the history of who carried them and the pain and suffering of so many years.”
The militant Basque separatist group ETA begins handing over its remaining weapons during a ceremony in Bayonne, France, in which the group turned over to authorities an inventory of weapons and their locations.