Herri Batasuna

Popular Unity Herri Batasuna
Founded	27 April 1978 (1978-04-27) (as electoral coalition) 5 June 1986 (1986-06-05) (as political party)
Dissolved	23 May 2001 (2001-05-23)
Merger of	Euskal Sozialista Biltzarrea Langile Abertzale Iraultzaileen Alderdia Herri Alderdi Sozialista Iraultzailea Eusko Abertzale Ekintza
Merged into	Euskal Herritarrok
Headquarters	C/ Astarloa, nº 8-1º, Bilbao
Newspaper	Herria Eginez
Youth wing	Jarrai
Affiliated union	Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak
Ideology	Basque nationalism Revolutionary socialism Abertzale Left Left-wing Nationalism Basque independence Feminism Ecologism Anticapitalism Anti-imperialism
Political position	Far-left
Party flag
Politics of Basque Country

Herri Batasuna (English: Popular Unity) was a far-left Basque nationalist political party in Spain.

History

The party was founded in April 1978 as Herri Batasuna, a coalition of leftist nationalist political groups initially brought together to advocate for "No" in the referendum to be held that year on the Spanish constitution.

Its constituent parties had been called together by senior Basque nationalist Telesforo de Monzón in a 1978 meeting called "The table of Alsasua". Herri Batasuna's founding convention was held in Lekeitio, home of Santiago Brouard, who was then the leader of HASI (Herriko Alderdi Sozialista Iraultzailea or Revolutionary Socialist People's Party). The party won 150,000 votes in the Basque Country (15%) and 22,000 additional votes in Navarre (9%) in its first Spanish general election in March 1979. Thus, they won three seats in the Spanish Parliament, which they did not occupy. The same happened in 1980 in the first elections to the Basque Parliament, in which HB stood as a second political force, with 151,636 votes (16.55%), winning 11 seats. Its absence allowed a BNP-only Basque government led by Carlos Garaikoetxea. On 20 November 1984, Brouard was assassinated by two members of the GAL. The killing is perhaps the only one performed by the GAL death squad within Spain itself.

Another well-known Herri Batasuna leader, Josu Muguruza, was also killed by members of the neo-fascist Bases Autónomas in 1989, while he was in a hotel in Madrid. He was a congressman in the Spanish Parliament when he was assassinated.