Self-determination of Peoples and continuity of their States (XVI)
EUSKAL HERRIA AND THE KINGDOM OF NABARRE, OR THE BASQUE PEOPLE AND ITS STATE, AGAINST FRENCH-SPANISH IMPERIALISM
XVI – Self-determination of Peoples and continuity of their States
Iñaki Aginaga and Felipe Campo
The international and fundamental Right of Self-Determination or Independence of all Peoples (RSD) is a universal imperative or peremptory norm (‘ius cogens’) of General International Law, which is established as an obligation for all subjects (‘erga omnes’); which precedes, presides over and subordinates to any positive domestic law of the States; which is placed above their inter-national Treaties; and which grants all States founded on the principles of the International Law the legitimate right and interest to vindicate it: all subjects that directly or indirectly are being attacked in that right are enabled by the International Law to oppose against its violation (‘actio popularis’).
“The consequence of a violation of a peremptory norm is a legal nullity which operates erga omnes. To maintain this nullity, states are prohibited from recognizing the legality of a situation created in violation of a peremptory norm, irrespective of the effectiveness or apparent success of those responsible for the conduct in question. [...] The peremptory character of the violated norm also means that the illegality is not curable by consent of states. Moreover, to waive this illegality or acquiesce in it would in itself be a violation of an international obligation, even if the waiving or acquiescing state is the one directly injured by the original violation.” (Yaël Ronen.)
The RSD is included in what International Law qualifies as ius cogens, which generates universal peremptory obligations, and invalidates the claim of States in imposing on it limitations according to their own positive law. As discussed above, the RSD is the first of fundamental human rights and the precondition or prerequisite to the full enjoyment of them all, according to contemporary International Law; imposes itself in a unilateral basis, and implies the respective obligation on the part of the imperialistic colonialism which violates it. Characteristic of the RSD of all peoples is to impose itself on the imperialist State against its will, by the sole will of the People who has it, otherwise it makes no sense at all.
Contrary to the falsifications concocted by French-Spanish imperialism, which in our Country present the world novelty of being sustained and disseminated by aboriginal traitors (namely: the so-called “Basque nationalists” of the Pnv-Eta liquidationist bureaucracy and its satellites Ea-Ehbildu-Sortu-Geroa bai etc.), the fundamental human rights are not based on the consent of those who are obliged to respect them, nor do they depend on it. However, these “Basque” collaborationist agents and accomplices of French-Spanish imperialism that they have been accepting for half a century now as legitimase and democratic, do denounce as fascist imposition, exclusion and unilateralism all imposition and all unilateralism other than those of imperialism that for them is democracy; which entails their denial of the right of unconditional and immediate national independence of the Basque People, constitutive of its RSD that is inherent in any subjugated People. “That would be an imposition”, they say, “which would not be democratic”. Yet, as is evident, every law is imposition, exclusion and unilateralism in the otherness; otherwise it would not be law.
In this way, and as a consequence of their falsified approach to the problem, the components of this Pnv-Eta conglomerate claim – as a first measure and first step in the process of self-determination – the recognition of this right by the Spanish and French imperialistic States that do structurally violate and deny it, while they recognize in advance those States as legitimate, democratic, and their own ones. Which implies, on the part of these alleged claimants, not the affirmation but – quite on the contrary – the denial of the RSD, or, what is the same thing, the recognition of the “right” of imperialism to deny the Peoples’ RSD; without all this preventing that régime from remaining legitimate and democratic, as these “Basque” local agents – auxiliaries of French-Spanish imperialism – do not cease to affirm.
The “recognition” of the RSD by imperialism is a repetitive Pnv-Eta requirement; which constitustes an incongruous “requirement” entailing a contradiction in terms. The demand to imperialism for its recognition of the RSD is an extravagant ideological manoeuvre, both to hide the pith and marrow of the question and to avoid or delay its treatment, as well as to conceal the abandonment of the Peoples’ RSD and the correlative recognition/acceptance of imperialism, carried out by those who are its collaborators and accomplices. What the RSD does per se demand from imperialism is the freedom of the oppressed Peoples and the immediate abandonment of their occupied Territories and States; that is to say: not the “recognition” but the immediate application of the RSD or independence of the Peoples that it keeps subjugated. (The Spanish imperialism can put its “recognition” of the RSD into the Salamanca archives, now that it is getting free space left there.)
On the other hand, all recognition is a declarative, unilateral, free, discretionary and optional act. The “obligatory recognition” of rights, Peoples, Nations, States or states of war, like other official declarations and approvals, is a juridical and logical absurdity for purely ideological purposes of intoxication and psychological warfare.
Indeed, recognition cannot constitute reality. The very “notion” of “constitutive recognition” is a misunderstanding or a contradiction in terms. Its current resurgence in international propaganda, diplomacy and policy demonstrates the retreat of the postulated International Law of the United Nations towards the elementary and undisguised Nationalism that preceded it and that – despite the pretence to overcome it – transcended it.
Let’s see: what does not exist, cannot be recognized; whereas what is recognized, did already exist previously and therefore cannot be constituted. That is: it is not this recognition that constitutes it. Recognition can constitute rights, but not the rights it recognizes, which did already exist previously. If the rights were to depend on their recognition in order to exist, then there would be no rights. The “obligation” to recognize or not recognize – as well as to make other obligatory or forced declarations, confessions, manifestations and condemnations – is a formally useless and superfetatory detour; although it may eventually be an effective means of publicity, guarantee, pressure, intimidation or humiliation.
Nor does the purported “healing” or “purging” of the illegality by means of the recognition make a greater sense either: recognition does not heal or purge the unlawful or illicit act; it only makes it legal by changing a law by another one. The “constitutive, obligatory or premature declarations and recognitions of Peoples, Nations, Rebels, Insurgents, Belligerents, Governments and States” do reveal the indeterminacy, evolution and adaptation, the hesitations and criteria, the appreciation and interpretation – interested and variable – of situations, as they are perceived by the different parties in conflict.
The RSD or independence of all Peoples is a fundamental human right, not a right derived, secondary, conditioned and constituted by any other right. No additional constituent act, on the part of free or subjugated Peoples – or of other States or Organizations – makes any sense in order to constitute what is already constituted. The Peoples’ RSD does precede all recognition and does not depend on it. It is a right that – as we have repeatedly stated – was already formally recognized, not constituted, by the UN and their Member States as the first of fundamental human rights and the prior condition for the full enjoyment of them all.
The international right of self-determination or independence of all Peoples is not nor does it imply the right to the recognition of the Peoples and their rights; and much less does it consist in demanding from imperialism the recognition of these ones, as is apparently claimed by the liquidationist bureaucracy Pnv-Eta and its satellites. This, either is a pure and foolish aberration, or is a conscious manoeuvre that seeks the deception and confusion of our People, in order to hide thus their abandonment and destruction of that right by the agents of these bureaucracies, to which they call “the right to decide”.
Indeed, the essence of imperialism consists in the denial of the Self-Determination or Independence of the subjugated Peoples, and in its own criminal imposition on them and their rights through military occupation and the destruction of those Peoples and their rights. Thus, to pretend that it must be imperialism that recognizes what it denies and criminally destroys by its very essence and existence, one of two things: either it implies insanity and folly (if perchance imperialism is being sincerely “demanded” to destroy itself, since nothing else entails its recognition of the Self-determination of the subjugated People); or it is disgusting hypocrisy that is being feigned to hide their own betrayal, when there happens that it is those same bureaucracies that have recognized French-Spanish Imperialism as Democracy and have integrated themselves into its “Constitution” and Parliaments, which officially deny the existence of the Basque Nation and its rights, and they are being paid for it.
The RSD of all Peoples is not either nor does it imply the right of Peoples to be questioned or consulted, or the obligation of anybody to ask or consult anything. The RSD of all Peoples is their right of unconditional and immediate independence in front of imperialism.
In short, the rights, and very especially the fundamental ones:
A) are not based on the recognition or the consent of the obligor, nor do they depend on them either;
B) are not product of democracy, since it is democracy that is constituted by the observance of fundamental human rights, and not the other way round (and the RSD is the first of human rights and the prior condition of them all); and
C) are unilaterally imposed.
“Unilaterally proclaiming independence is fascism”, say the ideological agents of French-Spanish fascist imperialism that does militarily occupy our Country. But a purported “RSD” that arises or is founded in the “bilateral” decision with the obliged State, that is: the offender imperialistic occupying State, or whose “exercise” must be “agreed” with it, is not RSD nor right of nothing, it’s only a functional mockery.
Fundamental, inherent and original human rights do exist, oblige and must be fulfilled with or without – and in any case before – any recognition; and the right of self-determination or independence of subjugated Peoples: which must be vindicated in the face of the imperialism that subjugates them, is the first of the fundamental human rights and the precondition for the full enjoyment of them all, as recognized by contemporary UN International Law. To make derive its fulfilment from the recognition by anyone, least of all by the imperialistic State that is subduing those Peoples, their Territories and – eventually – their legitimately constituted States (“conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”), is to deny and destroy the RSD; and to propose to imperialism that it must recognize – or in short to advocate that it should recognize – what it does not comply with and does not intend to fulfill, is a complete folly.
Consequently, the fundamental issue that a People subjugated under imperialism has to face is whether it is or is not capable of implementing a strategic-level Resistance, and therefore an inexorable total boycott of all imperialistic agent and institution, which would force the criminal occupying State to abandon – whether it agrees or not – its imperialistic domination. Because, to pose the implementation of the RSD as the result of “convincing” the occupier to voluntarily abandon his domination, all this constitutes a delusion that can only lead to the destruction of the subjugated People.
The “political game between different ideas, all democratic”, which is carried out together with the agents and within the institutions of the French-Spanish imperialistic and fascist régime that does militarily occupy our Country (all of which is accepted as “democratic”, as is being affirmed and maintained by the components of the liquidationist bureaucracy Pnv-Eta and its satellites), constitutes a death trap that can only have been accepted from the corruption, the defeatism and/or the insanity of those local “Basque” agents, surrendered for almost half a century to the propaganda and the service of the imperialism of Francespain.
The right of self-determination or independence of all Peoples is, like all democratic rights, a “reflection” of an obligation imposed by a political power with the capacity to impose it; a right that of course – and as we have indicated above – is based on International Law and whose unconditional exigence is unavoidable for every democratic agent, in the same way that its rejection is consubstantial with every imperialistic agent. In this sense, the legitimacy of the enterprise of liberation from imperialism results from having correctly visualized the question of what is being imposed, on whom and what for. Since, as it is evidente, freedom – either national or general – can only be posed as an obligation/imposition when it is done on those who would fight against it; instead, there can be no such an imposition on those who defend it and fight for it. It is not possible to propose freedom as an imposition: this is a tautological proposition.
The RSD is inherent in the subjugated Peoples, and it protects them erga omnes from imperialistic aggression. Therefore, its international vindication can and must be made only on behalf of the subjugated Peoples: the sole subject agents of the RSD; and against imperialism, which is its patient subject. The RSD of all Peoples is the opposite correlative to imperialism. As already explained, without actual or virtual imperialism and without imperialists there is no RSD: if there is imperialism, there is RSD; if there is no imperialism, there is no RSD nor any need of it, either.
The imperialistic-metropolitan policy of invoking that right in favour of its own colony of population established within a previously attacked and/or colonized People and Country, in order to achieve the consolidation and success of its colonialist enterprise of occupation-dismemberment-annexation of all or part of their territory, constitutes a cynical falsification of the RSD, in line with the permanent attack to which the world-wide imperialistic reaction has subjected it since its formulation.
It is in this way that, in 1920, the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler demanded in its programme the unification of the “Germans” – Germanic peoples of Austria and of Sudetenland, in Czechoslovakia – in a single State invoking the RSD. When the French Nationalism-Imperialism did invoke the rights of self-determination and legitimate defence of the French People against a alleged “internal aggression”, in order to justify the infamous colonial “non-war” of “Algeria, an integral part of the French People” (since, where officially there is no other People than the French one, “France cannot make war against itself”), it was falsifying with it both the reality and the RSD, as it has been defined by the UNO. (As for the attack on the formal and informal logic that all this implies, the thing is irrelevant: in French “democracy” they also drag it along the Cartesian, “revolutionary” and Napoleonic Arch de Triomphe.)
And when the Spanish imperialistic Nationalism represses the subjugated Peoples’ national freedom, denies and persecutes the RSD, and affirms that “the right of self-determination is incompatible with democracy”, it is not only distorting and adulterating all those concepts which it alludes to but also infringing, inter alia, the Treaty of Accession to the UNO; a Treaty that the Governments of General De Gaulle and General Franco had signed without the slightest intention to observe it.
Along with the RSD or independence and of legitimate self-defence of all Peoples, there is placed the right of integrity, peace and security that assists the really democratic States. The “interpreters” of imperialism do with predilection use the apparent contradiction between these rights: on the one hand of Peoples’ self-determination, and on the other of integrity of States, so as to deny the RSD or independence of Peoples, adducing an alleged opposition between the rights of the Peoples and those of the States, and naturally concluding that the latter should prevail over the former.
To do this, and to start with, the ideologists of imperialism resort to the sophism of composition, giving at all times to the term “independence” a linear meaning that the mentioned texts exclude. That is, whether deliberately or not, those ideologists confuse and replace the independence of Peoples with the independence of States. Now then, according to Internationak Law, the Peoples’ independence is an original, primary, fundamental, constitutive, immediate and permanent independence that, as we have presented in the previous Chapter XIV – ‘International Law and Peoples’ Self-Determination’, is a fundamental condition for their free association or their free integration “with an independent State on the basis of complete equality between the peoples”; whereas the independence of States is a derived, secondary, founded, constituted, deferred and occasional one, a distinct and alternative form of the association or the integration with other States. In this way, once this confusion/substitution has been created, these agentes do then establish that the integrity of States – among which they surreptitiously include imperialistic States – is a fundamental principle, and “a moral value”, according to the Catholic hierarchy.
However, there is no contradiction, subordination or collision between these rights but tautological implication between them, on the basis of the permanent, categorical and unequivocal condemnation of imperialism and colonialism by the International Law.
As numerous Resolutions of its General Assembly have clearly stated, the contemporary International Law of the UN does support “the integrity of States conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of Peoples”, and is opposed against their “annexation, separation, secession or dismemberment”; which does, obviously, exclude the defence of the alleged integrity of the imperialistic States: built and conducting themselves not in compliance but in absolute violation/negation of the RSD of the subjugated Peoples, and upon the criminal annexation of other dominated and colonized States.
That is to say, International Law does not and cannot prevent Peoples subdued under the domination of a foreign State from separating from it, since such Peoples are not part of that foreign occupying State. In other words, International Law is not – and cannot be – for or against the separation of a People subjected to foreign domination, since that People, not being part of the occupying State because it has “a legal status separate and distinct from the territory of the State administering it” [UNGAR 2625 (1970)], cannot make “separation, secession or dismemberment” from an occupying State of which it is not a part.
As we shall see later, the “Goa doctrine” has confirmed resolutely this interpretation by rejecting the original aggression, occupation and wrongful act in general as a source of rights. Thus, in a society founded on the international right of Peoples’ self-determination, it is not possible for the Peoples subject to domination under a foreign State to make “separation, secession or dismemberment” from that State, since such Peoples: whether they have not freely waived their own State or have never had one, are not part of the occupying States; and therefore, when regaining their independence, these Peoples do not separate themselves from the occupying States nor do they split up from them up. The occupied Country is different Territory, and when it regains its independence it does not separate – it cannot be separated – from an entity of which it had never been legally part. Nothing or nobody can secede or be separated from a whole of which it does not form part.
Law, whatever it may be, does not and cannot opposethe impossible, since the impossible admits of no opposition; it can only oppose what, while being possible, is also illegal. With this we do not intend to establish a norm of morality or law, since what cannot be otherwise is not a matter susceptible for normativity. (Once again, the irrationality inherent in imperialistic and fascist propaganda compels us to make of truism – or platitude and lapalissade – a forced and recurring form of ideological criticism.)
Yet, the “interpreters” of the imperialism pretend to rely on those same paragraphs and other similar ones so as to deny the Peoples’ RSD, arguing that they establish an alleged opposition between the rights of the Peoples and of the States; but it is enough to read them to see that they say precisely the opposite. In these and other numerous similar texts There is no contradiction, subordination or collision of rights but tautological implication between them. But he who does not want to understand, will never understand.
When
“The General Assembly, [...] Declares that: [...] 6. Any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations” [UNGAR 1514 (1960)],
it is talking about the national unity and the territorial integrity of countries constituted on the fundamental human rights, and in particular on the RSD of all Peoples; rights that do preclude and condemn the imperialism:
“Article 5 [...] 3. No territorial acquisition or special advantage resulting from aggression is or shall be recognized as lawful. [...] Article 7 Nothing in this definition, and in particular article 3, could in any way prejudice the right to self-determination, freedom and independence, as derived from the Charter, of peoples forcibly deprived of that right and referred to in the Declarations on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, particularly peoples under colonial and racist régimes or other forms of alien domination; nor the right of these peoples to struggle to that end and to seek and receive support, in accordance with the principles of the Charter and in conformity with the above-mentioned Declaration”. [UNGAR 3314 (1974)]
The referred situations “of peoples forcibly deprived of that right”, “include armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist régimes in the exercise of the Peoples’ RSD, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration of Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.” (Article 1: General principles and scope of application; Paragraph 4, of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts [Protocol I], 8 June 1977.)
“We are in favour of the territorial integrity of all States, which is the opposite of independence, completely different to the regions becoming independent and organising themselves. In Germany we have a federal system that gives the different Administrations much room for manoeuvre to choose their path. That has nothing to do with questioning the territorial integrity. So I share the opinion of the Spanish government and others”, said Angela Merkel, for whom the RSDwas apparently abolished after having been used by Germany for its national reunification.
Z. Brzezinski, nostalgic former US National Security Advisor and actor of global imperialism, seems not to like what he sees when in the world map he contemplates the retreat of Empires of his devotion:
“Persistent and highly motivated populist resistance of politically awakened and historically resentful peoples to external control has proven to be increasingly difficult to suppress.” “On one side we have the need for Europe: many people recognize that Europe is needed in the world. On the other, we have movements, in Europe, seeking to achieve their ethnic or nationalist aspirations, which turns out contradictory. We will have serious problems with the possibility of a Scottish secession, because it will decrease the constructive role of Great Britain”, he says. And continues: “We don’t know how the Catalan issue will be resolved, but it will certainly complicate the problems of Spain, its financial problems.”
However, it is precisely all these despicable “reasonings” and their terminology: of course fully consistent with the positions of the imperialism, which are in reality contradictory to International Law. It is so above all, most especially, the repugnant imperialism itself: shamelessly trivialized and uselessly hidden behind the euphemistic but blatant “external control”, as Brzezinski puts it. And equally, behind the pretended, false, hypocritical and infantile “wide room for manoeuvre to choose their path” that, according to Merkel, have within the imperialism the subjugated Peoples and States, which she calls “regions”, thus sharing “the opinión of the Spanish Government and others”. An imperialism that poisons International relaciones and co-operation between Peoples every day.
As it could not be otherwise, and in open contradiction with the International Law, the maintenance of the integrity of the imperialistic States has become an axiom for the European imperialistic bunker. To this end, concepts and words such as “People, Nation, State, right of self-determination, independence, imperialism, nationalism and imperialistic Nationalism, colonialism, federalism” etc. have been deliberately evacuated or falsified, and replaced by others.
As for the so-called “international community”, nobody should be deceived as regards its attitude towards the dominated Peoples. An island-People has no “natural” allies. Nor does it have them artificial ones, since all political power – even reduced, recent or incipient – seeks the alliance with the powerful and despises the weak. For an oppressed People, any international alliance: either with the strong or with the weak, is circumstantial, volatile, temporary and precarious; it must be transformed urgently into a reinforcement of its own strategic core before it is too late, and it is almost always late. Otherwise, neither the “alliances”, nor the efforts and sacrifices consented to in the internal order in accordance with the former, are of any avail, because the dead ends lead nowhere. There is no possibility of alliance or negotiation but based on one’s own independent resources and alternative. Alliances cannot alleviate one’s own political weakness: only one’s own strength and determination do allow alliances. And if a People does not have or obtain by itself that strength and determination of its own, nobody will do it for it.
Israel, which maintains its “independence” and its Jewish, racial, linguistic and cultural identity under the protectorate of the USA, did have a political, ideological and economic role of first order in the conservation and renewal of the Francoist régime, which had kept in reserve its trump-card as the sole Government established by the Axis which did not deliver the Spanish Jews refugees under its power; the sole one also in surviving the defeat of its Nazi-Fascist German-Italian protectors. (The National-socialists of Falange/PsoE maintain within them two sectors perfectly complementary and well attuned, which respectively support the Jews’ and Muslims’ positions.) In any case, those who believe that Arab Muslims will support us for the sake of freedom, thus jeopadizing their “privileged” relations with Spanish and French Christians: established on the basis of centuries-old invasions, wars, conquests, persecutions, massacres and expulsions, they have really had it.
The Sahrawi People has its own self-proclaimed State; and this, when it comes to pass the alms box and raise funds between the Peoples subjugated by the Spaniards, sends its “Delegates for Spain” to our Country, where the gang of traitors, cretins or in any case corrupt “Basque politician” scoundrels, who form the bureaucratic-liquidationist mafia of “the Basque moderates and radicals” Pnv-Eta and their satellites Ea-Ehbildu-Sortu-Geroa bai etc., support and recognize them whereas, on the contrary, they do not recognize our own State the Kingdom of Nabarre, historically constituted and recognized for a thousand years. Quite differently, it’s half a century now that these “Basque” agents at the service and in the payroll of the French-Spanish imperialism are admitting and recognizing the criminal fascist régimes and States of Francespain, which militarily occupy our Country and destroy the Basque People/Euskal Herria, as their “own States”: non-violent, non-Nationalist, legitimate and democratic.
The “Slavs of the South” – i.e. Yugoslavia – or the Baltic Countries (which under the military occupation of the Soviet Union voted 90% for their annexation to it), showing the concept they maintain on the “solidarity among the oppressed”, do recoil in horror if it is suggested that human rights are valid for all; that their violation invalidates and makes null and void “annexations and unions” everywhere; and that in the “democracies” of the West there are Peoples as much or more defined and oppressed than they have been. And Portugal, which only escaped from the Spanish imperialism thanks to the British protectorate, has always supported repression and war against the other peninsular Peoples.
The oppressed Peoples: which as for weakness have enough with their own, do always seek the protection of the strongest ones and avoid like the plague being in the fearsome and demeaning company of the weakest. They prefer being in the company of the powerful, questionable or degrading though it may be, to the sympathy of other Peoples that suffer from alien domination; without prejudice to obtaining or expecting from the latter all the accessory contributions that can be obtained. But this, always and to the extent that it does not impair their preferential relations with the former, to whose slightest signs of pleasure or displeasure they do immediately sacrifice their interested, precarious and rhetorical affinities with the Peoples that are struggling for their freedom that is being crushed by the mighty ones.
The weak seek and expect getting more benefits from the hard than from the naked Peoples, especially in international policy. No sooner have they been released, and even before, than they feel no more pressing need than getting both the approval from the imperialistic Powers, and the prophylactic and disdainful distance towards the lousy remaining Peoples, who have the unheard-of aspiration of being as free and equal as themselves, and holders of the same universal rights of self-determination and legitimate self-defence than the others.
The international solidarity among Peoples should not be confused with an undignified, humiliating and sterile unilateral service for others; with a recognition on one-way only; or with the granting of support towards others without the corresponding reciprocity, which hides one’s inability to defend the own freedom and, therefore, that of others. The freedom of everybody begins with the freedom of oneself. It has as a condition the knowledge and recognition of the other, since there is no possibility of a free and equal international society if there is no alterity – otherness – among free and equal Peoples. On the contrary, ignorance, contempt and hatred towards the other: even the denial of its very existence, are the characteristic of imperialism and colonialism.
The right of self-determination of all Peoples: a precarious and defective right, has been established according to historical cycles of progression and regression. The world before the two great tides of national liberation led to the adoption of the right of self-determination by the UN; the world after them, to his denial. Given the current entrenched permanence of the system of imperialistic domination in the world, each People that reaches the independence is a new factor that weakens the side of the international struggle for national freedom, and that reinforces that of imperialistic solidarity.
Indeed, in a “paradoxical” way, this permanent rapport of forces has not ceased to worsen as a result of the great waves of decolonization, which have left pockets of absolute imperialism in putrefaction that do every day poison the new international order or disorder, the result of the integration of imperialism into a planetary system of domination. Each wave of liberation of Peoples carries with it the corresponding undertow. It elicits, on the one hand, the development of an imperialism adapted: mutant and resistant to the plague of the freedom of Peoples; and on the other, the “paradoxical” perverse weakening of the liberation movement as a result of its own achievements, due to the consequent and immediate transfer of the newly “independent” States to the crowded field of imperialism and totalitarianism. The basic condition, objective and outcome of such a transfer are the joint denial, subservience and destruction of the weakest and as yet unliberated Nations and States, within the so-called international community.
Proclaimed by a number of States and International Organizations, repeatedly formulated and incessantly breached by the UN (after having been formally accepted by all its States Members), the international right of self-determination of all Peoples has always been falsified and fought, from all angles, by world imperialism. The attack on the right of self-determination of all Peoples is now the central task of the imperialist undertow that has followed the two great waves of decolonization, and the end of the nuclear duopoly and the Cold War in the world. Without ever having abandoned its denial as such an actual and effective right, the most radical, direct, discreet, simple and handy means of disabling the right of self-determination of a People is to deny theoretically and practically the existence of the People itself that holds it. Whereupon its right of self-determination doesn’t make any sense, because what does not exist, does hold no rights.
But, as regards the attack on that right itself, to the outright denial of the right of self-determination of all Peoples has followed, preferably, its ideologically oriented “interpretation”. In this line, the ideologists of imperialism do counterfeit and confuse the concepts and terms of “self-determination, People and Nation”, whose positive content they recuperate and transfer to different ideas in order that they may serve their own political objectives.
