People wave Basque flags as thousands of pro independence Basques march demanding the return of all prisoners of ETA, in Bilbao, northern Spain, Sunday April 17, 2016. AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos. All rights reserved.
An important arsenal of shotguns, pistols and revolvers divided into four drums and buried in a forest north of Paris was found by the French police on 12 October, Spain’s national day.
The arms cache belonged to ETA, the Basque terrorist group that ended its violent campaign for independence five years ago on 20 October 2011, but has so far refused to dissolve and decommission its weapons. ETA’s terrorist campaign lasted 43 years and claimed 845 lives, plus hundreds of displaced and injured people as well as an estimated cost of about 10 per cent of the Basque region’s GDP.
