The Association for Peace in the Basque Country (Coordinadora Gesto por la Paz de Euskal Herria / Euskal Herriko Bakearen Aldeko Koordinakundea) currently leads the Basque social reaction against violence. It is an association which calls silent demonstrations of fifteen minutes in many towns across the Basque Country and Navarre every time a death occurs which is caused by violence and related with the Basque situation.

This organisation is the result of the merger, in November 1989, between the Gesture for Peace Movement and the Euskal Herria Peace Association. The Movement is a pacifist, civic, unitary, pluralist and independent platform. Formed of 145 local groups, it has a Standing Commission of twelve people who act as the group´s spokespersons and who share the tasks of leadership, management and co-ordination of activities between them.

The objective of the Gesture for Peace Movement is to unite the whole of society against violence and in favour of respect for human life, regardless of ideology. It currently has the capacity to call simultaneous demonstrations in dozens of towns all over the Basque Country and Navarre.

The association has the economic support of different institutions and of voluntary contributions from numerous citizens. Apart from having achieved a major level of recognition in Basque society, the work of the Gesture for Peace Movement has been distinguished on various occasions by the media, as well as by the Basque Parliament -which presented it as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990- and the Manuel Broseta Foundation -which granted it its Tolerance Prize in 1993-.

The demonstrations it has organised in recent months, in protest against violence and for the release of the kidnapped Basque industrialist Julio Iglesias Zamora -during whose kidnap they held protest sit-ins, called daily demonstrations outside the Bilbao Courthouse and made the blue ribbon a widespread badge of solidarity with this cause- have represented real successes in terms of participation and an example of the social change the Basque Country is undergoing with regard to the activities of the ETA terrorist group.

The legitimacy which Gesture for Peace has achieved in its lifetime is based upon the constant and rigorous denunciation of violence, wherever it comes from, as is demonstrated by its condemnation of ETA´s attacks and, at the time, its demonstrations against the activities of the Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups (GAL).