The Spanish Game

9. Arenaza

Mikel Arenaza, politician and friend of terror, is a lively, engaging man – I could tell as much by his manner on the phone – but the full extent of his ebullient self-confidence becomes apparent only upon meeting him. We arrange to have a drink in the old town of San Sebastián, not in an herrika taverna - the type of down-at-heel pub favoured by the radical, left-wing nationalist abertzale – but in an upmarket bar where waves of tapas and uncooked mushrooms and peppers cover every conceivable surface, two barmen and a young female chef working frantically in sight of the customers. It is my final evening in the city, after three solid days of meetings, and Arenaza arrives late, picking me out of the crowd within an instant of walking through the door, at least six feet of heavy good looks pulling off a charming smile beneath an unbrushed explosion of wild black hair. The fact that he is wearing a suit surprises me; the average Batasuna councillor might view that as a sop to Madrid. On television, in the Spanish parliament for example, they are often to be seen dressed as if for a football match, in sartorial defiance of the state. Nevertheless, a single studded ear-ring in his right lobe goes some way towards conveying the sense of a subversive personality.

‘It is Alec, yes?’

A big handshake, eyes that gleam on contact. The ladies’ man.

‘That’s right. And you must be Mikel.’

‘Yes indeed I am. Indeed.’

He moves forcefully, all muscle-massed shoulders and bulky arms, wit and cunning coexistent in the arrangement of his face. Was it my imagination, or did time stand still for a split second, the bar falling quiet as he came in? He is known here, a public figure. Arenaza nods without words at the older of the two barmen and a caña doble appears with the speed of a magic trick. His eyes are inquisitive, sizing me up, a persistent grin at one edge of his mouth.

‘You’ve found a table. This is not always easy here, it’s a triumph. So we can talk. We can get to know each other.’

His English is heavily accented and delivered with great confidence and fluidity. I do not bother to ask whether he would rather speak in Spanish; in the absence of Basque, English will be his preferred second language.

‘And you work for Julian?’ The question appears to amuse him. ‘He is the typical English banker, no? Eton school and Oxford?’

‘I guess so. That’s the stereotype.’ Only Julian went to Winchester, not Eton. ‘How do you know him?’

There is a fractional pause. ‘Well, we tried to do some business together a long time ago but it did not come off. However, it was an interesting time and now whenever I go to Madrid I always try to have a dinner with him. He has become my friend. And Sofía, of course, such a beautiful woman. The British always taking our best wives.’ A laugh here, of Falstaffian dimensions. Arenaza, who must be about Julian’s age, has sat down with his back to the room on a low stool which does nothing to diminish his sheer physical impact. He offers his glass in a toast. ‘To Mr and Mrs Church, and to bringing us together.’ Clink. ‘What is it that you think I can do for you?’

He may be in a hurry; the man-about-town with fifty better things to do. It occurs to me that whatever information he might usefully impart for my report will have to be extracted within the next half-hour. It is the challenge of spies to win the confidence of a stranger and I would like to know more about Mikel Arenaza, yet charisma of his sort usually denotes a distracted and restless personality. Time is of the essence.

‘What would be most useful for Endiom to know is your view on the question of separatism. What has become of your party in the wake of the ban? Do you think the Basque people would vote for independence in a referendum? That kind of thing.’

Arenaza bounces his eyebrows and puffs out his cheeks in a well-rehearsed attempt at looking taken aback. I note that he is wearing a very strong aftershave.

‘Well, it’s not unusual to meet an Englishman who arrives straight to the point. I assume you are English, no?’

I take a chance here, going with a pre-arranged plan based on Arenaza’s ideological convictions.

‘Actually my father was Lithuanian and my mother is Irish.’ Two sets of suitably oppressed peoples for a Basque to mull over. ‘They settled in England when my father found work.’

‘Really?’ He looks gratifyingly intrigued. ‘Your mother is from Ireland?’

‘That’s right. County Wicklow. A farm near Bray. Do you know the area at all?’

