ETA commander Francisco Javier López Peña AKA "Thierry"—on the run since 1983 and held responsible for ending the last ceasefire—was arrested late May 20 in Bordeaux in a joint operation involving the French Gendarmerie and Spanish Guardia Civil. Arrested with Thierry at a downtown apartment were Ainhoa Ozaeta Mendiondo, Igor Suberbiola and Jon Salaberría, a former member of the Basque parliament and Batasuna leader. All four were armed, but did not resist. Ozaeta Mendiondo is the voice who reads ETA's communiqués in media releases, and said to be the lover of the son of veteran militant Josu Ternera. (ThinkSpain, May 21)

Spanish ministers and royalty attended the funeral of a Civil Guard killed in a May 14 car bombing blamed on ETA at a barracks in Legutiano, near the Basque city of Vitoria. Four officers were hurt. (BBC, May 15) Meanwhile, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Martin Scheinin, concluded an eight-day mission to Spain to review that country's practices in combating terrorism. While the report issued at the end of the trip praised certain "best practices" in safeguarding the rights of suspects, it also raised concerns about abuses. (UN News Centre, May 14) An excerpt:

In a massive sweep of shantytowns in urban areas across the country, Italian police arrested nearly 400 undocumented immigrants in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's first week back in power. 118 were immediately expelled, and many others held to face immigration, drug and other charges. Most of the detained were from Romania and North Africa. Anti-crime director Francesco Gratteri said the operation was aimed at fighting crime "linked to illegal immigration."

A fence designed to separate the Roma from the majority community in Havlíčkův Brod, Czech Republic, has received approval from the local planning office. The remaining obstacle seems to be who will pay for the construction. People from the housing condominium who complained about the Roma are refusing to pay half of the costs, as municipal authorities demand. Ivan Veselý from the Romani association Dženo warns that if construction goes ahead, the country's international image will suffer. "The Czech Republic will discredit itself again," he said. Džamila Stehlíková, minister without portfolio for human rights, has failed to talk local officials out of the plan. (Prague Daily Monitor, May 7)

On April 20 a bomb exploded outside the offices of Spain's ruling Socialist party in the Basque town of Elgoibar (Guipúzcoa province), causing considerable damage but no injuries. Police said the blast followed a telephone warning in the name of the armed separatist group ETA. (AP, April 20) While the attack made some international headlines, there was little note that it came one day before a trial opened against 27 members of Basque pro-amnesty organizations on charges that they are ETA fronts. The 27, members of Askatasuna, Gestoras Pro-Amnistía, Behatokia and Senideak, refused to respond to questioning by the Spanish prosecutor. The case stems from an eight-year inquiry by Baltasar Garzón, Spain's leading anti-terror investigator. (EiTB24, April 21)

Judges at the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague April 3 found two former commanders of the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA), Kosova's ex-prime minister Ramush Haradinaj and Idriz Balaj, not guilty on all charges. A third ex-KLA defendant, Lahi Brahimaj, was sentenced to six years imprisonment. The three were accused of murders, rapes, torture and persecution of Serbs and perceived collaborators during the KLA guerilla struggle in 1998. (VOA, Kosova Live, April 3)

Some 40 activists marched against the NATO summit in Bucharest April 3, beating on drums and chanting "Stop the war, stop NATO" and "NATO out of Bucharest." In a pre-emptive strike before the march, Romanian security forces broke into a factory that had been rented by the protesters as a Convergence Center, detaining 46 for "identity checks." Eight others were picked up off the street and brought to police precincts. (Gipfelsoli Infogruppe, Germany, April 3) The city remains occupied by some 30,000 special police, military troops and intelligence officers. A "code yellow" security alert has been declared, with all protests forbidden. (Balkan Decentralized Network, April 3) A solidarity protest demanding release of the detained was held at the Romanian embassy in Berlin (IMC Deutschland, April 3)

Our March issue featured the story "Phantom Republics: Kosovo's Independence Reverberates Across Eurasia," by Rene Wadlow, a reprint from Toward Freedom. Wrote Wadlow: "The self-proclamation of independence by Kosovo may be the last act in the division of former Yugoslavia, or it may be one step in a new chain of territorial adjustments. There are calls in Republika Srpska, the Serb unit of the Bosnia-Herzegovina federation, for its integration into Serbia... There is also the impact of the example of Kosovo on the other phantom republics born of the break up of the Soviet Union: Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Transnistria in Moldova—and, if not completely crushed, Chechenya in Russia." Our March Exit Poll was: "Do you support independence for Kosova? If your answer is 'no,' please tell us how you feel about Palestine, East Timor, Western Sahara, Northern Ireland, the Basque Country and Puerto Rico. If your answer is 'yes,' please tell us how you feel about Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria." We received the following responses: