title: Winnipeg Jets

text: On December 27, 1971, Winnipeg was granted one of the founding franchises in the World Hockey Association (WHA). By 1979, many of the WHA's teams had folded, but the Jets were absorbed into the NHL along with the Quebec Nordiques, Edmonton Oilers and Hartford Whalers as part of the WHA–NHL merger. Team owner Barry Shenkarow sold the team to American businessmen Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke. Burke and Gluckstern originally planned to move the team to Minnesota (which had lost the North Stars to Dallas in 1993), but eventually reached an agreement with Phoenix businessman Jerry Colangelo that would see the team move to Arizona and become the Phoenix Coyotes. The original Winnipeg Jets played their last game on April 28, 1996.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The city of Atlanta was awarded an NHL expansion franchise, named the Atlanta Thrashers, on June 25, 1997. It was the second NHL franchise for Atlanta (their first being the Atlanta Flames, established in 1972, who departed for Calgary in 1980 to become the Calgary Flames). The Thrashers began play in the 1999–2000 season.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: In the 12 years in Atlanta, the Thrashers qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs once, during the 2006–07 season, and never won a playoff game. Partially due to their lack of playoff success, the team had difficulty drawing fans to attend their games in their final seasons.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: Although they moved for financial reasons, the Coyotes have never been profitable in Arizona. Mounting losses eventually compelled the franchise to file for bankruptcy after the 2008–09 season. The team was taken over by the league before the next season began. As early as October 2009, there were rumours that True North Sports & Entertainment, the company that owns both Winnipeg's Canada Life Centre (then known as MTS Centre) and the American Hockey League (AHL)'s Manitoba Moose, had been invited to bid on the city's former franchise. TNSE submitted a series of bids for the Coyotes, which were taken seriously enough that the league drew up a tentative schedule with Winnipeg in place of Phoenix. The NHL shelved the bid after securing a large subsidy from the Coyotes' municipal government. In contrast to aggressive, public bids by Jim Balsillie (who had unsuccessfully attempted to use bankruptcy laws to skirt NHL rules and move the Coyotes to Hamilton), the low-key approach by TNSE and its chairman, Mark Chipman, was praised by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and other owners, raising their profile when the question of the Thrashers' relocation came up.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: On May 20, 2011, the "Winnipeg Sun" confirmed that an agreement in principle had been reached for True North to purchase the Thrashers, while Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz announced that he was confident that the Thrashers' relocation to Winnipeg would soon be officially announced. On May 31, 2011, at a press conference at the MTS Centre, Bettman confirmed that the Atlanta Thrashers had been sold to True North and would relocate to Winnipeg for the 2011–12 season, pending the approval of the sale and relocation by the NHL's Board of Governors, which came at their June 21, 2011, meeting. The reported purchase price was $170 million, with $60 million going to the NHL as a relocation fee. After the announcement, True North made preparations to move the Moose franchise to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: Season ticket sales began June 1, 2011, with Manitoba Moose season ticket holders having priority. The team sought to sell 13,000 season tickets in an effort to prove its viability. Within the first three and a half hours, the new franchise sold 1,870 packages to Moose season ticket holders. Season tickets opened to the general public on June 4 and sold out in 17 minutes. Once the "Drive to 13,000" was completed, True North started a season ticket waiting list, which was shut down after 8,000 people signed up in two hours. In July 2011, tickets for October 9 home opener against the Montreal Canadiens were listed for an average price of $1,711 on StubHub, with an average selling price of $713.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: True North said the team's name would not be announced until after the successful completion of the season ticket drive at the earliest. The team was not to be named the Thrashers, since True North did not acquire the name in the transaction, and the rights to that name and the Thrashers logo were retained by the ownership group in Atlanta.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: There was considerable support in Winnipeg to reuse "Winnipeg Jets", the name of the city's original WHA and NHL franchise, though rumours spread that True North preferred "Manitoba Moose". "Whiteout" and "Falcons" were also considered, but the latter was quickly rejected in deference to Atlanta, which has another professional sports team by that name. True North kept their selection secret until the 2011 NHL Entry Draft in St. Paul, Minnesota, on June 24, when Chipman introduced General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff to "make our first pick, on behalf of the Winnipeg Jets."


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: Before the franchise relocation was officially completed, True North bought out the remaining years of General Manager Rick Dudley's contract on June 4, 2011. Thrashers President Don Waddell, who had been with the franchise since its inception, had earlier announced he would not be moving with the team. Kevin Cheveldayoff, a former GM of the Chicago Wolves and former assistant GM of the Chicago Blackhawks, was hired to replace Dudley four days later. The team also retained Marcel Comeau, the director of amateur scouting. On June 12, 2011, Cheveldayoff had Thrashers Head Coach Craig Ramsay reinterview for his position, then formally dismissed him as head coach eight days later. Claude Noel, who had been the head coach of the Manitoba Moose, was named head coach four days later; the other finalist for the job had been Chicago Blackhawks Assistant Coach Mike Haviland. Charlie Huddy, Pascal Vincent and Wade Flaherty, formerly of the Dallas Stars and Blackhawks, were named Noel's assistant coaches.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The Jets made their formal regular season debut on October 9, 2011, when a sellout crowd at the MTS Centre saw the visiting Montreal Canadiens defeat the Jets 5–1, with Nik Antropov scoring the first-ever Jets goal. The opening ceremonies featured a concert by Winnipeg-based rock band Bachman–Turner Overdrive, who performed "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" with the title sung as "we just got back the Jets". Other highlights on the first Jets schedule included a home-and-home set with the Phoenix Coyotes, Winnipeg's previous NHL franchise (including a December 1 game in Winnipeg, the Coyotes' first regular season appearance in Winnipeg since vacating the city), as well as a December 17 home game against the Anaheim Ducks, which was former Jet Teemu Selanne's first playing appearance in Winnipeg since being traded from the Jets in February 1996.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: During the summer of 2012, the Jets added Perry Pearn to their coaching staff. Larry Simmons was appointed assistant general manager, the same position he had held with the Thrashers. As the Jets inherited the Thrashers' position in the Southeast Division since the 2011–12 season, the NHL and National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) were prompted to consider realignment of teams. Beginning in 2013–14, the Jets moved to the Western Conference and play in the new-look, seven-team Central Division.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The Jets fired Noel and Pearn in January 2014, with the former being replaced by veteran coach Paul Maurice. On April 9, 2015, the Jets clinched their first Stanley Cup playoff appearance since relocating to Winnipeg following a 1–0 shootout loss to the Colorado Avalanche. They clinched the spot after the Calgary Flames defeated the Los Angeles Kings later in the night. Finishing the season in the second wild-card spot, they played the top-seeded Anaheim Ducks in the first round. In the first playoff series that involved a team from Winnipeg since the 1996 playoffs, the Ducks swept the Jets in four games.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The season following their first playoff run was a disappointment, as the Jets finished 25th overall, well out of the playoffs. Management was forced to deal with expiring contracts of two star players, electing to sign Dustin Byfuglien to a five-year extension while trading team captain Andrew Ladd to the Chicago Blackhawks at the NHL trade deadline. Despite finishing with the sixth-worst record in the league, the Jets managed to win the second overall pick in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft through the draft lottery, which they used to select Finnish prospect Patrik Laine. Later that summer, the team appointed Blake Wheeler as their new captain.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: In the 2017–18 season, the Jets clinched their second playoff spot since relocating from Atlanta, with the help of starting goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck. On March 25, 2018, the Jets beat the Nashville Predators 5–4 in a shootout, and clinched a spot in the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs. On April 11, 2018, the Jets won the first playoff game in the history of the Atlanta/Winnipeg franchise when they defeated the Minnesota Wild 3–2. On April 20, 2018, the Jets won their first playoff series in franchise history (and the first series victory in 31 years for the city) with a 5–0 victory over the Minnesota Wild in game five of the First Round series, winning the series 4–1. On May 10, 2018, the Jets made further franchise history by advancing to the Western Conference Finals for the first time, defeating the Nashville Predators four games to three; Nashville were the defending holders of the Campbell Bowl Trophy from the previous season and holders of the President's Trophy for most points in the league during the 2017–18 NHL season. This would also mark the first time that either iteration of the Winnipeg Jets had advanced beyond the second round of the playoffs. Facing the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference Finals, the Jets defeated the Golden Knights in the first game of the series 4–2. However, the Jets went on to lose the Western Conference Finals, with the Golden Knights defeating the Jets in the following four games in the series. In 2019, the Jets clinched the playoffs, but lost to the eventual Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues in six games in the First Round.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The Jets struggled in the 2019–20 season due to the departure of many high-profile defencemen such as Jacob Trouba, Tyler Myers and Dustin Byfuglien, but were still in contention for a wild-card spot when the league shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Jets were awarded a playoff spot as part of the expanded format, but injuries to star forwards Mark Scheifele and Patrik Laine in the first game of their series against the Calgary Flames in the Qualifying Round handicapped the team and they were eliminated three games to one in the best-of-five series. Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck was also awarded the Vezina Trophy for being the league's best goaltender. The Jets won their fourth consecutive playoff berth in the 2020–21 season and swept the Edmonton Oilers in the First Round but were themselves swept in the Second Round by the Montreal Canadiens.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: In the 2021–22 season, the Jets finished a disappointing sixth in the Central Division, missing the playoffs. At the start of the 2022–23 season, forward Blake Wheeler was stripped of the team captaincy.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: No new logo and colours for the Jets accompanied the team's nickname announcement at the 2011 NHL Entry Draft (draft pick Mark Scheifele was presented with a generic black and silver NHL jersey and cap), but True North confirmed that they were in the process of conceiving a logo and colour scheme for the Jets, with True North's chairman, Mark Chipman, stating that the previous Jets' blue and red colours would be incorporated. The Jets unveiled their new logos and colours on July 22, 2011, three days before the team had scheduled to release them (this after team merchandise containers were broken into and a crude picture of a Jets' T-shirt made the rounds on the internet).


