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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 7, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Editorial: Defend the Basque web site

Clearly, a covert government operation was behind the shutdown of an Internet web site that supported Basque independence in Spain and France. On July 18, the Institute for Global Communications-Peacenet in San Francisco shut down a World Wide Web site maintained by the Euskal Herria Journal, a New York-based publication supporting Basque independence. The site included sections on the ETA, a liberation movement whose initials stand for "Basque Homeland and Freedom" in the Basque language.

The Basques have been subjected to a dirty war of repression and death squads for decades. On July 27, tens of thousands of Basques demonstrated in San Sebastian, Spain, in a popular show of support for the independence movement.

The average person using the Internet wouldn't know how to "bombard" a web site heavily enough to cause a disruption. Skilled computer workers have no interest in bringing down a web site that disseminates political information. It all points directly to secret police intervention. It also shows how the "electronic superhighway" is not really free from government interference and censorship.

The attacks on the Basque site were supposedly opposing "terrorism." The attackers identified themselves as being peace activists. But, in the July 26 Irish People newspaper, writer Eugene McElroy wrote: "Sound familiar? To any Irish activist, it should." Irish Republican web operations have also been subjected to various kinds of attacks

McElroy reported: "This kind of `peace movement' calls on everyone to `cooperate with the police' but neglects police and army brutality. In the case of the Basques, the very week [of the electronic sabotage of the web site] the former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez admitted in the New York Times on July 17 that his government authorized secret death squads against ETA."

What's next? Will the CIA-conjured "peace people" take some real or imagined tragedy as an excuse to sabotage web sites supporting Cuba? Or web sites for political prisoners like Mumia-Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier?

Rather than buckling under, Audrie Krause, director of NetAction in San Francisco, urged the Internet community to "mirror" the Basque site so that it would be available not at one place but at hundreds--too many to close down.

IGC-Peacenet should restore the Basque web site. And there's no reason for it to have replaced the Basque site with its own message about why the site was closed that includes attacks on the ETA. It can offer links to alternate Basque ETA sites, particularly mirror sites as suggested by NetAction.

In addition, IGC should immediately retract the statement that it made to the New York Times (July 28) that it was considering permanently shutting the Basque site because it had pro-ETA information. That's a violation of IGC's declared independence and a capitulation to censorship.

IGC-Peacenet said that it was closing the site because the electronic bombardment was inconveniencing its members and slowing down their e-mail system. But surely IGC can explain to its members the reason for the problem. Wouldn't members of the IGC-Peacenet network--who use that system because of its progressive resources--be willing to put up with some inconvenience to support free speech rights?

In fact, the whole Internet community could be organized to rally support for IGC if it took a stand. It could set an example of how to fight repression and censorship on the Internet and put a stop to this kind of attack.

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