Imperialism is the fundamental cause of the ruin of human rights and democracy in national and international Institutions. Falsifying and destroying the very concept of all Peoples’ RSD has always been for the imperialistic reaction an ideological objective of first necessity. The corresponding ideology is manufactured by countless agents, officials and “specialists”, and spread without any contrast or limitation by the monopolies of propaganda and psychological warfare, of conditioning, brainwashing and ideological intoxication of masses. The playing on words and concepts – between Nation and People, principle of nationality and right of self-determination – have always led to misunderstandings on an issue that by nature is super-ideological.
The ideologists at the service of the imperialistic Nationalism in the world try by all means to radically deny, reduce or confuse the very idea of the rights of self-determination or independence and of legitimate self-defence of the Peoples, and of the States built on those rights; changing, as per usual, the signifier and the signified of the concepts that they seek to destroy or recuperate. Or, even more radically, they try to deny the Peoples themselves, in order to ruin half a century of repeated and unequivocal Resolutions adopted for the formulation of the fundamental principles of International Law. And if they cannot achieve their purpose, then they try to adapt, replace, recuperate, limit, revise, reinterpret, distort, confuse, tamper, falsify and, in the end, evacuate and destroy the name and the very concept of Peoples’ right of self-determination, whose mere formulation constitutes a threat to the international aggression, occupation, colonization and exploitation.
The theoretical and official formulation of those rights: passably simple and intelligible, comes to be replaced by the more inextricable undergrowth through the work of the official services of ideological pollution. The UN’s own legal texts suffer the falsifications, interpretations, revisions, mutilations, extrapolations, “improvements” and discharges of waste required so as to make them say the opposite of what they say, and to ruin so half a century of repeated and unequivocal Resolutions and Decisions. The “right of self-determination of all Peoples” is thus turned reconcilable, harmless, recuperable and assimilable for the States and Nations that do violate it, and unusable for the National Liberation Movements.
The formal and real constitutions of the occupying States, their express and constant interpretation of laws and treaties, as well as the attitude of the “international” Administration and Jurisdiction, do leave no place for doubts about the general refusal to recognize and apply the international right of free disposition of Peoples.
With the involution of the Central-Eastern Empires and with the independence of Ireland, of the Balkan Peoples and of the Soviet allogeneous, the political formalization of the “natural” network of Nations in Central and Eastern Europe has been achieved or recovered, in general terms. Instead, the simple comparative cartographic visualization of the “European Union” allows to observe that the residual Empires of the extreme western Europe: the “nation-states” that the Spanish and the French imperialism has established through criminal violence, aggression, conquest, terrorism, repression and violation of all fundamental human rights, are exceptional, unusual and extravagant formations that do not correspond to the dimensions of the Nations that time, space and diversity of Peoples have constituted on the small European Peninsula of the Asian Continent, west of the Urals. Its western end, from the Rhine to the Strait, appears – with the portuguese “paradox” – as a product and residue of the Empires on asiatic or oriental scale: two huge uniform political zones in pink or yellow where the French-Spanish imperialistic Nationalism encloses the most diverse Peoples whose mere existence it does – officially, with impunity and deliberately – deny and destroy like a historical, geographical and political monster; like an aberrant anomaly. Now, moreover, under the shelter and in spite of the so-called “human dimension of the new European Community”, of the ruins of the UNO and its International Law, and of the new hegemonic Power regulator of the Orb; and to make matters worse, with the support of the “Basque” bureaucratic mafia Pnv-Eta and its satellites Ea-Ehbildu-Sortu-Geroa bai etc.
In any case, the validity and maintenance of the principle ‘ex iniuria ius non oritur’, underlying the Stimson-Welles doctrine, meant the non-recognition and the condemnation of “predatory activities, regardless of whether they have been achieved by the use or threat of force”, in reference to the military occupation of the Baltic States carried out by these means in June 1940 by the “Soviet Union” under the secret provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact:
“The United States will continue to stand by these principles, because of the conviction of the American people that, unless the doctrine in which these principles are inherent once again governs the relations between nations, the rule of reason, of justice, and of law – in other words the basis of modern civilization itself – cannot be preserved.” (Declaration by the acting Secretary of State, the Honourable Sumner Welles; July 23, 1940.)
This attitude of non-recognition of the wrongful act as a source of law was tenaciously maintained by the United States:
“The most distinctive feature of United States practise in regard to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was a long – and according to some, stubborn – insistence on endorsing the status of the three States as independent juridical actors at international level, notwithstanding the fact that the Soviet Union had stripped those actors completely of effective control in the territories to which they claimed to hold title. The Red Army and other security services of the USSR had established de factoSoviet Administration in all three States, and indigenous opposition to this was ruthlessly suppressed. But it is a famous principle of international law as evolved in the twentieth century, if not before, that title to territory does not derive from force alone. [...]. A central objective that may be discerned in United States practice toward the Baltic States between 1940 and 1991 was hindering the transition from fact to law. Toward this end, the United States, through various officers of its Government and at many times, made clear its rejection of the Soviet claim to title to territory brought under its Administration as a consequence of the armed interventions of 1940.” (Thomas D. Grant; United States Practice Relating to the Baltic States, 1940-2000.)
“However, in the Potsdam Conference held at the end of the Second World War, the US and the UK agreed in principle to the Soviet proposal concerning the ultimate transfer of Königsberg and adjacent areas [East Prussia] to the USSR. Such a transfer could not be accomplished without giving effect to the incorporation of Lithuania into the USSR”, argues the aforementioned author Yaël Ronen. Yet her argument is erroneous, since it must born in mind that, prior to that mentioned Conference, “[...] the Department of State expressed the view that certain acts of recognition of certain aspects of the reality of Soviet power in the Baltic States did not carry any implication of recognition [of legal sovereignty]; and that the United States, in any event, did not recognise situations of any sort by implication. Such a view of recognition as a deliberate act, and never the result of conduct lacking specific intent to confer recognition, would allow the United States to maintain its protest against annexation, while at times giving legal effect to certain acts done by Soviet authorities in the Baltic.” (Thomas D. Grant; ibid.)
Beyond occasional compromises and inconsistencies in its practical case to case implementation, the application of the policy inspired by this Stimson-Welles doctrine, with the assertion of the continuity of the Baltic States and their non-integration into the occupying State, was kept fast by the current hegemonic Power, in spite of the sham-referenda of integration in the USSR, until the restoration (1991) of those illegally annexed States in 1940. Here it is necessary to stop and consider, albeit briefly, this concept of “State restoration”.
As a clear example of a restorationist position, in the Declaration of independence of Lithuania – signed on 1918, February the 16th– the signatories, “based on the recognized right of national self-determination” did proclaim “the restoration (atstatyti) of the independent State of Lithuania”. On declaring next “the termination of all State ties which formerly bound this State to other Nations”, they were declaring the continuation of the Lithuanian historical State: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (established in 1230 and kept until 1569, when it was integrated together with Poland in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by the ‘Union of Lublin’, performed in the interest of Lithuanian magnates and aristocrats), and explicitly rejecting any claim of Poland, Russia or any other country about Lithuania.
