{"id":1022,"date":"2013-10-13T22:38:50","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T22:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=1022"},"modified":"2013-10-13T22:38:50","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T22:38:50","slug":"in-defense-of-pete-cenarrusa-in-memorian-1917-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2013\/10\/13\/in-defense-of-pete-cenarrusa-in-memorian-1917-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Pete Cenarrusa: In Memorian (1917-2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"

As many of you already know, Pete Cenarrusa, a long time politician in Idaho (the longest serving elected official in state history) died on September 29. It didn’t take long after his death for his life to be questioned in the Spanish press, particularly as it related to an incident in 2002 when the Idaho legislature, at the behest of Pete and then representative Dave Bieter, passed a non-binding resolution that supported the Basque right to self-determination.<\/p>\n

In response, a number of Basque bloggers around the world wrote a joint defense of Pete Cenarrusa<\/a>. With their permission and encouragement, I repost that blog here.<\/p>\n

Since the time of the original post,\u00a0journalist Dan Popkey has written an article published in the Idaho Statesman regarding both the initiative to defend Pete as well as providing some clarifying details:\u00a0Cenarrusa still stirs pot in Spain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Defense of Pete Cenarrusa: In Memorian (1917-2013)<\/h2>\n

\"Pete<\/a>Pete Cenarrusa\u00a0died last week<\/a>\u00a0at age 95. To begin with, it\u2019s strange to speak of \u201cdefending\u201d Pete from anything. He was a wonderful person, somebody many of us admired and respected. His parents were immigrants who grew up in neighboring Basque towns but who met thousands of miles away in the middle of Idaho. Pete\u2019s first language was Basque, and he kept speaking it for the rest of the life, sometimes throwing in English words along the way.<\/p>\n

Pete went to the University of Idaho, where he was on the boxing team and completed degrees in agriculture and animal husbandry (at age 92, he\u00a0blogged<\/a>\u00a0that his favorite courses were nutrition, organic chemistry, and bacteriology\u2014\u201cI would recommend these courses to everyone in college.\u201d) He joined the Marines in 1942 and became an aviation instructor. He flew for 59 years, more than 15,000 hours of flight time without an accident.<\/p>\n

Pete was elected as a Republican to the Idaho House of Representatives in 1950 and served nine terms, including three as House Speaker. In 1967, when Idaho\u2019s secretary of state died, the governor appointed him to fill the position, where he served until 2003. He wasn\u2019t a politician from central casting. As his friend and successor said at his funeral, Pete wasn\u2019t a good public speaker; but unlike most politicians, Pete knew it. Still, it\u2019s hard to argue with success: Pete never lost an election, and he was in public office for 52 years, the longest-serving elected official in Idaho history.<\/p>\n

Then the Spanish national newspaper\u00a0ABC<\/em>\u00a0published an \u201cobituary<\/a>\u201d by Javier Ruperez, the former Spanish ambassador to the United States. Ruperez calls Pete a \u201cBasque separatist,\u201d a man filled with \u201cblind obstinacy\u201d against Spain \u201cuntil the very day of his death.\u201d It was a piece written with venom saved up from an event that happened more than a decade ago, spewed out just a couple days after Pete died. Pete can\u2019t stand up for himself now. That\u2019s why we feel a strong obligation to do so.<\/p>\n

PETE CENARRUSA (1917-2013)<\/em><\/p>\n

IDAHO RANCHER, BASQUE SEPARATIST<\/em><\/p>\n

Deceased at 96, Cenarrusa \u2013 which was the way he had shortened his paternal surname Zenarruzabeita \u2013 had the leading role in Idaho\u2019s political and social scene for almost six decades, being elected several times to the local legislature and carrying out for years the role of Secretary of State in the rustic territory. His parents emigrated from the Basque Country to the United States at the beginning of the 20th\u00a0century, as many of their compatriots did in those days, in response to the call for sheepherders to run the significant number of livestock in the American West.<\/em><\/p>\n

From early on, conscious of his Basque origins, he tried to promote individual and collective memories in the environment of his countrymen, an activity that took a noticeable nationalist tone in the 1960s. He wasn\u2019t awarded the prize \u201cSabino Arana\u201d to the \u201cuniversal Basque\u201d by the Basque Nationalist Party for nothing.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was in 2002 when these nationalist inclinations took shape in the attempt to make the Idaho legislature adopt a memorial that ignored ETA\u2019s terrorist activities, demanded a favorable disposition from Spain and France to negotiate \u201cthe end of the conflict,\u201d and asked for the self-determination of the Basque Country. Cenarrusa was the inspirer and visible leader of the attempt, for which he had the support of Ibarreche\u2019s Basque government and Batasuna\u2019s contacts incarnated in journalists for \u201cGara\u201d and \u201cEgunkaria\u201d, regular visitors of the land where they received the hospitality of then local legislator and now mayor of Boise, Idaho\u2019s capital, David Bieter.<\/em><\/p>\n

