POLITICS-SPAIN: Basque Gov’t Demands End to ETA Violence

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jul 12 2000 (IPS) - The Basque nationalist government has demanded that separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) end its violent ways, making the plea just hours after a car bomb exploded in a shopping district of the Spanish capital Wednesday, leaving at least 10 people injured and damaging 27 building.

Political forces from across the ideological spectrum condemned the attack, with the exception of the Euskal Herritok (EH) coalition, which is closely linked to ETA.

EH spokesman Arnaldo Otegui said he was not surprised by the bombing, attributed to ETA, “as the truce had already been broken,” though he expressed his solidarity with the injured and their families.

ETA is blamed for five killings since it ended a 14-month ceasefire last December and is held responsible for some 800 deaths since taking up arms in 1968.

The Anti-Intolerance Movement immediately called for a demonstration at the Puerta del Sol plaza in central Madrid, just 150 metres from the site of the explosion. Thousands of people participated in the protest, shouting “Basques, yes! ETA, no!”

Police report that 20 kilos of dynamite were detonated inside a vehicle that had been stolen four months ago. The car had been left on a pedestrian walkway outside El Corte Inglés department store and FNAC, a shop that sells books, CDs, videos and computer software.

A Corte Inglés security camera recorded the moment in which two men got out of the car immediately after parking it on the walkway.

Shortly afterwards, calls were placed to the fire department, the government and the police, “in name of ETA,” warning that a bomb would explode in 30 minutes at the site, 40 metres from the Gran Via, where a half million people pass by each day.

But the bomb was detonated in 20 minutes, 10 minutes earlier than the callers had indicated. Police sources stressed that this implies “the terrorists intended to lay a trap for the agents who, based on the call, went to the department store to deactivate the device.”

The 10 injured individuals include a police inspector, four police agents, a Corte Inglés employee from Algeria, and two transient men who were sleeping on the sidewalk nearby, one an Israeli, 52, who is the only one reported to be in serious medical condition.

The Basque autonomous government, a coalition of the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Eusko Alkartasuna, was designated by the autonomous parliament with the support of EH, though lately the relations between the moderates and the EH have grown tense.

But so far the PNV and Eusko Alkartasuna have resisted withdrawing from the nationalist political agreement they signed with the EH and other political forces.

The condemnation of the attack announced by the Basque autonomous government’s spokesman, Josu Jon Imaz, could mark a turning point in the moderate parties’ policy and accelerate their break away from the EH.

“We demand that ETA abandon this road of violence and instead follow political and democratic routes, which are the only ones society can accept,” said Imaz.

Iñaki Anasagasti, spokesman for the PNV in the autonomous Congress of Deputies, expressed his condemnation “without excuses” and denounced the attitude of EH, saying the party “remains impassive in the face of the facts.”

Parties ranging from the left and centre-left to the centre-right also condemned ETA. Javier Madrazo, co-ordinator of the United Left (a coalition anchored by the Communist Party) in the Basque Country, affirmed that the illegal separatist organisation has definitively lost support in the north of Spain, its home region, and now only “pursues the strategy of terror.”

Cristina Alberdi, a leader of the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), in addition to denouncing the ETA attack, warned the PNV against supporting political stances of independence because they only encourage terrorism.

The fact that the car used in the bombing was stolen four months ago indicates that ETA has maintained an infrastructure in Madrid, according to Mariano Saiz, of the National Association of Uniformed Police.

This infrastructure would likely involve individuals who have no police record and live perfectly integrated into Madrid’s society, he added. Interior minister Jaime Mayor Oreja, of the governing Popular Party (PP), agreed that a deeply rooted ETA system exists in the capital.

Mayor Oreja, who plans to run for the presidency of the Basque autonomous government in the next elections (a date that has yet to be announced), rushed to return from Moscow, where he was on official visit when the attack occurred.

Upon his arrival, he declared that “ETA wants to make its presence known in a macabre way, this time in Madrid, and attempts to threaten, coerce, intimidate and despair the entirety of Spanish society. This is nothing new.”

Wednesday’s car-bomb was the 27th ETA has exploded in Madrid in the three decades since the organisation was created. The last car- bomb attack occurred June 19, 1995, just 20 metres from the most recent tragedy.