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: While blue and silver are the main colour palette, the insignias are a dramatic departure from the previous Jets' logos and pay homage to the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), particularly Winnipeg's 17 Wing; the primary logo is patterned after the roundels used by the RCAF and includes a silhouette of a McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet. (Red is a secondary part of the colour scheme due to a maple leaf, the incorporation of which came with the permission of the Toronto Maple Leafs.) Game uniforms for the new Jets were unveiled in September at 17 Wing; the team did not introduce a third jersey for its inaugural season due to a limited timetable.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The Jets kept their existing uniforms when Adidas took over production of NHL uniforms in 2017. Prior to the 2018–19 season, the Jets introduced their first alternate uniform, featuring aviator blue as the base colour, along with a new "Jets" wordmark, block letters and numbers, and striping inspired from the 1990–96 uniforms of the original Jets.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: Even though the current Jets are not historically connected with the original franchise now known as the Arizona Coyotes, the team continued to pay tribute to its original incarnation on a few occasions. From 2016 to 2019, the Jets wore throwback white uniforms based on the 1973–78 design worn by the original Jets. The uniforms made its debut in the 2016 Heritage Classic and have been used during Jets Hall of Fame induction nights since. A blue version of the throwback uniforms was later unveiled, this time for the 2019 Heritage Classic. For the 2020–21 season, the Jets wore "Reverse Retro" alternate uniforms, recreating the original Jets' 1979–90 uniforms but recoloured to match the current Jets' scheme. In addition, the current Jets' 10th-anniversary logo in 2021 also served as a memorial logo to Dale Hawerchuk, whose no. 10 (in the original Jets' number and colour style) was added in lieu of the team's current logo following his death on August 18, 2020. Starting with the 2021–22 season, the Jets' blue "Heritage" uniforms were promoted to alternate status, replacing the previous aviator blue alternates. In the 2022–23 season, the Jets wore "Reverse Retro" uniforms based on the white uniforms worn by the original Jets from 1990 to 1996, again recoloured to the current Jets' scheme.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The logo was designed by Reebok, the NHL and designer Linda Lynch. Reebok's lead uniform and team identity designers, Dominique Fillion and Linda Lynch, have been associated with the identity design.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: True North announced they had "recalled" their former Moose mascot, Mick E. Moose, from the AHL. Mick E. had spent the past 15 seasons with the Manitoba Moose of the International and American hockey leagues, entertaining fans at Moose games and community events. Slight modifications to the costume were made, including a new vintage leather aviator helmet. Since the start of the 2015–16 season, Mick E. Moose has served as mascot for both the Jets and the Manitoba Moose. A fan favourite, he also averages over 100 community appearances per season in Winnipeg and rural Manitoba. In the 2016 Heritage Classic, the current Jets resurrected their mascot from its original incarnation, Benny, and has since served as the team's secondary mascot.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: Beginning in 2011, during the singing of "O Canada", fans commonly shout the words "True North!" (in the line "The True North strong and free") to recognize True North Sports & Entertainment. Jennifer Hanson was the Jets' regular national anthem singer for the final seven seasons of the original franchise, and performed again during the 2016 Heritage Classic Alumni Game. Stacey Nattrass (who has been uniquely known as Your Winnipeg Jets' Own) has performed the anthems at the majority of home games since 2011.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The Winnipeg Whiteout is a hockey tradition that dates back to 1987 when fans of the original Jets franchise were asked to wear white clothing at the home playoff games. It was created as a response to the "C of Red" created by fans of the Calgary Flames, whom the Jets were facing in the first round of the 1987 Stanley Cup playoffs. The Jets eliminated the Flames in six games, and fans wore white for every home playoff game thereafter.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: Fans of the former Jets AHL affiliate, the St. John's IceCaps, also continued this tradition, as did fans of the continuing franchise in Glendale, the Arizona Coyotes. It is referred to as the "Ice Cap's Whiteout" and "Coyotes Whiteout," respectively by IceCaps and Coyotes fans. The Whiteout was also used during the Canada vs Russia Gold medal game, at the 1999 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, hosted by the city of Winnipeg. During the 2009 Calder Cup playoffs between the Manitoba Moose and the Hershey Bears, fans were asked to wear white for Game 6 of the Calder Cup Finals.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: "Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, OT = Overtime losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against"


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The previous Winnipeg Jets organization retired the jersey numbers of two players, while their successors, the Arizona Coyotes, have honoured the numbers of players who played for the former Jets. No numbers have been officially retired by the current franchise to date, although several members of the original franchise are honoured by the current Winnipeg Jets organization as part of its Hall of Fame (see below).


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The number 99 is retired league-wide in honour of Wayne Gretzky; this was done by the NHL at the 2000 NHL All-Star Game.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: The organization created the Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame in 2016 to honour the impact and accomplishments of the original Winnipeg Jets, and the history of professional hockey in the city. The inaugural inductees were the "HOT Line" consisting of Anders Hedberg, Bobby Hull and Ulf Nilsson, who were inducted on October 19, 2016. Dale Hawerchuk was honoured on November 14, 2017. Lars-Erik Sjoberg and Ab McDonald were posthumously inducted on February 26, 2019. Both were captains of the team at key points of the original team's history, with the latter being the first-ever captain for the team and the former being the first captain for the team upon joining the NHL. Randy Carlyle and Thomas Steen were inducted on February 11, 2020, both serving as some of the longest tenured players in original Jets' history. Teemu Selanne and Teppo Numminen were inducted on November 17, 2022.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: These are the top-ten point, goal, and assist scorers in franchise history. Figures are updated after each completed NHL regular season.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: "Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game"


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: Bell Media served as the initial media rightsholder for the Jets, under a 10-year deal covering both radio and television.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: TSN is the regional television broadcaster of the Jets for games not broadcast by Sportsnet; games are televised on TSN3 in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories (shared with the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers outside of Manitoba), and parts of Northwestern Ontario (shared with the Toronto Maple Leafs). Initially, Jets games were carried on a dedicated feed of TSN in the team's market, "TSN Jets", which was sold as a subscription-based pay television service separate from the national TSN network. In 2014, with the realignment of TSN into regional feeds, Jets telecasts moved to TSN3 and the separate TSN Jets channel was discontinued. The team renewed its television rights with TSN3 on October 5, 2020.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: Dan Robertson and Kevin Sawyer serve as the respective play-by-play announcer and colour commentator for Jets broadcasts on TSN3, with John Lu reporting at rinkside. Previously, Dennis Beyak served as the primary play-by-play voice for the Jets until his retirement at the end of the 2021–22 NHL season. Beyak's previous partners include Kevin Sawyer, Ray Ferraro, and Shane Hnidy. Hnidy was the team's lead colour commentator from the 2011–12 to 2016–17 seasons and has since moved to AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain to cover the Vegas Golden Knights in 2017.


