THE Basque terrorist group Eta is preparing to declare a ceasefire in its bloody campaign for independence from Spain, a Spanish newspaper said yesterday. The claim came as it announced that it now backs plans for a referendum on the region’s future. Eta’s political U-turn came in a statement to the Basque newspaper Gara, in which it also revealed that it has recently consulted its membership at an “assembly” — at which big policy decisions are made. Eta has never before announced that it has held such a meeting — not even when it announced a ceasefire in September 1988 that it ended 14 months later. Since late last year the region’s ruling Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) has been wooing Eta supporters and its political wing with plans to hold a referendum on creating “a Basque state associated with Spain”. But Eta denounced the plans as a “new statute for war” and a sellout. Full Story