The government of Jose Maria Aznar warned George W. Bush\u2019s White House about the maneuver, and made Idaho legislators realize the inconvenience of adopting texts which were offensive to a friend and allied country such as Spain. The spokesman for the Department of State made a strong statement during those days that said, among other things: \u201cThe Spanish people suffer the violence carried out by a terrorist organization called ETA on a regular basis.\u201d Exactly what the memo Cenarrusa\/Bieter\/Ibarreche\/ Gara\/Egunkaria did not want to gather. And that to the dismay of its sponsors ended up written in the amended text, which was eventually approved by the Idaho legislature.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was in January 2003 when Idaho\u2019s Senate president had the opportunity to communicate to the representatives of the Spanish government his regret for what happened, blaming it on the extreme ignorance by local representatives about Spanish affairs and the generalized willingness to please Cenarrusa in the last initiative he took on before retiring from his role as Secretary of State. Robert L. Geddes had begged the veteran rancher and politician of Basque origins that \u201cthe next time he wanted to declare war on Spain he give him prior notice to avoid misunderstandings.\u201d On that same occasion Idaho\u2019s Senate made the Spanish ambassador in Washington honorary citizen of the State. And Spain officially named Adelia Garro Simplot, another Basque descendant, honorary consul in the area. Garro is the abbreviation of Garroguerricoechevarria. Cenarrusa, who had not thrown in the towel in his blind obstinacy against constitutional and democratic Spain until the very day of his death, wasn\u2019t able to make himself the only representative of Idaho\u2019s Basque community.<\/em><\/p>\n

As Mark Twain would say, not all deaths are received in the same way.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And an important bit of background: Ruperez\u00a0, the author, was kidnapped by the Basque terrorist group ETA in 1979. He was held for a month. After he was released, 26 Basque prisoners were freed from prison, and the Spanish parliament agreed to create a special commission to investigate charges of torture of Basque prisoners. We can\u2019t imagine what Rup\u00e9rez went through, and we wish it would never have happened. It would certainly shape one\u2019s world view. But Pete had nothing to do with that horrible event, and we know he would have condemned it. And that\u2019s where Rup\u00e9rez is horribly wrong about Pete and about Basques generally.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of his career, Pete announced the introduction of a declaration in the Idaho legislature that addressed a critical series of events in the Basque Country and Spain. The declaration, officially known as a \u201cmemorial,\u201d called on leaders in the United States and Spain to undertake a peace process. In 2002, Ruperez\u00a0caught wind of the\u00a0memorial<\/a>\u00a0and immediately flew out to Idaho, alerted the Spanish prime minister, the State Department, and the White House. Suddenly, a declaration by the legislature of a small Western state blew up and became international news.<\/p>\n

As the memorial got close to a vote, there was a lot of back and forth among the many parties that had suddenly become involved. But Pete\u2019s reaction was pitch perfect\u2014paraphrasing him: Since when did the United States start running its foreign policy by foreign governments? In the end, the Idaho legislature unanimously approved this memorial. It described the history of Basques in Idaho, the earlier actions by the Idaho legislature to condemn the repression of Franco\u2019s dictatorship, the efforts of Basques to maintain their culture, and all \u201cbut a marginalized fraction\u201d of Basques\u2019 condemnation of violence.<\/p>\n

Perfect or not, it was a unanimous statement by a democratically elected, autonomous state legislature. But it seems to have haunted Ruperez\u00a0all these years. Barely 72 hours after Pete had died, Rup\u00e9rez condemned Pete as \u201cthe inspirer and visible leader\u201d of an effort that turned a blind eye at violence, an effort that an Idaho Senate leader later purportedly told him was the result of the \u201cextreme ignorance by local representatives\u201d about Spanish affairs and \u201cthe generalized willingness to please Cenarrusa in the last initiative he took on before retiring.\u201d Rup\u00e9rez suggests that Pete was not typical of Idaho\u2019s Basque community, that there were others who are worthier representatives.<\/p>\n

Ruperez\u00a0closes with a quote he says comes from Mark Twain: \u201cNot all deaths are received in the same way.<\/i>\u201d Maybe that\u2019s true. Either way, we can assure Mr. Ruperez\u00a0that Pete\u2019s death was received with a great deal of sadness and with the respect worthy of somebody who had done great things with his life. We would like to conclude by using another quote from Mark Twain that clearly suits perfectly for people like Javier Rup\u00e9rez: \u201cBetter to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agur eta ohore, Pete.<\/p>\n

Signed by:<\/p>\n