title: Winnipeg Jets

text: Corus Entertainment has held the Jets radio rights since the 2020–21 season, as part of a seven-year agreement signed in 2020. CJOB and CJKR-FM "Power 97" serve as co-flagships, simulcasting all games on AM and FM radio. Paul Edmonds and Mitch Thomas serve as on-air play-by-play team. CJOB historically served as the radio home for several periods of their original incarnation. (CJKR-FM solely airs Jets games in the event of scheduling conflicts with Winnipeg Blue Bombers football on CJOB.) CFRW, "TSN Radio 1290", served as the flagship radio station of the team from 2011 to 2020, with Edmonds on play-by-play alongside Brian Munz. They were occasionally joined by Beyak, who took over radio play-by-play when TSN was not involved in the television broadcast. Munz also occasionally substituted for Beyak on TSN.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sumter County, Florida, United States. It shares its name with a broader master-planned age-restricted community that spreads into portions of Lake and Marion counties. The overall development lies in central Florida, approximately south of Ocala and approximately northwest of Orlando.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Between 2010 and 2020, The Villages was the fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States, growing 39 percent, from about 93,000 in 2010 to about 130,000 in 2020. The Villages covers an area of approximately 32 square miles, an area larger than Manhattan, and is expanding mostly to the south of the current community.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages is made up of 17 special purpose community development districts (CDD), which are controlled by a board of supervisors (BoS), five individuals elected by the landowners of the district. H. Gary Morse, the son of the original owner, transferred most direct ownership in the company to his three children in 2006; Morse died in 2014.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The community is the center of The Villages, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area, which consists of all of Sumter County; Lake County is included in the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area; and Marion County is included in the Ocala, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Harold Schwartz, a Michigan businessman, began selling land tracts via mail order in The Villages area in the 1960s. He and his business partner, Al Tarrson, were forced to close this aspect of the business following the implementation of a 1968 federal law banning sales of real estate by mail order.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Stuck with considerable portions of Florida land, in the early 1970s, Schwartz and Tarrson began the development of a mobile home park, "Orange Blossom Gardens", in the northwestern corner of Lake County. By the early 1980s, the community had sold only 400 units. To improve the business, Schwartz bought out Tarrson's interest and brought his son, H. Gary Morse, on board in 1983.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Morse noted that the thriving retirement communities (such as Del Webb's Sun City developments) offered numerous well-maintained amenities to the residents. They also had diverse and nearby commercial development. Morse began to upgrade the development significantly. Their sales improved in the mid-1980s. Schwartz began to buy large tracts of land in nearby Sumter and Marion counties for future expansion. In 1992, Morse officially changed the overall development name to The Villages. The development is still controlled in all significant aspects by descendants of Schwartz and Morse.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: By the early 1990s, The Villages had more than 8,000 residents, three golf courses, the first Winn Dixie supermarket opened, just four restaurants, and nightly dances were held in a tent.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In January 2017, the Holding Company of the Villages announced the purchase of 8,000 acres of land south of Florida State Road 44 in and around the villages of Southern Oaks and Fenney. In the spring of 2017, The Villages announced a planned acquisition of 2,600 acres north and south of County Road 470 along the east side of Florida's Turnpike for future development. The deal has passed due diligence by the Leesburg City Commission, and zoning ordinance changes were approved by the Leesburg Planning Commission (with the city commission giving final approval). The initial plans call for the building of approximately 4,500 homes with some commercial development also being planned.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: According to data from RCLCO Real Estate, the Holding Company of the Villages sold 2,231 homes in 2017, a 13% increase over 2016. The Villages was the top-selling master-planned community in the United States in 2017 and one of only four communities to sell more than 1,000 homes.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages also claimed the title of best-selling master-planned community of the decade, with 24,440 new home sales from 2010 through 2019.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In January 2022, RCLCO Real Estate Advisors named The Villages the top-selling planned community for the ninth consecutive year, with 4,004 new homes sold in 2021, an increase of 63 percent over 2020.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: A declaration of restrictions has been created for each neighborhood, which regulates the design and operational aspects, such as landscaping, repairs and maintenance, placement of satellite dishes, hedges, etc. An architectural review committee controls the composition and consistency of the exterior of the residential properties within The Villages. The committee, which consists of "Villages" residents, reviews and approves alterations and modifications to the properties and homes built by the developer. Committee members serve for three years and are selected by the sitting committee.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: To qualify for an exception to the Housing for Older Persons Act prohibitions against discrimination, at least 80 percent of the homes within The Villages must have at least one person 55 years of age or older residing in the home. Persons under the age of 19 years are not permitted to reside within The Villages unless an exemption is granted. Three subdivisions have been designated as family units, and are not subject to this restriction. Otherwise, persons under age 19 (such as grandchildren) are permitted to visit for no more than 30 days within a calendar year.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP (Sumter County only) has a total area of , of which is land and (6.99%) is water. The Villages is located approximately 45 miles northwest of Orlando and 75 miles northeast of Tampa.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: As of 2018, The Villages covers a land area of approximately and has approximately of mostly private roads.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: As of the census estimate of July 1, 2016, there were 123,966 people and 49,362 households residing in the CDP (Sumter County). The population per square mile in 2010 was 170.8. There were 68,199 housing units as of 2010.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The racial makeup of The Villages CDP was 98% White, 0.4% African American, 0.1% Native American, 0.9% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, and 0.5% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race made up 1.2% of the population.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: As of 2019, persons under 5 years accounted for .1% of the population, persons under 18 years accounted for .8%, persons 65 years and over accounted for 81.6%, and 53.6% of the population was female. Median household income in 2019 was $63,841.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In 2018, the median age for both sexes in The Villages metropolitan statistical area is 67.4, with this being 29 years older than a typical American, and five years older than the median age of residents in the next-oldest county in the United States, which is on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages is the home of the largest veteran population anywhere in the United States that doesn't have a military base.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages was ranked number 53 in the Forbes 2017 list of "The Best Small Places For Businesses And Careers".


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Circa 2014 large groups of residents are from the Midwest and Northeast, with Staten Island supplying many of the residents.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: According to the data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, women purchased 468 homes while men purchased 406; this means approved mortgages for women as a percentage of approved mortgages for men was 115%, making The Villages the highest rate of the 400 metropolitan areas in the United States.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: According to a November 2021 article on Realtor.com, the average down payment on a home in The Villages is 27.1 percent, which is the highest in the U.S. and the median home list price is $366,950.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: According to an investigative report by WFTV News in Orlando, crime in The Villages is low and usually imported from other areas outside of the community. The report stated that property crime and crimes of opportunity are approximately one-third lower than the average for the state of Florida. The statistics for violent crimes in The Villages area is half the state average according to federal statistics. The Villages are just about average for driving under the influence charges as any similar-sized place in Florida.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages has been a popular election stop and platform for Republican political figures such as former vice president Dick Cheney, former presidential and vice presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, 2016 GOP presidential primary candidates Marco Rubio and Ben Carson, former presidential candidate Rick Santorum, and talk show hosts/authors Glenn Beck and Brian Kilmeade. In the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence visited to campaign for his running mate, Donald Trump.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In October 2004, George W. Bush became the first president to visit The Villages with a rally in the new Lake Sumter Landing Market Square with approximately 20,000 supporters. The visit was less than two weeks before the 2004 United States presidential election while Bush was seeking to be elected to a second term.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: A White House official announced that President Trump would be visiting the Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center on August 6, 2019, to speak about Medicare to an invitation-only event. Due to the separate mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and in Dayton, Ohio, Trump postponed the visit.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: On October 4, 2019, Trump touched down at Ocala International Airport aboard Air Force One. He briefly greeted officials and supporters before boarding Marine One and flying to The Villages Polo Club. From there, Trump traveled via motorcade to the Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center where he delivered an hour-long speech about expanding Medicare eligibility to an invitation-only audience of roughly 1,000 supporters. A live video feed of the event was broadcast to crowds in Spanish Springs Town Square. Trump was the second sitting president to visit The Villages. During his visit to The Villages, Trump said, "I'm thrilled to be here, one of the most famous and thriving communities anywhere in Florida, and really anywhere in the world as far as I'm concerned." At the close of the event, Trump signed an executive order to expand private insurance options for seniors under Medicare.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: On October 10, 2020, Vice President Mike Pence spoke before a crowd of approximately 1,100 supporter in the Brownwood Paddock Square portion of the community. Topics covered by Pence included support for veterans, the economy and job creation, the administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and NASA funding.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: On October 23, 2020, Trump visited The Villages appearing with Governor Ron DeSantis and former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi. After arriving by helicopter on Marine One, he appeared before approximately 10,000 supporters in a field behind The Villages Polo Club. During the speech, Trump said he loved The Villages and joked about moving to the community. Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to visit The Villages twice.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: As of 2016, The Villages built 5.7 million square feet of commercial business space, with another 3.3 million square feet planned for the near future. Major businesses include restaurants, retail geared toward older Americans, and healthcare providers. The average commercial occupancy rate in The Villages is approximately 97 percent.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Commercial areas in The Villages include town centers, regional shopping centers and neighborhood retail plazas. The main business areas are the 500,000-square-foot town centers that feature a mixture of retailers, restaurants, entertainment and service providers. The Villages has a total of 14 grocery stores including seven Publix, three Winn-Dixie locations, The Fresh Market, Target, Walmart Supercenter, and a Walmart Neighborhood Market. Citizens First Bank, a community bank headquartered in The Villages, has nine locations throughout the community.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In the ten years from 2007 to 2017, The Villages metropolitan statistical area (MSA) was the 9th fastest growing area in the United States with the GDP growing 51.4% to $2.1 billion. According to state and federal jobs data, between 2010 and 2018 The Villages metropolitan statistical area added 13,893 jobs.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In February 2019, WalletHub, compared the median credit scores of the residents in 2,571 cities and The Villages scored the highest in the United States with a credit score of 806.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Residents of The Villages have a historically high 80% turnout rate in elections. Republicans outnumber Democrats two-to-one.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: A critical part of Central Florida's Republican party, The Villages has been visited frequently along the campaign trail by Florida governor Rick Scott and United States senator Marco Rubio. During the 2014 Florida gubernatorial election, Scott visited The Villages on the eve of the election to rally votes. Just before the 2016 United States Senate election in Florida, Rubio stopped off at the temporary Republican Headquarters established at Lake Sumter Landing in The Villages.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages is in Florida's 11th congressional district represented by Representative Daniel Webster.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The entirety of The Villages is within the boundaries of Florida Senate District 12 (represented by Republican Dennis Baxley), and is within the boundaries of Florida House of Representatives District 33 (represented by Republican Brett Hage).


