| Asociación Foro Ermua | |
|---|---|
| Formation | January 13, 1998 |
| Legal status | Association |
| Region served | Spain |
| President | Mikel Buesa |
| Website | www.foroermua.com |
The Foro Ermua (English: Ermua Forum) is a Spanish civic association, the membership of which is composed of Spanish citizens (most of them living in the Basque Country). It was founded on the thirteenth of January, 1998; its current president is Mikel Buesa.
The organisation states that its formation was brought about by the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco, a conservative politician in Ermua in Biscay, by members of the Basque independentist terrorist group ETA. (This assassination had taken place on 12 July 1997, several months before the Foro Ermua was founded.) Prior to the Forum's official foundation, Blanco's murder also resulted in a local movement called espíritu de Ermua, or "Ermua spirit," which was a general feeling of solidarity that sprung up amongst many local people after Blanco's kidnapping and death. Members of the organisation consider it's foundation to be an attempt to continue the 'Ermua spirit'.
The organisation views it's activities as democratic in nature and in line with the existing structures of the Spanish state, in contrast to what they describe as the "nationalistic fascism" of ETA's views [1]. Although they do not openly align themselves with any political party it's members tend to be associated either with one of the two conservative Spanish parties; the People's Party (Spain) or Union, Progress and Democracy, or are independent conservatives.
The forum lists the following objectives:
Critics of the Ermua forum, mainly members of the radical pro-independence Basque left, have accused it of being a front for conservative Spanish political forces opposed to Basque Self-determination, independence and Nationalism.
The Abertzale left have drawn attention to many aspects of what they consider to be the hypocritical nature of the organisation's targeting of ETA, which they consider to be a conscious extension of it's Conservatism and Spanish nationalism. For example; they point out the atrocities carried out under the Fascist regime of General Franco for which no-one was ever held responsible, Spanish Imperialism during the Iraq War and elsewhere, the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación, a state sponsored, extrajudicial far-right death squad that operated in 1980's as well as other perceived injustices such as the Spanish Constitution of 1978 which was written during the Spanish transition to democracy when the generals and politicians of the former regime (commonly referred to as the Búnker) exerted significant pressure on those drafting the document contributing to a clause which prohibits Self-determination or independence for any of the historical Nations of Iberia, including the Basque Country.