Basque separatist group ETA gives French police details of arms caches

The Basque separatist group ETA has given French police the details of their weapons dumps, all of which are in the southwest of France, Spanish media reported on Saturday morning.

Ram Manikkalingam, coordinator of the International Verification Committee for the disarmament procedure, confirmed the news, which the ETA announced in mid-March would happen on Saturday.

On Friday, the ETA released a communique saying it has given up "its weaponry (arms and explosives), (and) it is now a disarmed organization."

Through representatives of the French society, the ETA gave on Saturday the GPS positions of its caches, all of which are in the Atlantic Pyrenees region in France's Department 64.

Saturday saw several events taking place in the French town of Bayonne to commemorate the symbolic end of the ETA's fight for the independence of the Basque Region, which cost 829 lives and caused over 20,000 injuries in around 50 years.

The first of those events was the showing of a short film in the Cine Atalante "La paix maintenant, une exigence populaire" (Peace now, a demand of the people) by director Thomas Lacoste.

That will be followed by a discussion in the cinema, and a round table event, while there will also be a public demonstration in Bayonne in the afternoon.

However, Saturday's events were not attended by politicians either from French or Spanish mainstream parties. Left wing party Podemos and Basque nationalist group EH-Bildu are the only Spanish parties that had their representatives present at the activities.

The Spanish government of Mariano Rajoy insists that the ETA will "achieve nothing" with its disarmament, while demanding the group officially disband and "ask for forgiveness" from its victims. Endi