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Areas of The Villages in Sumter County are divided between Sumter County District 1, which takes areas east of Morse Boulevard, and Sumter County District 3, which takes areas west of Morse Boulevard.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The majority of The Villages is developed and maintained using several community development districts (CDD). The CDD is a form of special purpose local government available under Florida law; around 225 communities in Florida currently use this form of government. The portion of The Villages located in Lake County is under the jurisdiction of the city of Lady Lake and is not part of any of the district CDDs, but a portion is under the larger CDDs (see below).


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages currently operates 17 CDDs. Thirteen of the 17 CDDs cover the various areas of The Village where residents own homes, and provide and maintain the roads and transportation paths, storm water systems and structures, underground utilities, curbs and gutters, and street lights. The costs of building and maintaining this infrastructure are paid for by annual special assessments included in the property tax bill. District residents (including landowners who have yet to build on their property) elect the members of the District Board of Supervisors. The current district setup is as follows:


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Unlike the residential CDDs, there are no residents within the CDD boundaries. Thus, the five-member Board of Supervisors for each district is composed of the developer's employees or affiliates.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: There are also two homeowners associations in The Villages: The Property Owners Association (POA) and The Villages Homeowners Association (VHA).


title: The Villages, Florida

text: As a master planned retirement community, The Villages offers numerous forms of recreation. The majority of the costs are paid for via the monthly amenities fee assessed to residents (the facilities are owned by the centralized CDDs discussed above).


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages has many golf courses located throughout the community. The ability to play "Free Golf for Life" is a key component of The Villages advertising campaigns. , The Villages operates 55 courses.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The majority (42) of the courses are executive golf courses, all of which are 9-hole layouts. It is these courses at which residents of The Villages can play "free golf for life" (i.e., no greens fees) and can walk the courses for free as well; fees are charged for riding a golf cart on the courses. These courses are owned by the Villages residents and managed by the Villages Community Center Development District (VCCDD) In 2020, more than 2.5 millions rounds of golf were played on the executive golf courses.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The remaining 13 courses are country club championship courses. Among notable course architects are Arnold Palmer and Nancy Lopez. The Orange Blossom Hills and Tierra Del Sol clubs are 18-hole layouts; the other eight clubs are 27-hole layouts. Residents of The Villages are automatically members of these clubs; however, unlike the executive courses, residents must pay greens fees to play the courses, and the clubs charge for priority tee times. The Villages Developer owns these championship courses and, through an agreement with the VCCDD, are managed by that entity.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages also operates three specialty courses, including the Fenny putt and play multi-functional facility in the Village of Fenney. This course includes a lake stocked with fish and fishing poles, a walking trail, and an area to play croquet and lawn bowling. The Marsh View Pitch & Putt is an 18-hole plus a 19th hole putting challenge. The total yardage of the course is between 1,061 and 1,247 yards. The Clifton Cove Putting Course is 2 nine hole courses.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In addition, The Villages operates 100 recreation centers. There are three classes of centers (the number shown are as of December 2020 and are based on the types of swimming pools offered):


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In December 2020, the Aviary Neighborhood Recreation Center opened, making it The Villages’ 100th recreation facility and 29th recreation center.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages operates 11 parks, dog parks, and fitness trails, which are separate from the recreation centers.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages offers various venues for the performing arts. In April 2015, the Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center, a venue with over 1,000 seats, opened. The Sharon has featured various popular artists such as Frankie Avalon, Willie Nelson, The Beach Boys, Jerry Lewis, Felix Cavaliere, Little River Band, Bobby Rydell, Ray Stevens, The Spinners, Kenny G, and Chubby Checker. The Studio Tierra Del Sol, a black box theatre with seating for 100, opened in November 2016.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Fictitious historical markers and architectural details provide atmosphere for the residents. Amanda Brian, author of "The Faux History of The Villages, Florida," wrote that "The Villages' faux history gives a patina of stability and continuity to a highly volatile region and stage of life." Many of the plaques represent the "downtown areas" as if events derived from notions of an idyllic small town in the 1800s had occurred there. Such "American myths" feature in the designs for Brownwood, Lake Sumter Landing, and Spanish Springs.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Beyond the golf courses and recreation centers, The Villages also operates numerous softball fields, a polo stadium (The Villages Polo Stadium), and a woodworking shop, plus the Lifelong Learning College. The newest softball complex, Soaring Eagle, opened in 2015. The Villages offers two seventeen-lane outdoor target archery ranges, one in Paradise Park and the other named Dudley Archery Range in the Village of DeSoto, near Fenney.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Nightly activities are held in The Villages three town squares, Lake Sumter Landing's Market Square and Spanish Springs Town Square. A third town square, Brownwood Paddock Square, opened on October 12, 2012.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: As of 2018, The Villages also offer over 2700 social clubs for residents of the area. Some of the most popular are location focused and based upon where a resident grew up, dance clubs, genealogy clubs, singles clubs, sports clubs, a Beatlemaniacs club, and gardening clubs.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages is served by television channels from the Orlando market, although channels from the Tampa market also cover the area. It is also served by radio stations from both the Orlando and Gainesville/Ocala markets, and by area newspapers such as the "Orlando Sentinel", the "Tampa Bay Times", the Leesburg "Daily Commercial", and the Ocala "Star-Banner".


title: The Villages, Florida

text: A documentary called Some Kind of Heaven, about four residents of The Villages, was released in January 2021.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Public radio station WMFV (89.5) serves the area and is owned by the same group as Orlando public radio station WMFE-FM, with some variations from WMFE's master schedule.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages development is bounded roughly by US 27/US 441 to the east, US 301 to the west, County Road 42 to the north, and County Road 468 well south of 466A with the development of several new villages, Fenney, and the Brownwood town center in that area. On December 10, 2013, The Villages of Lake-Sumter Inc. agreed to an $8 million deal to purchase Pine Ridge Dairy tract in Fruitland Park, Florida with a planned construction of 2,038 new Villages homes. Although County Road 466 previously served as the main east–west corridor, the addition of homes and facilities south of County Road 466 and in the city of Fruitland Park, Florida has turned County Road 466A into a secondary east–west corridor. Buena Vista Boulevard and Morse Boulevard serve as major north–south corridors.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: A second overpass, crossing Florida State Road 44 near Brownwood Paddock Square, is currently under construction. In August 2019, the 232-foot-long bridge was lowered in place. Construction is set to finish sometime in 2020.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Plans are in place to construct three other overpasses, one crossing Florida State Road 44 near Rohan Recreation Center, with the other two spanning Florida's Turnpike.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Sumter County Transit operates The Villages shuttle. They provide various weekday loops through the Villages.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages developers operate a trolley-style bus tour of the community which operates from the sales and information center located at The Market Square in Lake Sumter Landing.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Until 2004, when the train was shortened to Savannah, Georgia, Amtrak's "Palmetto" (then on a New York - Tampa itinerary) served adjacent Wildwood. Amtrak's Thruway Motorcoach bus service makes a stop in The Villages. The bus travels from Jacksonville to Dade City, and is timed to meet arrivals and departures of the "Silver Star" train in Jacksonville.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In early 2018, The Villages was chosen for a pilot program offering autonomous taxis in the area of Lake Sumter Landing. In the early stages of the program, the vehicle will have a safety driver in the driver's seat and later the driver will be removed and the automobile would be monitored from a control station. The technology-rich Ford Fusion Hybrid and Chrysler Pacifica minivan taxis will be operated by Voyage Auto, a San Jose, California startup company. The Villages has 0.5 per cent stake in Voyage Auto.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The Villages became one of the first cities in the United States to offer paid taxi service using autonomous vehicles throughout the community.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The following school listings are primarily for tax base purposes only, as The Villages does not allow full-time residents under age 19 except in the three family unit neighborhoods of Bison Valley, Spring Arbor, and Oak Meadows or by exception granted for hardship cases.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Although children cannot legally reside in most neighborhoods of The Villages under most circumstances, The Villages Charter Schools is a kindergarten to 12th grade charter school in unincorporated Sumter County. Children are eligible to attend the charter school if one or both of their parents work directly for The Villages or one of its direct subcontractors, or if a parent works for a business located within The Villages. Children of residents who reside in a family unit neighborhood or by granted exemption do not automatically qualify for attendance based solely on their residence.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In the fall of 2017, The Villages launched The Enrichment Academy with more than 140 fee-based, lifelong learning, noncredit courses on topics such as scuba diving, literature, philosophy and psychology, culinary arts, technology, foreign language, photography, and more. The academy is part of the Recreation and Parks Department and take place at designated Recreation locations, and other approved locations throughout The Villages.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: Sumter District Schools operates the Sumter County Adult Community Education Center in unincorporated Sumter County.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: For residents of Lake and Sumter counties, Lake-Sumter State College provides adult education at the South Lake Campus in Clermont, the Leesburg Campus in Leesburg and the Sumter Campus in unincorporated Sumter County.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: College of Central Florida serves residents of Marion County, operating the Ocala Campus and the Hampton Center in Ocala in Marion County and centers and campuses in adjacent counties.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In January 2008, the Village Center CDD was notified by the Internal Revenue Service of the IRS' intent to audit several recreational bonds issued in 2003 to determine compliance with tax regulations (mainly due to their status as municipal bonds which are exempt from Federal income tax). The IRS sent three "Notices of Proposed Issues" in January 2009 challenging the tax-exempt status of the bonds on three grounds:


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The position stemmed largely from the interrelationship between VCCDD and The Villages developers (since VCCDD has no residents, the Board of Supervisors consists solely of individuals who work for or have an affiliation with The Villages developers, and the developers-controlled board purchased VCCDDs infrastructure from the developers). Essentially, the IRS position is that the VCCDD is an "alter ego" for the developers.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: After an IRS settlement offer was rejected by VCCDD, the IRS further expanded its audit in July 2009 to include all recreational and utility revenue bonds issued by VCCDD as well as similar bonds issued by Sumter Landing CDD, on the basis that Sumter Landing CDD is also an "alter ego" of the developers. However, the 10 district CDDs were not included in the expanded audit since, as shown above, the residents elect the District CDDs boards.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: VCCDD opposed the position taken by the IRS, and in January 2010, it formally requested technical advice from the IRS as to the position it took. On June 14, 2011, VCCDD (after discussions with the IRS) submitted its final Request for Technical Advice, outlining its position on the matter. In June 2013, the IRS ruled that $426 million in bonds were not tax free since the bureaucracy running The Villages could not be considered a real government. The IRS found that the bureaucracy was not structured to represent the residents. On April 30, 2014, the IRS Office of Tax Exempt Bonds issued a negative response instead of The Villages requests for tax relief on the grounds of qualifying as a political subdivision under IRS regulations.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: From March 2008 until October 1, 2013, it was estimated that through the Amenity Authority Committee and CDD government, Villages' residents bore approximately $750,000.00 in legal fees in defending against the IRS audit.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: In a memo dated July 11, 2016, the IRS, noting that the remaining Village Center municipal bonds had been redeemed in 2015, stated, "We have concluded that closing this examination without further IRS action supports sound tax administration. The IRS had tried to settle the case in November 2016 for $1.5 million. However, the Village Center supervisors unanimously refused that settlement offer." Now the IRS has closed the examination with no penalty.


title: The Villages, Florida

text: The effort to present a "fanciful past" for The Villages through fictionalized plaques and building details demonstrates "the role that history plays in retirement migration." Critics have negatively compared this presentation to the approach of the Walt Disney theme parks, claiming that the plaques generally do not address ethnic minorities nor "conflict". Brian argued that "The Villages' 'history' whitewashes Florida's past and celebrates a straightforward tale of economic growth."


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA, an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ("Basque Homeland and Liberty" or "Basque Country and Freedom"), was an armed Basque nationalist and far left separatist organization in the Basque Country (in northern Spain and southwestern France). The group was founded in 1959 and later evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group engaged in a violent campaign of bombing, assassinations, and kidnappings in the Southern Basque Country and throughout Spanish territory. Its goal was gaining independence for the Basque Country. ETA was the main group within the Basque National Liberation Movement and was the most important Basque participant in the Basque conflict.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Between 1968 and 2010, it killed 829 people (including 340 civilians) and injured thousands more. ETA was classified as a terrorist group by Spain, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and the European Union. This convention was followed by a plurality of domestic and international media, which also referred to the group as terrorists. There are more than 260 imprisoned former members of the group in Spain, France, and other countries.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA declared ceasefires in 1989, 1996, 1998 and 2006. On 5 September 2010, ETA declared a new ceasefire that remained in force, and on 20 October 2011, ETA announced a "definitive cessation of its armed activity". On 24 November 2012, it was reported that the group was ready to negotiate a "definitive end" to its operations and disband completely. The group announced on 7 April 2017 that it had given up all its weapons and explosives. On 2 May 2018, ETA made public a letter dated to 16 April 2018 according to which it had "completely dissolved all its structures and ended its political initiative".


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA's motto was ("Keep up on both"), referring to the two figures in its symbol, a snake (representing politics) wrapped around an axe (representing armed struggle).


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA changed its internal structure on several occasions, commonly for security reasons. The group used to have a very hierarchical organization with a leading figure at the top, delegating into three substructures: the logistical, military and political sections. Reports from Spanish and French police point towards significant changes in ETA's structures in its later years. ETA divided the three substructures into a total of eleven. The change was a response to captures, and possible infiltration, by the different law enforcement agencies. ETA intended to disperse its members and reduce the effects of detentions.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The leading committee comprised 7 to 11 individuals, and ETA's internal documentation referred to it as , an abbreviation of (directorial committee). There was another committee named that functioned as an advisory committee. The eleven different substructures were: logistics, politics, international relations with fraternal organisations, military operations, reserves, prisoner support, expropriation, information, recruitment, negotiation, and treasury.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA's armed operations were organized in different s (groups or commandos), generally composed of three to five members, whose objective was to conduct attacks in a specific geographic zone. The s were coordinated by the ("military cupola"). To supply the s, support groups maintained safe houses and (small rooms concealed in forests, garrets or underground, used to store arms, explosives or, sometimes, kidnapped people; the Basque word literally means "hole"). The small cellars used to hide the people kidnapped are named by ETA and ETA's supporters "people's jails". The most common "commandos" were itinerant, not linked to any specific area, and thus were more difficult to capture.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Among its members, ETA distinguished between / ("legal ones"), those members who did not have police records and lived apparently normal lives; ("liberated") members known to the police that were on ETA's payroll and working full-time for ETA; and ("supports") who just gave occasional help and logistics support to the group when required.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: There were also imprisoned members of the group, serving time scattered across Spain and France, that sometimes still had significant influence inside the organisation; and finally the ("burnt out"), members freed after having been imprisoned or those that were suspected by the group of being under police vigilance. In the past, there was also the figure of the deportees, expelled by the French government to remote countries where they lived freely. ETA's internal bulletin was named ("Column"), replacing the earlier one (1962) ("Standing").


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA also promoted the ("street fight"), that is, violent acts against public transportation, political parties' offices or cultural buildings, destruction of private property of politicians, police, military, bank offices, journalists, council members, and anyone voicing criticism against ETA. Tactics included threats, graffiti of political mottoes, and rioting, usually using Molotov cocktails. These groups were mostly made up of young people, who were directed through youth organisations (such as , and ). Many members of ETA started their collaboration with the group as participants in the .


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The former political party Batasuna, disbanded in 2003, pursued the same political goals as ETA and did not condemn ETA's use of violence. Formerly known as Euskal Herritarrok and "Herri Batasuna", it was banned by the Spanish Supreme Court as an anti-democratic organisation following the Political Parties Law ("Ley de Partidos Políticos"). It generally received 10% to 20% of the vote in the Basque Autonomous Community.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Batasuna's political status was controversial. It was considered to be the political wing of ETA. Moreover, after the investigations on the nature of the relationship between Batasuna and ETA by Judge Baltasar Garzón, who suspended the activities of the political organisation and ordered police to shut down its headquarters, the Supreme Court of Spain finally declared Batasuna illegal on 18 March 2003. The court considered proven that Batasuna had links with ETA and that it constituted in fact part of ETA's structure. In 2003, the Constitutional Tribunal upheld the legality of the law.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: However, the party itself denied being the political wing of ETA, although double membership – simultaneous or alternative – between Batasuna and ETA was often recorded, such as with the cases of prominent Batasuna leaders like Josu Ternera, Arnaldo Otegi, Jon Salaberria and others.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The Spanish Cortes (the Spanish Parliament) began the process of declaring the party illegal in August 2002 by issuing a bill entitled the "Ley de Partidos Políticos" which bars political parties that use violence to achieve political goals, promote hatred against different groups or seek to destroy the democratic system. The bill passed the Cortes with a 304 to 16 vote. Many within the Basque nationalistic movement strongly disputed the Law, which they considered too draconian or even unconstitutional; alleging that any party could be made illegal almost by choice, simply for not clearly stating their opposition to an attack.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Defenders of the law argued that the "Ley de Partidos" did not necessarily require responses to individual acts of violence, but rather a declaration of principles explicitly rejecting violence as a means of achieving political goals. Defenders also argued that the ban of a political party is subject to judicial process, with all the guarantees of the State of Law. Batasuna had failed to produce such a statement. other political parties linked to organizations such as "Partido Comunista de España (reconstituted)" have also been declared illegal, and Acción Nacionalista Vasca and Communist Party of the Basque Lands (EHAK/PCTV, "Euskal Herrialdeetako Alderdi Komunista/Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas") was declared illegal in September 2008.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: A new party called Aukera Guztiak "(All the Options)" was formed expressly for the elections to the Basque Parliament of April 2005. Its supporters claimed no heritage from Batasuna, asserting that they aimed to allow Basque citizens to freely express their political ideas, even those of independence. On the matter of political violence, Aukera Guztiak stated their right not to condemn some kinds of violence more than others if they did not see fit (in this regard, the Basque National Liberation Movement (MLNV) regards present police actions as violence, torture and state terrorism). Nevertheless, most of their members and certainly most of their leadership were former Batasuna supporters or affiliates. The Spanish Supreme Court unanimously considered the party to be a successor to Batasuna and declared a ban on it.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: After Aukera Guztiak had been banned, and less than two weeks before the election, another political group appeared born from an earlier schism from Herri Batasuna, the Communist Party of the Basque Lands (EHAK/PCTV, "Euskal Herrialdeetako Alderdi Komunista/Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas"), a formerly unknown political party which had no representation in the Autonomous Basque Parliament. EHAK announced that they would apply the votes they obtained to sustain the political programme of the now-banned Aukera Guztiak platform.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: This move left no time for the Spanish courts to investigate EHAK in compliance with the "Ley de Partidos" before the elections were held. The bulk of Batasuna supporters voted in this election for PCTV. It obtained 9 seats of 75 (12.44% of votes) in the Basque Parliament.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The election of EHAK representatives eventually allowed the programme of the now-illegal Batasuna to continue being represented without having condemned violence as required by the "Ley de Partidos".


