Artisans of Peace

Thanks to their work, on 8 April 2017 ETA pinpointed the position of their remaining arm caches located across the western Pyrenees, and were in turn confiscated by the police in presence of the Artisans of Peace.

One year later, on 17 October 2011, six international leaders, including Kofi Annan, Jonathan Powell, Bertie Ahern, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Pierre Joxe and Gerry Adams, presented a road map for the resolution of the armed conflict in the Basque Country.

Attorneys of the arrested denounced that they were being subject to a 'political manoeuvre' to foil a peace initiative, as well as claiming that they actually planned to neutralize the weapons in order to hand them over to the authorities.

Regardless, three months later, the peaceworkers along with dozens of new activists who had joined them unveiled via Le Monde newspaper from Paris a scheduled surrender of its arms caches due on 8 April.

Waiting for the French Police to arrive to all the weapons dumps, 172 new artisans remained next to caches as custodians and observers, even though that work a priori was not strictly correct from the point of view of law.

On 8 April, the civil society turned out to the streets in support of ETA’s decision to hand over arms and celebrate peace, with thousands of people attending a mass rally in central Bayonne.