Former Spanish President Jos? Mar?a Aznar said that he did not regret actions taken to combat terrorism, both in Spain and abroad during his eight-year tenure as head of state in a speech in Gaston Hall on Tuesday.
Aznar, a new Georgetown lecturer, presented his plan for eradicating terrorism, a topic that he similarly discussed during a recent appearance at the University in January 2004.
Characterizing terrorism as “the central problem in the world,” and as “the worst threat to freedom today,” Aznar placed strong emphasis on the need to treat all forms of terrorism as equally evil and dangerous. He used his own nation’s fight against both al Qaeda and ETA, a Basque nationalist group that has been blamed for numerous acts of terrorism in Spain, as examples.
The issue of Basque nationalism has been at the center of an ongoing controversy involving Aznar’s April 2004 appointment to the faculty of Georgetown.
To protest Aznar’s appointment, the International Basque Organization for Human Rights, a U.S.-based group, began a letter-writing campaign to the University calling for President John J. DeGioia to dismiss Aznar from the faculty on the basis of the Spanish government’s alleged human rights abuses against Basque citizens.
“There are many, many Basques who are horrified by Aznar. He’s so disliked and so disgusted that he doesn’t deserve to be a lecturer at Georgetown,” Cathleen Acheribogaray, a spokesperson for IBO said.
Actions cited by advocates as human rights violations include the closing of Basque publications, the outlawing of Basque political parties allegedly linked with ETA and the torture of prisoners.
These accusations also have come from a variety of human rights organizations both within Spain and around the world. In Feb. 2003, Amnesty International called for the Spanish Government to justify the closing of the Basque-language daily, Egunkaria, and the arrest of ten of the paper’s associates.
While Aznar did not directly address the current Basque controversy during his speech, he did provide a clear explanation for his government’s actions against ETA, whom he adamantly defined as terrorists.
Aznar criticized the way in which public opinion wrongly characterizes domestic groups such as ETA.
“To call them separatist groups or liberation organizations is unacceptable,” he said.
Tuesday’s speech, entitled, “Seven Theories of Today’s Terrorism,” was the first in a series of lectures that Aznar will deliver at Georgetown.
According to the April press release announcing his appointment, Aznar will lead two seminars per semester focusing on European politics and Trans-Atlantic relations.