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In February 2011, Sortu, a party described as "the new Batasuna", was launched. Unlike predecessor parties, Sortu explicitly rejects politically motivated violence, including that of ETA. However, on 23 March 2011, the Spanish Supreme Court banned Sortu from registering as a political party on the grounds that it was linked to ETA.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The Spanish transition to democracy from 1975 on and ETA's progressive radicalisation had resulted in a steady loss of support, which became especially apparent at the time of their 1997 kidnapping and countdown assassination of Miguel Ángel Blanco. Their loss of sympathisers had been reflected in an erosion of support for the political parties identified with them. In the 1998 Basque parliament elections Euskal Herritarrok, formerly Batasuna, polled 17.7% of the votes. However, by 2001 the party's support had fallen to 10.0%. There were also concerns that Spain's "judicial offensive" against alleged ETA supporters (two Basque political parties and one NGO were banned in September 2008) constituted a threat to human rights. Strong evidence was seen that a legal network had grown so wide as to lead to the arrest of numerous innocent people. According to Amnesty International, torture was still "persistent", though not "systematic". Inroads could be undermined by judicial short-cuts and abuses of human rights.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The Euskobarometro, the survey carried out by the Universidad del País Vasco (University of the Basque Country), asking about the views of ETA within the Basque population, obtained these results in May 2009: 64% rejected ETA totally, 13% identified themselves as former ETA sympathisers who no longer support the group. Another 10% agreed with ETA's ends, but not their means. 3% said that their attitude towards ETA was mainly one of fear, 3% expressed indifference and 3% were undecided or did not answer. About 3% gave ETA "justified, with criticism" support (supporting the group but criticising some of their actions) and only 1% gave ETA total support. Even within Batasuna voters, at least 48% rejected ETA's violence.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: A poll taken by the Basque Autonomous Government in December 2006 during ETA's "permanent" ceasefire showed that 88% of the Basques thought that all political parties needed to launch a dialogue, including a debate on the political framework for the Basque Country (86%). 69% support the idea of ratifying the results of this hypothetical multiparty dialogue through a referendum. This poll also reveals that the hope of a peaceful resolution to the issue of the constitutional status of the Basque region has fallen to 78% (from 90% in April).


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: These polls did not cover Navarre, where support for Basque nationalist electoral options is weaker (around 25% of the population); or the Northern Basque Country, where support is even weaker (around 15% of the population).


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA grew out of a student group called Ekin, founded in the early 1950s, which published a magazine and undertook direct action. ETA was founded on 31 July 1959 as Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ("Basque Homeland and Liberty" or "Basque Country and Freedom") by students frustrated by the moderate stance of the Basque Nationalist Party. (Originally, the name for the organisation used the word "Aberri" instead of "Euskadi", creating the acronym "ATA". However, in some Basque dialects, "ata" means "duck", so the name was changed.)


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA held their first assembly in Bayonne, France, in 1962, during which a "declaration of principles" was formulated and following which a structure of activist cells was developed. Subsequently, Marxist and third-worldist perspectives developed within ETA, becoming the basis for a political programme set out in Federico Krutwig's 1963 book "Vasconia", which is considered to be the defining text of the movement. In contrast to previous Basque nationalist platforms, Krutwig's vision was anti-religious and based upon language and culture rather than race. ETA's third and fourth assemblies, held in 1964 and 1965, adopted an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist position, seeing nationalism and the class struggle as intrinsically connected.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Some sources attributed the 1960 bombing of the Amara station in Donostia-San Sebastian (which killed a 22-month-old child) to ETA, but statistics published by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior have always showed that ETA's first victim was killed in 1968. The 1960 attack was claimed by the Portuguese and Galician left-wing group Directorio Revolucionario Ibérico de Liberación (DRIL) (together with four other very similar bombings committed that same day across Spain, all of them attributed to DRIL), and the attribution to ETA has been considered to be unfounded by researchers. Police documents dating from 1961, released in 2013, show that the DRIL was indeed the author of the bombing. A more recent study by the "Memorial de Víctimas del Terrorismo" based on the analysis of police diligences at the time reached the same conclusion, naming Guillermo Santoro, member of DRIL, as the author of the attack.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA's first killing occurred on 7 June 1968, when Guardia Civil member José Pardines Arcay was shot dead after he tried to halt ETA member Txabi Etxebarrieta during a routine road check. Etxebarrieta was chased down and killed as he tried to flee. This led to retaliation in the form of the first planned ETA assassination: that of Melitón Manzanas, chief of the secret police in San Sebastián and associated with a long record of tortures inflicted on detainees in his custody. In December 1970, several members of ETA were condemned to death in the Burgos trials ("Proceso de Burgos"), but international pressure resulted in their sentences being commuted (a process which, however, had by that time already been applied to some other members of ETA).


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In early December 1970, ETA kidnapped the German consul in San Sebastian, Eugen Beilh, to exchange him for the Burgos defendants. He was released unharmed on 24 December.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Nationalists who refused to follow the tenets of Marxism–Leninism and who sought to create a united front appeared as ETA-V, but lacked the support to challenge ETA.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The most significant assassination performed by ETA during Franco's dictatorship was Operación Ogro, the December 1973 bomb assassination in Madrid of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, Franco's chosen successor and president of the government (a position roughly equivalent to being a prime minister). The assassination had been planned for months and was executed by placing a bomb in a tunnel dug below the street where Carrero Blanco's car passed every day. The bomb blew up beneath the politician's car and left a massive crater in the road.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: For some in the Spanish opposition, Carrero Blanco's assassination, i.e., the elimination of Franco's chosen successor was an instrumental step for the subsequent re-establishment of democracy. The government responded with new anti-terrorism laws which gave police greater powers and empowered military tribunals to pass death sentences against those found guilty. However, the last use of capital punishment in Spain when two ETA members were executed in September 1975, eight weeks before Franco's death, sparked massive domestic and international protests against the Spanish government.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: During the Spanish transition to democracy which began following Franco's death, ETA split into two separate groups: ETA political-military or ETA(pm), and ETA military or ETA(m).


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Both ETA(m) and ETA(pm) refused offers of amnesty, and instead pursued and intensified their violent struggle. The years 1978–1980 were to prove ETA's most deadly, with 68, 76, and 98 fatalities, respectively.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: During the Franco dictatorship, ETA was able to take advantage of tolerance by the French government, which allowed its members to move freely through French territory, believing that in this manner they were contributing to the end of Franco's regime. There is much controversy over the degree to which this policy of "sanctuary" continued even after the transition to democracy, but it is generally agreed that after 1983 the French authorities started to collaborate with the Spanish government against ETA.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In the 1980s, ETA(pm) accepted the Spanish government's offer of individual pardons to all ETA prisoners, even those who had committed violent crimes, who publicly abandoned the policy of violence. This caused a new division in ETA(pm) between the seventh and eighth assemblies. ETA VII accepted this partial amnesty granted by the now democratic Spanish government and integrated into the political party "Euskadiko Ezkerra" ("Left of the Basque Country").