Mum is actually Cornish, born and bred, but ETA and the IRA have always had very close ties, shared networks, collective goals. About a year ago a general in the Spanish army was killed by a bicycle bomb, a technique ETA were believed to have acquired from the Irish.

‘Only Dublin,’ Arenaza replies, offering me a cigarette which I decline. It’s a South American brand – Belmont – which I have seen only once before. He lights one and smiles through the initial smoke. ‘I have been to several conferences there, also once to Belfast.’

‘And you’re just back from South America?’

He looks taken aback.

‘From Bogotá, yes. How did you know this?’

‘Your cigarettes. You’re smoking a local brand.’

‘Well, well.’ He mutters something to himself in Basque. ‘You’re a very observant person, Mr Milius. Julian makes a good decision in hiring you, I think.’

It is a politician’s flattery, but welcome none the less. I say, ‘Eskerrik asko’ - the Basque for ‘thank you’ – and lead him back into the conversation.

‘So you want to know what has become of Herri Batasuna?’

‘That’s right. To hear it from someone so close to the centre would be very useful.’

‘Well, it is a complicated situation as you can probably be guessing. It is not only my party that is affected. I am sure you have already been informed about what happened last week?’

‘With Egunkaria?’ At dawn on 20 February, a Thursday, masked members of the Guardia Civil burst into the offices of the Basque newspaper Egunkaria and arrested ten of its executives, accusing them of supporting ETA. ‘I heard the police were a bit heavy-handed. Didn’t they go in wearing bulletproof vests?’

‘That’s right. That’s right. It was ridiculous. These are newspaper offices. What are the staff going to shoot them with? Ink?’ I laugh encouragingly as Arenaza spends fifteen minutes telling me things I already know: that more than a hundred men were ordered to search and board up Egunkaria offices throughout the Basque country and Navarra; that they confiscated documents and computer records; that several Basque publishers offered temporary offices and printing facilities to enable the paper to go to press. ‘It was a direct attack on our culture,’ he says finally. ‘This was the only newspaper in the region to publish entirely in Euskera.’

‘And what about the accusation that it was funded by ETA?’

Arenaza tilts his head very slightly to one side so that his eyes momentarily lose their sheen. This may be a sign of irritation or simply a warning to me to be more discreet.

‘I cannot speak for E-T-A,’ he says, spelling out each letter to disguise the acronym, ‘but these accusations were also directed at another newspaper, Egin, during 1998 before it was also banned by Madrid. They say that the armed struggle wanted a Basque-language newspaper, that they moved shares from Egin to Egunkaria to pay for this, and that they nominated certain journalists to be editors. And this is bullshit, of course. Total bullshit.’ Arenaza takes a relaxed drag on his cigarette. His mood is one of nonchalance bordering on conceit. ‘If you want to talk about funding, let’s talk about funding. Egunkaria was given six million euros by the state government, and still the PP accuses them of “political responsibility” in the spread of terrorism. These people are just fascists, Alec. Ignorant fascists.’

I have noticed over the last few days that parties on either side of the Basque conflict use exactly the same terminology when attacking one another. Thus, Aznar is ‘a fascist’, Ibarretxe, the president of the Basque region, is ‘a fascist’, ETA are ‘a bunch of fascists’, and so on. A useful way of polarizing the debate for those with no interest in resolving it. Still, I nod approvingly, careful to remain on the right side of Arenaza’s prejudices. He suggests we have another drink. Within a few moments he has returned from the bar armed with more cañas and two large plates covered in pintxos.

‘The best tapas in the Parte Vieja,’ he says, an arm falling on my shoulder, and I know now that he is warming to me. Arenaza is a man’s man and, for some reason, his sort always like me. We talk for a long time about the superiority of Basque cuisine over all others, which is at least a subject about which I can speak with real sincerity. But in due course he is keen to return to Egunkaria. There is now a powerful smell of alcohol on his breath and I wonder if he was drinking over lunch.