Anyway, they made it also clear that the new State would be quite different from the old Duchy: it was to be organized on the lithuanian People and would be “founded on democratic principles”, unlike that multi-ethnic Duchy ruled by the aristocracy of medieval and Renaissance times. That same declaration of 1918 was the legal basis to which the “Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania” – March 11,, 1990 – that put an end to the illegal annexation carried out by the Soviet Union in 1940, was referred to. Here are some opinions on this matter:
“Writers have argued that the Baltic States in 1991 re-appeared as international legal actors and were not created in that year anew. Starke and Shearer write: ‘States may [...] re-emerge after their sovereignty has been suppressed’. They add: ‘Such are the cases of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940. Most other States (including the United Kingdom) recognized that incorporation de facto but not de jure. In 1990-91 the three States successfully reclaimed their independence, which was acknowledged by most other States as a resumption of full statehood, but not as the creation of new States’. One writer [Hubert Beemelmans] goes so far as to say that the Baltic States in 1991 were direct continuations of their pre-1940 iterations. [...] The re-appearance of the Baltic States as independent legal actors in 1991, in the view of such publicists, might well be described, then, as restoration.
“The notion exists in the practice of the United States – and other western States – that a State might endure beyond the eclipse of its effectiveness as administrator of the territory it claims its own. The Restatement (Third) [of Foreign Relations Law of the United States] adopts as its definition of ‘State’ a formulae derivative of the 1933 Montevideo Convention. ‘Under international law’, the Restatement posits, ‘a State is an entity that has a defined territory and a permanent population, under the control of its own government, and that engages in, or has the capacity to engage in, formal relations with other such entities.’ This definition notwithstanding, the Restatement observes, consistent with academic writers, that some features shared by most States are not necessarily treated by all States as requirements of statehood in all situations. [...] ‘Military occupation’, the Restatement indicates, ‘whether during war or after an armistice, does not terminate statehood [...]. An entity’s statehood would be terminated if all of its territory were lawfully annexed, but not where annexation is in violation of the United Nations Charter.’ The view that States could continue in spite of substantially diminished effectiveness indeed antedates the Charter – the view firmly installed in United States practice in the first half of the 1940s in connection with the Baltic States. This, then, is the basis in international law as developed by United States practice: that a State might undergo a restoration after a period during which its status was in some respect compromised.
“A number of claimants to statehood in the past have made ‘restorationist’ arguments. 76 Their object appears to have been to reduce the need of, or obviate altogether, recognition by third States of their claims. The reasoning has been thus: If an entity claiming statehood is already a State – that is, it never had its statehood extinguished – then the status it claims requires recognition by other States no more than would those other States require recognition to confirm their own legal status. Important to the argument is the proposition that recognition is accorded only to changes in status. State practice supports the proposition, States extending (or declining) recognition only to newly-claimed statuses. [On the contrary] Continuation of a status already recognized does not require – and seldom if ever has occasioned – reiteration of recognition.” (Thomas D. Grant; ibid: 4.4 Restoration and United States Practice.)
“76 Representatives of the Irish Free State argued, for example, that Ireland was never an integral part of the United Kingdom, and thus was not seceding from the United Kingdom and did not require recognition as a State independent from the United Kingdom. Hudson Meadwell, 25 Review of International Studies 317, 376-80 (1999). On the Irish case, see also Heinz Klarer, Schwezerische Praxis der völkerrechtlichen Anerkennung 319 (1981). Norway, too, on the ending in 1905 of its 1814 union with Sweden made restorationist arguments. See Note of Christian Hauge, Chargé d’Affaires of Sweden and Norway, to the Secretary of State of the United States, 12 July 1905, 1905 Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 854-859. (‘The recent events in Norway... have in nowise created any new State of sovereignty. It is not a case of a new State springing into existence, nor has here been any splitting up of or separating from any sovereign entity.’) The dissolution of other unions, such as those between Malaya and Singapore, former French West African colonies, the Rhodesias and Nyasaland, and the former Spanish provinces of Central America may also be heard to have echoed the restorationist theme. These, of course, were cases of the ending of unions containing a substantial voluntary element. Perhaps more on point with the Baltic cases, which, after all, involved an involuntary union, was the involuntary exclusion of the People’s Republic of China from the United Nations. On the seating of the PRC in the General Assembly, the Assembly stated, ‘Considering that the restoration of the lawful rights of the People’s Republic of China is essential both for the protection of the Charter of the United Nations and for the cause that the United Nations must serve under the Charter… [The General Assembly] decides to restore all its rights to the People’s Republic of China’. UNGAR 2758 (XXVI), 25 October 1971. Emphasis supplied. Restorationist logic lay at the heart of claims by representatives of Chechnya in the 1990s that Chechnya had never as a matter of law been part of Russia or the Soviet Union. See Thomas D. Grant, ‘A panel of experts for Chechnya: Purposes and Prospects in light of International Law’, IX Finnish Yearbook of International Law 145, 145-146, 200-207, 207-248 (1998).”
In fact, as noted by this author that we are quoting:
“It may well be that popular indication of will to statehood has begun to develop into a prerequisite for statehood; third states indeed treated it as a prerequisite for recognition. As authoritative a source as the Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law identifies as an element of statehood the claim to be a State. 171”. (Thomas D. Grant; A panel of experts for Chechnya...)
“171 American Law Institute, Restatement of the Law (Third): The Foreign Relations Law of the United States(American Law Institute Publishers, St. Paul 1987) Section 201, Comment f.”
And what to say, then, when that “popular indication of will to statehood”, constantly maintained, is in addition accompanied with the undeniable existence of a State historically constituted, maintained and recognized for a thousand years, as it is the case of the State of the Basques: the Kingdom of Pamplona/Nabarre? Yet the prejudices, the intellectual laziness, or an unavowed but purposeful concern for the policy of the fait accompli that imposes itself in a brutal and overwhelming way on the violated law, always working in favour of the de facto established power, make that “the continuation of a status already recognized”, as well as the continuity of those States that have been attacked and annexed and which have never renounced their statehood, tend to be generally misunderstood if not directly denied:
“Some states [sic] maintained silence [on the annexation of the Baltic States to the USSR] and their practice was inconclusive. Some later claimed that their silence reflected a policy of non-recognition [of that annexation]. For example, in 1991 the Dutch minister for foreign affairs explained that when the Netherlands [State] established diplomatic relations with the USSR in 1942 it did not recognize the annexation; it made no reservation to that effect because the Baltic states were under German occupation at that time. [Yet,] The German occupation did not purport to extinguish prior sovereignty, and thus did not eliminate the question of principle of whether or not the USSR was sovereign in the Baltic states. Indeed, the Dutch position had earlier been taken as an implicit recognition of the annexation.” (Yaël Ronen.)