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA VIII, after a brief period of independent activity, eventually integrated into ETA(m). With no factions existing anymore, ETA(m) reclaimed the original name of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: During the 1980s a "dirty war" ensued using the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL, "Antiterrorist Liberation Groups"), a paramilitary group which billed themselves as counter-terrorist, active between 1983 and 1987. The GAL's stated mission was to avenge every ETA killing with another killing of ETA exiles in the French department of Pyrénées Atlantiques. GAL committed 27 assassinations (all but one in France), plus several kidnappings and torture, not only of ETA members but of civilians supposedly related to those, some of whom turned out to have nothing to do with ETA. GAL activities were a follow-up of similar dirty war actions by death squads, actively supported by members of Spanish security forces and secret services, using names such as active from 1975 to 1981. They were responsible for the killing of about 48 people.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: One consequence of GAL's activities in France was the decision in 1984 by interior minister Pierre Joxe to permit the extradition of ETA suspects to Spain. Reaching this decision had taken 25 years and was critical in curbing ETA's capabilities by denial of previously safe territory in France.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The airing of the state-sponsored "dirty war" scheme and the imprisonment of officials responsible for GAL in the early 1990s led to a political scandal in Spain. The group's connections with the state were unveiled by the Spanish journal , with an investigative series leading to the GAL plot being discovered and a national trial initiated. As a consequence, the group's attacks since the revelation have generally been dubbed state terrorism.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In 1997 the Spanish court finished its trial, which resulted in convictions and imprisonment of several individuals related to the GAL, including civil servants and politicians up to the highest levels of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) government, such as former Homeland Minister José Barrionuevo. Premier Felipe González was quoted as saying that the constitutional state has to defend itself "even in the sewers" (), something which, for some, indicated at least his knowledge of the scheme. However, his involvement with the GAL could never be proven.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: These events marked the end of the armed "counter-terrorist" period in Spain and no major cases of foul play on the part of the Spanish government after 1987 (when GAL ceased to operate) have been proven in courts.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: According to the radical nationalist group, Euskal Memoria, between 1960 and 2010 there were 465 deaths in the Basque Country due to (primarily Spanish) state violence. This figure is considerably higher than those given elsewhere, which are usually between 250 and 300. Critics of ETA cite only 56 members of that organisation killed by state forces since 1975.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA members and supporters routinely claim torture at the hands of Spanish police forces. While these claims are hard to verify, some convictions were based on confessions while prisoners were held incommunicado and without access to a lawyer of their choice, for a maximum of five days. These confessions were routinely repudiated by the defendants during trials as having been extracted under torture. There were some successful prosecutions of proven tortures during the "dirty war" period of the mid-1980s, although the penalties have been considered by Amnesty International as unjustifiably light and lenient with co-conspirators and enablers.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In this regard, Amnesty International showed concern for the continuous disregard of the recommendations issued by the agency to prevent the alleged abuses from possibly taking place. Also in this regard, ETA's manuals were found instructing its members and supporters to claim routinely that they had been tortured while detained. Unai Romano's case was very controversial: pictures of him with a symmetrically swollen face of uncertain aetiology were published after his incommunicado period leading to claims of police abuse and torture. Martxelo Otamendi, the ex-director of the Basque newspaper , decided to bring charges in September 2008 against the Spanish Government in the European Court of Human Rights for "not inspecting properly" cases tainted by torture.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: As a result of ETA's violence, threats and killings of journalists, Reporters Without Borders included Spain in all six editions of its annual watchlist on press freedom up to 2006. Thus, the NGO included ETA in its watchlist "Predators of Press Freedom".


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA performed their first car bomb assassination in Madrid in September 1985, resulting in one death (American citizen Eugene Kent Brown, employee of Johnson & Johnson) and sixteen injuries; the Plaza República Dominicana bombing in July 1986 killed 12 members of the Guardia Civil and injured 50; on 19 June 1987, the Hipercor bombing was an attack in a shopping centre in Barcelona, killing 21 and injuring 45; in the last case, entire families were killed. The horror caused then was so striking that ETA felt compelled to issue a communiqué stating that they had given warning of the Hipercor bomb, but that the police had declined to evacuate the area. The police said that the warning came only a few minutes before the bomb exploded.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In 1986 (known in English as Association for Peace in the Basque Country) was founded; they began to convene silent demonstrations in communities throughout the Basque Country the day after any violent killing, whether by ETA or by GAL. These were the first systematic demonstrations in the Basque Country against political violence. Also in 1986, in Ordizia, ETA gunned down María Dolores Katarain, known as "Yoyes", while she was walking with her infant son. Yoyes was a former member of ETA who had abandoned the armed struggle and rejoined civil society: they accused her of "desertion" because of her taking advantage of the Spanish reinsertion policy which granted amnesty to those prisoners who publicly renounced political violence (see below).


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: On 12 January 1988, all Basque political parties except ETA-affiliated Herri Batasuna signed the Ajuria-Enea pact with the intent of ending ETA's violence. Weeks later on 28 January, ETA announced a 60-day "ceasefire", later prolonged several times. Negotiations known as the ("Algiers Table") took place between the ETA representative Eugenio Etxebeste ("Antxon") and the then PSOE government of Spain, but no successful conclusion was reached, and ETA eventually resumed the use of violence.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: During this period, the Spanish government had a policy referred to as "reinsertion", under which imprisoned ETA members whom the government believed had genuinely abandoned violence could be freed and allowed to rejoin society. Claiming a need to prevent ETA from coercively impeding this reinsertion, the PSOE government decided that imprisoned ETA members, who previously had all been imprisoned within the Basque Country, would instead be dispersed to prisons throughout Spain, some as far from their families as in the Salto del Negro prison in the Canary Islands. France has taken a similar approach.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In the event, the only clear effect of this policy was to incite social protest, especially from nationalists and families of the prisoners, claiming cruelty of separating family members from the insurgents. Much of the protest against this policy runs under the slogan ("Basque prisoners to the Basque Country"; by "Basque prisoners" only ETA members are meant). It has to be noted that almost in any Spanish jail there is a group of ETA prisoners, as the number of ETA prisoners makes it difficult to disperse them.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: "/" ("Pro-Amnesty Managing Assemblies", currently illegal), later ("Freedom") and ("The Family Members"), provided support for prisoners and families. The Basque Government and several Nationalist town halls granted money on humanitarian reasons for relatives to visit prisoners. The long road trips have caused accidental deaths that are protested against by Nationalist Prisoner's Family supporters.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: During the ETA ceasefire of the late 1990s, the PSOE government brought the prisoners on the islands and in Africa back to the mainland. Since the end of the ceasefire, ETA prisoners have not been sent back to overseas prisons. Some Basque authorities have established grants for the expenses of visiting families.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Another Spanish "counter-terrorist" law puts suspected terrorist cases under the central tribunal in Madrid, due to the threats by the group over the Basque courts. Under Article 509 suspected terrorists are subject to being held incommunicado for up to thirteen days, during which they have no contact with the outside world other than through the court-appointed lawyer, including informing their family of their arrest, consultation with private lawyers or examination by a physician other than the coroners. In comparison, the habeas corpus term for other suspects is three days.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In 1992, ETA's three top leaders—"military" leader Francisco Mujika Garmendia ("Pakito"), political leader José Luis Alvarez Santacristina ("Txelis") and logistical leader José María Arregi Erostarbe ("Fiti"), often referred to collectively as the "cúpula" of ETA or as the Artapalo collective—were arrested in the northern Basque town of Bidart, which led to changes in ETA's leadership and direction.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: After a two-month truce, ETA adopted even more radical positions. The principal consequence of the change appears to have been the creation of the "Y Groups", formed by young militants of ETA parallel groups (generally minors), dedicated to so-called —street struggle—and whose activities included burning buses, street lamps, benches, ATMs, and garbage containers, and throwing Molotov cocktails. The appearance of these groups was attributed by many to the supposed weakness of ETA, which obliged them to resort to minors to maintain or augment their impact on society after arrests of leading militants, including the "cupola". ETA also began to menace leaders of other parties besides rival Basque nationalist parties.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In 1995, the armed group again launched a peace proposal. The so-called "Democratic Alternative" replaced the earlier KAS Alternative as a minimum proposal for the establishment of Euskal Herria. The Democratic Alternative offered the cessation of all armed ETA activity if the Spanish government would recognize the Basque people as having sovereignty over Basque territory, the right to self-determination, and that it freed all ETA members in prison. The Spanish government ultimately rejected this peace offer as it would go against the Spanish Constitution of 1978. Changing the constitution was not considered.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Also in 1995 was a failed ETA car bombing attempt directed against José María Aznar, a conservative politician who was the leader of the then-opposition (PP) and was shortly after elected to the presidency of the government; there was also an abortive attempt in Majorca on the life of King Juan Carlos I. Still, the act with the largest social impact came the following year. On 10 July 1997, PP council member Miguel Ángel Blanco was kidnapped in the Basque town of Ermua, with the separatist group threatening to assassinate him unless the Spanish government met ETA's demand of starting to bring all ETA's inmates to prisons of the Basque Country within two days after the kidnapping.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: This demand was not met by the Spanish government and after three days Miguel Ángel Blanco was found shot dead when the deadline expired. More than six million people took out to the streets to demand his liberation, with massive demonstrations occurring as much in the Basque regions as elsewhere in Spain, chanting cries of "Assassins" and "Basques yes, ETA no". This response came to be known as the "Spirit of Ermua".


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Later acts of violence included the 6 November 2001 car bomb in Madrid which injured 65 people, and attacks on football stadiums and tourist destinations throughout Spain.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The 11 September 2001 attacks in the US appeared to have dealt a hard blow to ETA, owing to the worldwide toughening of "anti-terrorist" measures (such as the freezing of bank accounts), the increase in international policy coordination, and the end of the toleration some countries had, up until then, extended to ETA. Additionally, in 2002 the Basque nationalist youth movement, "Jarrai", was outlawed and the law of parties was changed outlawing Herri Batasuna, the "political arm" of ETA (although even before the change in law, Batasuna had been largely paralysed and under judicial investigation by judge Baltasar Garzón).


