Peace in The Basque Country. An Interpretation from Social Meanings

The study goal is to identify key elements for the peace building in the Basque Country from the visions of the citizenship. Following this objective, the paper presents a psycho-social approach to the building of peace in the Basque Country from meanings socially constructed. The study was developed on the basis of 60 interviews made to people of different sectors from the Basque society, and analyzed from a qualitative analysis. The results aim at 7 central elements for the construction of peace in the Basque Country: the ETA end; changes on antiterrorist and penitentiary policy of the Spanish State; to repair of integral way to the victims of human rights violations committed by ETA and compatible groups, the terrorism of tardo-francoist groups, and the Spanish state; dialogue, negotiation and agreements; the paper of the civil society for peace; the work by memory; psycho-social changes. Finally, this concludes about the needs to approach the construction of peace in the Basque Country being followed a complex optics and considering the social, political and psycho-social dimensions.