‘If I could just tell you, Alec, that the editor-in-chief of the paper was tortured in Madrid this week by the Interior Ministry police. OK? This is fact, no matter what anybody tells you. An all-night interrogation in the cells of the Guardia Civil between midday on Monday and Tuesday morning. They strip him naked, place a plastic bag over his eyes and put a gun to his head.’ For the purposes of illustration, Arenaza presses two fingers to his temple and pulls an imaginary trigger. I notice that the ladies’ man is wearing a wedding band on his ring finger. ‘And all the time pouring insults about Basque culture and politicians into his ears. They are animals.’

I knew about this. It was covered in yesterday’s Independent.

‘Jesus, I had no idea.’

‘Well, of course. And why should you? It is in the interests of the state media not to report these things. And then five of the ten journalists arrested in connection with Egunkaria have been denied bail on the basis that they are terrorists. Excuse me? Men of sixty years old who write about football and education policy. Terrorists?’

For the first time, Arenaza has raised his voice to a level at which it might be understood by anybody at the bar who speaks English. Sensing this, he bites into a canapé of blood sausage and launches a self-deprecating smile: for some reason, he doesn’t want me to think that he takes any of this too seriously. I make a start on my second beer, eating a tortilla canapé and directing the conversation back towards Batasuna.

‘So can you tell me, as a former councillor, about the consequences of the ban? Your reaction to it and that of your colleagues?’

‘My reaction to it? OK.’ He leans forward. A tiny speck of morcilla has caught on his chin. ‘The truth is, Alec, that support for the party was falling away all the time because of the violence. That is not something that I, or anybody else, can deny. From maximum twenty per cent of the region down to less than ten when the ceasefire began. Voters do not like seeing people being killed. That is not to say that armed struggle is ineffective. On the contrary, if you look at any revolutionary group in an international context – Hamas, IRA, Chechen fighters, bin Laden – all of these have been undoubtedly effective, with the possible exception of al-Qaeda, who to me do not seem to have any ideological objective other than pure rage. Violence is the only way to get politicians to come to the table, to make them give concessions, and people recognize this. The suicide bombs on the buses of Tel Aviv will one day pay dividends, just as the war fought by E-T-A has borne fruit. You only have to look at what the IRA extracted from your government and from Tony Blair.’

‘Who never banned Sinn Fein.’

‘Exactly!’ Arenaza seizes on this point with obvious delight, as if he has found a kindred spirit. ‘The British were very clever,’ he says, strumming his fingers on the table. ‘They never banned the party. They knew that it would be undemocratic to do this. And when the time came to negotiate the peace process, these talks were able to go ahead in a civilized fashion. The IRA had a respectable political face to invite into the drawing rooms of England and everybody could proceed with British dignity. But Señor Aznar has banned Herri Batasuna and now he has nothing. He means to drive the nationalist movement, in your expression – “into the sea”. But he will not succeed.’

‘Well, you can’t really blame him.’

It is as if Arenaza has not heard me. His eyes narrow considerably and there is even a slight pouting of the lips, as if I have failed to laugh at one of his favourite jokes.

‘I am sorry. I do not follow’ Very skilfully, he maintains the politician’s charm.

‘It’s just that a few years ago E-T-A tried to blow Aznar up with a car bomb. That kind of thing tends to leave an impression, no? You can sympathize with the Palestinians all you like, but if one day your daughter is on that bus and she’s the one who gets her arms blown off, your perspective is going to change on the subject.’

For once, perhaps as a result of being contradicted, Arenaza’s superb English fails him and he asks me to repeat what I have said. For the sake of clarity I abandon the Israeli parallel and remind him about ETA’s attempt on Aznar’s life.

‘You think Aznar’s motivation is a revenge?’

‘I don’t think you can discount it.’

Mikel Arenaza appears to consider this thesis for some time – looking up at one point to scope an attractive woman who walks in on the far side of the bar – and lights another cigarette before responding.

‘You are an interesting man, Alec Milius.’ The flattery is accompanied by the sort of winning grin I suspect he might ordinarily reserve for the ladies. ‘How does a politician make his name? By putting more books in schools? By making the buses run on time? Of course not. He does it by the big gesture. So Mr Bush will bring democracy to Iraq, Mr Aznar will win the war against ETA. This is how they want to be remembered. And of course it is delusional. We are being led by weak men, and we will pay. All that fucking tax inspector in Madrid has done is anger a lot of moderate nationalists and turned them against his government. Herri Batasuna never killed anybody. You must remember this. We were a democratic institution. Either you believe in freedom of expression, in one person and one vote, or you do not. Do you believe in this, Mr Alec Milius of Endiom Bank?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Well, I do not!’

Arenaza looks at me with an expression of unguarded triumph, as if delighted to have pulled the rug out from under my feet. He actually lifts both hands off the table and appears to look around for applause. I lean forward on my stool and pick up another canapé.

‘You don’t believe in freedom of speech?’

‘Not any more.’

‘In democracy?’

‘I have concluded after a lot of thinking that it is wasted on people.’

This might be interesting. ‘You want to explain why?’

‘Of course.’ Another trademark grin, prompting the thought that Mikel Arenaza has a fatal weakness – a desire to be liked. He will say or do anything to achieve that end. What is seduction, after all, if not the constant pursuit of another’s approbation? I would be prepared to make a substantial bet that he has no firm convictions to speak of, only the desire to strip people of theirs.

‘Look at what is happening with the war in the Gulf,’ he exclaims, staring out of the window as if members of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard were suddenly massing in the Parte Vieja. ‘Millions of people, all around the world, protesting to their governments about the invasion of Iraq, and who listens to them? Nobody. Not Mr Blair, not the PP, certainly not the Americans and Bush. But they will do it anyway, they will go into Baghdad. And you know what makes me laugh? It is this same so-called democracy that they wish to impose on the Middle East. The same corruption. The same lies. Do you see? The people do not matter.’

‘But that’s not their fault.’ I don’t like hearing this from a politician, conviction or no conviction. ‘Democracy isn’t wasted on the public just because they don’t have a voice. It’s wasted on the politicians who take advantage of them.’

‘Exactly, exactly.’ Arenaza appears to agree wholeheartedly and drains his drink. ‘But the idea that governments listen to the public, that they are accountable to the men and women who voted for them, is a notion from the nineteenth century, in your country from the beginnings of socialism when people finally had a voice and a way of communicating with each other. Before that politics was about the special interests of elites. People forget this, and now we are back at this point. Your British government pursues a policy based on one simple ideology: follow America. That is the extent of their imagination. And in the long run it is easier for Mr Blair to say “No” to hundreds of thousands of British voters, even to ignore the voice of his own conscience, than it is for the Foreign Office of the United Kingdom to say “No” to George Bush. Now, follow my logic. Once the prime ministers of Spain and of the UK have a decision of this kind forced upon them, that is to say they have no choice in what they do because of America, then they start to see themselves as men of destiny. Good Europeans against bad, friends of democracy against friends of terror. The ego takes over.’

I’ve lost the thread here, but find a question. ‘So why are you still involved in politics?’

‘I am not. We have been banned.’

‘Yes, but -’

‘Listen to me. I have sat in on these meetings, even at the level of local politics, and none of my superiors ever cared for anything but their own personal and political advancement. They are all little Dick Cheneys, all the same. Politics is the vanity of individual men. Policy is shaped by flaws in the character.’

Why is he telling me this? Because he is drunk? ‘You’re saying that you disapprove of your colleagues?’

A heavy pause. Arenaza runs his hand through a thick clump of hair.

‘Not exactly, no. Not disapprove.’ I suppose he doesn’t want to overstep the mark. ‘It is more a question of human nature, of reality. Listen, you have somewhere else you have to go tonight?’

‘No.’

‘Then come with me. I will explain everything to you. We go to another bar and I will show you exactly what it is that I mean.’