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: On 24 December 2003, in San Sebastián and in Hernani, National Police arrested two ETA members who had left dynamite in a railroad car prepared to explode in Chamartín Station in Madrid. On 1 March 2004, in a place between Alcalá de Henares and Madrid, a light truck with 536 kg of explosives was discovered by the Guardia Civil.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA was initially blamed for the 2004 Madrid bombings by the outgoing government and large sections of the press. However, the group denied responsibility and Islamic fundamentalists from Morocco were eventually convicted. The judicial investigation currently states that there is no relationship between ETA and the Madrid bombings.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In the context of negotiation with the Spanish government, ETA declared what it described as a "truce" several times since its creation.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: On 22 March 2006, ETA sent a DVD message to the Basque Network Euskal Irrati-Telebista and the journals "Gara" and "Berria" with a communiqué from the group announcing what it called a "permanent ceasefire" that was broadcast over Spanish TV.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Talks with the group were then officially opened by Spanish "Presidente del Gobierno" José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: These took place all over 2006, not free from incidents such as an ETA cell stealing some 300 handguns, ammunition and spare parts in France in October 2006. or a series of warnings made by ETA such as the one of 23 September, when masked ETA militants declared that the group would "keep taking up arms" until achieving "independence and socialism in the Basque country", which were regarded by some as a way to increase pressure on the talks, by others as a tactic to reinforce ETA's position in the negotiations.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Finally, on 30 December 2006 ETA detonated a van bomb after three confusing warning calls, in a parking building at the Madrid Barajas international airport. The explosion caused the collapse of the building and killed two Ecuadorian immigrants who were napping inside their cars in the parking building. At 6:00 pm, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero released a statement stating that the "peace process" had been discontinued.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In January 2008, ETA stated that its call for independence is similar to that of the Kosovo status and Scotland. In the week of 8 September 2008, two Basque political parties were banned by a Spanish court for their secretive links to ETA. In another case in the same week, 21 people were convicted whose work on behalf of ETA prisoners actually belied secretive links to the armed separatists themselves. ETA reacted to these actions by placing three major car bombs in less than 24 hours in northern Spain.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In April 2009 Jurdan Martitegi was arrested, making him the fourth consecutive ETA military chief to be captured within a single year, an unprecedented police record, further weakening the group. Violence surged in the middle of 2009, with several ETA attacks leaving three people dead and dozens injured around Spain. Amnesty International condemned these attacks as well as ETA's "grave human rights abuses".


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The Basque newspaper "Gara" published an article that suggested that ETA member Jon Anza could have been killed and buried by Spanish police in April 2009. The central prosecutor in the French town of Bayonne, Anne Kayanakis, announced, as the official version, that the autopsy carried out on the body of Jon Anza – a suspected member of the armed Basque group ETA, missing since April 2009 – revealed no signs of having been beaten, wounded or shot, which should rule out any suspicions that he died from unnatural causes. Nevertheless, that very magistrate denied the demand of the family asking for the presence of a family doctor during the autopsy. After this, Jon Anza's family members asked for a second autopsy to be carried out.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In December 2009, Spain raised its terror alert after warning that ETA could be planning major attacks or high-profile kidnappings during Spain's European Union presidency. The next day, after being asked by the opposition, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba said that warning was part of a strategy.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: On 5 September 2010, ETA declared a new ceasefire, its third after two previous ceasefires were ended by the group. A spokesperson speaking on a video announcing the ceasefire said the group wished to use "peaceful, democratic means" to achieve its aims, though it was not specified whether the ceasefire was considered permanent by the group. ETA claimed that it had decided to initiate a ceasefire several months before the announcement. In the part of the video, the spokesperson said that the group was "prepared today as yesterday to agree to the minimum democratic conditions necessary to put in motion a democratic process if the Spanish government is willing".


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The announcement was met with a mixed reaction; Basque nationalist politicians responded positively and said that the Spanish and international governments should do the same, while the Spanish interior counsellor of Basque, Rodolfo Ares, said that the committee did not go far enough. He said that he considered ETA's statement "absolutely insufficient" because it did not commit to a complete termination of what Ares considered "terrorist activity" by the group.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: On 10 January 2011, ETA declared that their September 2010 ceasefire would be permanent and verifiable by international observers. Observers urged caution, pointing out that ETA had broken permanent ceasefires in the past, whereas Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (who left office in December 2011) demanded that ETA declare that it had given up violence once and for all. After the declaration, Spanish press started speculating of a possible Real IRA-type split within ETA, with hardliners forming a new more violent offshoot led by "Dienteputo".


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: On 21 October 2011, ETA announced a cessation of armed activity via video clip sent to media outlets following the Donostia-San Sebastián International Peace Conference, which was attended by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former Taoiseach of Ireland Bertie Ahern, former prime minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland (an international leader in sustainable development and public health), former Interior Minister of France Pierre Joxe, president of Sinn Féin Gerry Adams (a Teachta Dála in Dáil Éireann), and British diplomat Jonathan Powell, who served as the first Downing Street Chief of Staff.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: They all signed a final declaration that was supported also by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, the former US president and 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter, and the former US senator and former US Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George J. Mitchell. The meeting did not include Spanish or French government representatives.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: The day after the ceasefire, in a contribution piece to "The New York Times", Tony Blair indicated that lessons in dealing with paramilitary separatist groups can be learned from how the Spanish administration handled ETA. Blair wrote, "governments must firmly defend themselves, their principles and their people against terrorists. This requires good police and intelligence work as well as political determination. [However], firm security pressure on terrorists must be coupled with offering them a way out when they realize that they cannot win by violence. Terrorist groups are rarely defeated by military means alone". Blair also suggested that Spain would need to discuss weapon decommissioning, peace strategies, reparations for victims, and security with ETA, as Britain discussed with the Provisional IRA.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA had declared ceasefires many times before, most significantly in 1999 and 2006, but the Spanish government and media outlets expressed particularly hopeful opinions regarding the permanence of this proclamation. Spanish premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero described the move as "a victory for democracy, law and reason". Additionally, the effort of security and intelligence forces in Spain and France are cited by politicians as the primary instruments responsible for the weakening of ETA. The optimism may come as a surprise considering ETA's failure to renounce the independence movement, which has been one of the Spanish government's requirements.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Less optimistically, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the centre-right People's Party expressed the need to push for the full dissolution of ETA. The People's Party has emphasized the obligation of the state to refuse negotiations with separatist movements since former Prime Minister José María Aznar was in office. Aznar was responsible for banning media outlets seen as subversive to the state and Batasuna, the political party of ETA. Additionally, in preparation for his party's manifesto, on 30 October 2011, Rajoy declared that the People's Party would not negotiate with ETA under threats of violence nor announcements of the group's termination, but would instead focus party efforts on remembering and honouring victims of separatist violence.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: This event may not alter the goals of the Basque separatist movement but will change the method of the fight for a more autonomous state. Negotiations with the newly elected administration may prove difficult with the return to the centre-right People's Party, which is replacing Socialist control, due to pressure from within the party to refuse all ETA negotiations.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In September 2016, French police stated that they did not believe ETA had made progress in giving up arms. In March 2017, well-known French-Basque activist was quoted as having told "Le Monde", "ETA has made us responsible for the disarmament of its arsenal, and by the afternoon of 8 April, ETA will be completely unarmed." On 7 April, the BBC reported that ETA would disarm "tomorrow", including a photo of a stamped ETA letter attesting to this. The French police found 3.5 tonnes of weapons on 8 April, the following day, at the caches handed over by ETA.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: In a letter to online newspaper "El Diario", published on 2 May 2018, ETA formally announced that it had "completely dissolved all its structures and ended its political initiative" on 16 April 2018.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: A leading leftwing Basque nationalist politician and former ETA member, Arnaldo Otegi, the general coordinator of the Basque coalition party EH Bildu, has said the violence ETA used in its quest for independence “should never have happened” and it ought to have laid down its arms far earlier than it did. A full quote: 'Today we want to make specific mention of the victims of ETA's violence,” said Otegi. “We want to express to them our sorrow and pain for the suffering they endured. We feel their pain, and that sincere feeling leads us to affirm that it should never have happened, that no one could be satisfied with what happened, and that it should not have lasted as long as it did. We should have managed to reach [the abandonment of the armed campaign] sooner.'


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA's targets expanded from military or police-related personnel and their families to a wider array, which included the following:


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: These bombs sometimes killed family members of ETA's target victim and bystanders. When the bombs were large car-bombs seeking to produce large damage and terror, they were generally announced by one or more telephone calls made to newspapers speaking in the name of ETA. Charities (usually Detente Y Ayuda—DYA) were also used to announce the threat if the bomb was in a populated area. The type of explosives used in these attacks was initially Goma-2 or self-produced ammonal. After several successful robberies in France, ETA began using Titadyne.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: With its attacks against what they considered "enemies of the Basque people", ETA killed over 820 people since 1968, including more than 340 civilians. It maimed hundreds more and kidnapped dozens.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Its ability to inflict violence had declined steadily since the group was at its strongest during the late 1970s and 1980 (when it killed 92 people in a single year). After decreasing peaks in the fatal casualties in 1987 and 1991, 2000 was the last year when ETA killed more than 20 in a single year. After 2002, the yearly number of ETA's fatal casualties was reduced to single digits.


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: Similarly, over the 1990s and, especially, during the 2000s, fluid cooperation between the French and Spanish police, state-of-the-art tracking devices and techniques and, apparently, police infiltration allowed increasingly repeating blows to ETA's leadership and structure (between May 2008 and April 2009 no less than four consecutive "military chiefs" were arrested).


title: ETA (separatist group)

text: ETA operated mainly in Spain, particularly in the Basque Country, Navarre, and (to a lesser degree) Madrid, Barcelona, and the tourist areas of the Spanish Mediterranean coast. To date, about 65% of ETA's killings were committed in the Basque Country, followed by Madrid with roughly 15%. Navarre and Catalonia also registered significant numbers.