Yet, the objection that this author makes towards the practice maintained by the Netherlands does not hold up. Indeed, neither the “silence of those States” implied an “inconclusive practice” to this regard, nor is there any such “question of principle that should have been eliminated” – as regards the alleged “prior sovereignty” of the USSR on the Baltic Countries – since in real fact such a thing never existed.
Indeed, these Countries had proclaimed in 1918 the continuity, restoration and independence of their respective States which they had never waived to; an independence that the USSR did recognize in 1920 and afterwards violate in 1940 through a null and void annexation. This illegal act, both under customary and conventional international law, had been carried out: 1/ in flagrant violation of the London Convention for the Definition of Aggression, held in 1933 precisely by soviet initiative; and 2/ under cover of the Secret Protocols of the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of 1939, August the 23rd. All this made the annexation of the Baltic States legally null and void. In addition, that annexation was not any longer operating in 1942 (the moment in which the Netherlands established relations with the Soviet Union), since Hitler’s régime had “betrayed” its Ally of criminal association for the subjugation and plunder against the Peoples, by launching the Operation Barbarossa against the USSR in June 1941 and occupying also the Baltic Countries.
Therefore, the Soviet annexation of the Baltics States in 1940: illegal and null and void, had neither established de jure any “prior sovereignty” in favour of the Soviets that should have been taken into consideration when in 1942 the Netherlands recognized the USSR, and it did not even exist de factoat the time of that recognition, because the latter had already been stripped of its prey. And yet, despite all this, the mentioned author does surprisingly assume that this act of annexation: legally void and moreover non-existing in practice, had created a “question of principle of the USSR sovereignty” that should have been explicitly and openly taken into consideration by the political actors; some of them, as it can be seen, correctly thought otherwise.
Since policy is the realm of violence (and when coming to imperialistic policy, it is first and foremost that of crime and violation of fundamental human rights), to affirm that it is also the realm of deception, dissimulation and mental reservation can only be regarded, without a doubt, as something banal. In those circumstances, the fact that the Netherlands had establish a mental reservation in its 1942 recognition fo the USSR (in any of its initial constitutions of 1924 or 1936, since both of them implied Soviet recognition of the independence of the Baltic States), and had left out of it any subsequent illegal act that, in addition, was not even operational at that moment, must be considered as something perfectly possible and normal.
As regards the practice of the Netherlands towards the Baltic States, their recognition of them took ploace in 1921 (they were the first State to accredit a diplomatic representative in Lithuania, and in 1937 they appointed a Chargé d’Affaires for all the Baltic Countries in Riga), and had never withdrawn their recognition from them, so that “the continuation of a status already recognized” remained in force. Therefore, it is not seen why “their practice was inconclusive”, as Ronen affirms, except from the point of view of the ideologists of the imperialistic policy of fait accompli and of the Soviet State itself, which in 1940 had illegally become an aggressor even according to its own point of view, signed in London in 1933. Obviously, there is in all this a conglomerate of illicit interests that naturally aspire to see that their crimes and violations of the international legality are recognized and legitimized, and that consider as recognition also the silence about their “exploits”.
But to reason in this way is to admit that the aggressor – which has the advantage of his criminal Violence that makes opposition impossible – must also be granted the benefit that can be deducted of the silence from the others: both of those who can say nothing because of their having been subdued, and of those who say nothing about his illicit acts. However (as was evident in the confrontation of Henry VIII with his former Lord Chancellor Thomas More), in spite of the maxim ‘Qui tacet consentire videtur’ (“he who is silent seems to consent”), he who under a violent imposition is silent is not always granting what the despot intends.
In reality, and although ambiguity is by nature misleadin and can point to a variety of hidden motivations (especially when coming from third parties to a conflict), if anything could be understood in these circumstances, it whould be to understand that those who remain silent may well not giving consent. That is why express adherence or refusal (either voluntary, purchased or servile), and not just silence, is needed to be able to say that a new status has been recognized or rejected; while “continuation of a status already recognized does not require – and seldom if ever has occasioned – reiteration of recognition”, as Mr. Grant correctly exposed in his text quoted.
Anyway, the reality is that a State that has never been freely abolished or abandoned by its own People, obviously does not disappear. After all, not even the Bulls of Pope Julius II did ever intend to deny the existence or declare the extinction of the Kingdom of Nabarre but did expressly recognize its existence and continuity; granting only – of course illegally and criminally – its crown to another monarch. But, above all, it is the Basque People/Euskal Herria which has never accepted the disappearance of its State nor has ever recognized as its own any State other than the Kingdom of Nabarre. (See our work: ‘Notes on the History of the Basque People/Euskal Herria and its State: the Kingdom of Nabarre’.)
If the continuity of the modern State of Lithuania was affirmed by declaring the abolition of the “Union of Lublin” with Poland, imposed in 1569, the continuity of the current State of Nabarre is maintained from the nullity of the “Edict of Union” with the Kingdom of France, imposed in 1620. As for the illegal and criminal conquests, dismemberments, partitions, annexations or incorporations unilaterally carried out and enacted for their own respective Crowns/States: either of the Kingdom of Nabarre by the Hispanic Kingdoms and finally the Catholic Monarchy, or of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by the Tsarist or Soviet Russian Empires, all of them were criminal acts, null and void and non-existent by right.
Of course, there is no place for ambiguity neither can be allowed misunderstandings when, being one’s own Country itself which is under a fascist régime of military occupation, what is sought is to foster a movement of Resistance – whether active or passive – against it; since, in these circumstances, such misunderstandings do always benefit imperialism and fascism. However, the local collaborationists are only able to collaborate, and that they do this openly and unambiguously. When those so-called Basque parties ask the Spanish Government to “recognize the independence of Lithuania” – what other States have not done either because of consequential though rigged reasons – but not the independence of their own Country wich they claim to serve; or when they reject the military occupation of Iraq but have nothing to object to the conquest-occupation-dismemberment-annexation of the Kingdom of Nabarre by the Spanish State, which they describe as non-violent, legitimate and democratic, they simply show thereby that they do not believe a word about the Basque People/Euskal Herria and its State, and that the Nation and State in which they really believe and which really serve are those of Spain and France.
