End of an ETA

The Basque militant group officially declared a permanent ceasefire today, perhaps bringing an end to a 50-year campaign that has claimed more than 800 lives. The announcement didn’t get all that much attention in the U.S., where ETA tends to get lumped in with Greek Anarchists as quaint relics of a more violent era of European politics. While they were a force to be reckoned with in the ’70s and ’80s, these days, Europe faces a much more pressing threat from radical Islamist groups, rather than delusional nationalists in balaclavas, right?

Actually, no, according to the EU’s latest data. The Vancouver Sun‘s Dan Gardner reports: 

The European Union’s Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2010 states that in 2009 there were "294 failed, foiled, or successfully executed attacks" in six European countries. This was down almost one-third from the total in 2008 and down by almost one-half from the total in 2007.

So in most of Europe, there was no terrorism. And where there was terrorism, the trend line pointed down.

As for who’s responsible, forget Islamists. The overwhelming majority of the attacks — 237 of 294 — were carried out by separatist groups, such as the Basque ETA. A further 40 terrorists schemes were pinned on leftist and/or anarchist terrorists. Rightists were responsible for four attacks. Single-issue groups were behind two attacks, while responsibility for a further 10 was not clear.

Islamists? They were behind a grand total of one attack. Yes, one. Out of 294 attacks. In a population of half a billion people. To put that in perspective, the same number of attacks was committed by the Comite d’Action Viticole, a French group that wants to stop the importation of foreign wine.

Here’s the report.

To be sure, the numbers are a bit misleading in that Islamist terrorists tend to carry out attacks on a somewhat grander scale — Madrid in 2004, London in 2005, the recent Stockholm suicide attack if it had worked — than ETA, even in its heyday. (The maniacal viciousness of French wine snobs is another story.)

But still, during a week when we’ve been reminded that political violence can strike anywhere, good riddance to Basque militancy. Perhaps they finally took a look at the far more effective revolution happening in Catalonia.