POLITICS-SPAIN: ETA Attack Splits Basque Nationalist Front

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jan 21 2000 (IPS) - A Spanish army officer was killed Friday morning in a car bomb explosion blamed on the illegal Basque separatist group, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Homeland and Liberty), triggering a rupture in the Basque nationalist front, which had included moderates as well as ETA backers.

Juan José Ibarretxe, president of the Basque autonomous government and member of the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), announced just hours after the explosions that his party had withdrawn from the agreement on parliamentary collaboration signed last May with the Euskal Herritarrok (EH) coalition, considered ETA’s political arm.

This agreement, he added, would not be renewed as long as the EH does not explicitly condemn ETA violence.

Pedro Antonio Blanco García, a lieutenant colonel with no ties to government anti-terrorist forces, died Friday morning in a car bomb explosion, which police say was detonated by remote-control.

Half an hour later, a second car bomb exploded nearby, but did not cause any injuries.

Ibarretxe expressed his “emphatic condemnation, without nuances or excuses,” of the attack, and sent a message of “solidarity and sadness from the entire Basque society” to the victim’s family.

It was the first attack after 19 months in which the ETA had kept its terrorist action commandos in check.

Last December 3, ETA declared an end to its unilateral truce, which had been in effect since Sept 16, 1998. During the cease- fire, ETA leaders had held unproductive talks in Switzerland with delegates from the Spanish government, under the mediation of Catholic bishop Juan María Uriarte.

All political forces, including moderate Basque nationalists, joined together last December, calling on ETA to refrain from carrying out further attacks and to continue peace negotiations with Spain’s centre-right government under José María Aznar.

Soon after the ETA ended its cease-fire, the police frustrated two potential attacks when they stopped vehicles carrying bombs en route to Madrid. Investigators still do not know for whom the two bombs were intended.

Friday’s attack shook a densely populated neighbourhood with heavy traffic, located near a major avenue and the Vicente Calderón Stadium, home to the Atlético de Madrid, one of the capital’s oldest football clubs.

The neighbourhood also contains several blocks of military housing, including the home of the assassinated officer. The bombs’ impacts were felt by residents in the surrounding blocks.

Lt. Col. Blanco García was walking toward the official army vehicle he drives to work every day when the bomb exploded.

Condemnation of the attack is widespread and, unlike the period prior to the ETA cease-fire, some sectors from within the Euskal Herritarrok coalition have expressed their rejection of the bombing, including its Navarra spokesman, Patxi Zabaleta.

Uriarte, recently named bishop of San Sebastián – a city symbolising Basque nationalism -, said that the attack “is a terrible blow that affects us all and contradicts the peace process.”

Juan María Atutxa, member of the moderate PNV and president of the Basque Country’s Autonomous Parliament, warned that many people close to Euskal Herritarrok will be affected because the coalition is not a united force.

Begoña Herrasti, president of Eusko Alkartasuna, the other moderate Basque nationalist party that governs in coalition with the PNV, demanded that the EH speak out against the attack.

Though the EH generally supports the autonomous government in parliament, it has never denounced an ETA attack.

Before Basque president Ibarretxe made his declaration about the PNV, the first rupture of the nationalist front had already occurred. The United Left had announced its resignation from the Estella Pact, of which it was a member alongside the PNV, the EH and Eusko Alkartasuna.

The pact advocates the autonomous co-ordination of the Basque Country’s three provincial councils, of the autonomous community of Navarra, and of the two Basque departments in France – all of which nationalists consider part of a single Basque territory.

Spain’s two largest unions, the pro-communist Workers Commissions and the pro-socialist General Union of Workers, released a joint announcement condemning the attack. They called on all democratic forces to “renew their unity, without exclusions, in confronting terrorist violence.”

Non-governmental and human rights organisations of all stripes announced immediate protests throughout the nation, but especially in the Basque Country, to express citizen repudiation of terrorist violence.

Ibarretxe, in a declaration read following a meeting of his Ministers Council, convoked all Basque citizens to demonstrate in front of the region’s city halls Friday night to demand an end to the violence and to call for dialogue among all “who unequivocally support the peaceful and democratic route.”