The question of the Baltic States was also raised during the negotiations of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the “Helsinki Declaration”), in 1975. In them, the Soviet Union advocated that any territorial claim be considered an act of aggression; which was rejected by Canada, West-Germany, Ireland and the Spain of the First Francoism. “The canadian representatives stated that accepting the Soviet proposal would mean de jure recognition the Soviet incorporation of the Baltic States.” In order to avoid that pitfall, and at the same time reassure Soviet susceptibility on their particular obsessions in this respect, the Helsinki Final Act established that the current “frontiers” – boundaries of territorial control, as opposed to “borders” which would mean boundaries of sovereign jurisdiction – of the Soviet Union would not be violated.
At the Helsinki Declaration, the thirty-five States held that “The participating States regard as inviolable all one another’s frontiers as well as the frontiers of all States in Europe, and therefore they will refrain now and in the future from assaulting these frontiers. Accordingly, they will also refrain from any demand for, or act of, seizure and usurpation of part or all of the territory of any participating State”. However, U. S. President Gerald Ford – as did the leaders of other NATO Member with respect to their States – emphasized in statements that the US signature of Helsinki Final Act did not alter its policy of non-recognition of the forced incorporation of the Baltic Republics into the Soviet Union, and that “the agreement denied the annexation of territory in violation of international law, and allowed for the peaceful change of borders”. Even so, the USSR insisted – and its successor State Russia continues to insist – that the international community had legally recognized the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union at Yalta, Potsdam and Helsinki; characterizing precisely the Act of Helsinki as a recognition of sovereign borders, and not simply of administrative boundaries.
The imperialism is striving to impose at all costs the status quo in order to freeze the Empires and override the right of self-determination of all Peoples, what it calls “inviolability of borders and States”; yet the variable list of new independent Countries (cases of Cuba, Philippines, Germany, Mexico, the break-up of the Soviet Empire and of Yugoslavia etc.) reminds us of the functional, provisional, variable and flexible character of the official principles.
Anyway, the mentioned Final Act of Helsinki and the Charter of Paris of 1990, with their declared purpose to block as an immutable reality the borders of the Western European States (even those ones established by the various nationalist imperialisms through aggression and annexations), could not override the fundamental principles of the International Law of the Peoples, so long maintained, and which had finally been recognized – not constituted – in the Charter of San Francisco in 1945, and subsequently developed in major and repeated UN Resolutions. According to these declarations, the fundamental rights of the Peoples, as well as the crimes committed against them, do not prescribe; and the historical States and Territories unlawfully annexed maintain “a status separate and distinct from the territory of the State administering them”. And therefore, when gaining the independence from the occupying State in the exercise of their indefeasible right of self-determination, they do not and cannot secede or separate from it since they have never been legally part of it.
The UN themselves had also resolutely confirmed that policy in 1961 in favour of India with the “Goa doctrine”: a territory whose occupation by Portugal had been carried out in 1510, it is two years before the occupation of the Kingdom of Nabarre by the Catholic Monarchy, after the previous dismemberment and annexation of its Western Territories made around the year 1200. The UN “Goa doctrine” confirmed the rejection of aggression, occupation and any illicit act in general as a source of rights, as well as the invalidity of any acquisitive or extinctive prescription that could be opposed to the right of self-determination or independence of Peoples, and of continuity of their States and Territories historically determined in peace and freedom.
As is undeniable, the fact that the year of the “territorial acquisition” and plunder be 1171, as in the case of the Catholic Ireland (whose conquest had been justified in 1155 by means of the Papal Bull Laudabiliter granted by the English Pope Adrian IV, and confirmed by his successor); or that it be 1226-1283, as in the conquest of East-Prussia (also by means of Bulls, Crusades and slaughters ecclesiastically induced and blessed against the heathen native Prussians, “slaves of Christ”); that it occurred in 1510 – as it was in the case of Goa – or in 1134, 1198, 1512, 1620, 1834 and 1936, as it occurred in the Country of the Basques and its State the Kingdom of Nabarre, this is something that in no way affects the pith and marrow of the question. The State historically constituted around the Crown of Pamplona remains the unique State of the Basque People/Euskal Herria, who has never accepted nor acknowledged any other.
The “right of conquest”: frequently invoked by medieval and modern States as a complementary, ultimate or supreme justification of their predatory annexations, was formally erased by the postulated UN International Law. The former traditional formula: “right of nationalities”, was replaced by the right of self-determination or free disposition of all Peoples, which had become widespread since the First World War; even though numerous misunderstandings, however, would not be resolved therewith.
The international right of self-determination of all Peoples does not simply mark a difference or a sectorial innovation in International Law: it is the foundation of a General International Law incompatible with the imperialistic system. The international right of self-determination of all Peoples is opposed to “the crimes of war, against peace and against humanity; to the use of violence for depriving Peoples of their right to self-determination, freedom and independence, or for breaking their territorial integrity; to aggression, war, invasion or attack by armed forces; and to any attack or military occupation – even temporary – resulting from such invasion, or to any annexation, territorial acquisition or special advantage resulting from the use of [criminal] violence.”
This affirmation of the right of self-determination of all Peoples is the constituent basis of the so-called International Law unceasingly formulated – though not applied – by the United Nations. Even though the multiplication and profusion of Declarations, Resolutions, Decisions and Conventions: sincerely or hypocritically repetitive and deliberately and stubbornly mocked and betrayed, has not yet achieved so far the suppression and eradication of the imperialistic plague: shame of the “civilized” world and first source of conflicts and threats to the peace and freedom of Humanity. Without the freedom of Peoples and without the independence and security of their States, “world peace, human rights and democracy” are only empty words in the panoply of ideological mystification updated by modern Nationalism, Totalitarianism and Imperialism.
In this way, the hegemonic imperialism and its protectorates, along with the competiting regional imperialistic Powers: all of them recuperating the fundamental thesis of the official Nazi-fascism supposedly defeated in the Second World War, do affirm their own internal national law as “international law”, and consider “moral and legal” all that suits to their interest, while calling “terrorism” every idea or activity that does not recognize the established régime and does position against it; being it so that they themselves constitute the real and current fascist, imperialistic and terrorist conglomerate on a planetary scale against freedom of Peoples, democracy and world peace. The illusionists of the continuous and indefinite progress can once again verify that history and international law often advance backwards: from San Francisco to Vienna, Westphalia and the Peloponnese.
Nevertheless, the fact that fundamental principles of General International Law have been and continue being constantly ignored in practice should not lead us to ignore the importance of persevering in the precise knowledge of international regulations in force, regarding the inherent rights of self-determination or free disposition of all Peoples; of safety, integrity and independence of Nations and “States conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of Peoples”; and of legitimate self-defence “by all means at their disposal”, with a view to their strategic implementation in favour of the subjugated Peoples and States and, in the first place, of our Basque People/Euskal Herria and our State, the Kingdom of Nabarre, against the French-Spanish imperialistic Nationalism.
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