SPAIN: Two Ships Sink the Government’s Prestige

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Dec 18 2002 (IPS) - Two recent incidents – the sinking of an oil tanker off the coast of Spain and the interception of a freighter by Spanish warships acting on U.S. intelligence – dealt harsh blows to the image of the governing Popular Party (PP), which is running the risk of losing elections for the first time since it came to power in 1996.

The results of the municipal elections coming up in May will be of crucial importance to the next general elections, to be called by 2004 at the latest. The possibility of holding earlier elections depends on the conservative PP, which has an absolute majority in parliament.

According to a poll carried out Dec 11 and published Dec 16 by Sigma Dos, a private consultancy firm, the PP’s ratings are just 2.9 percent ahead of those of the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), down from a 10 percent lead last January.

In addition, Sigma Dos found that a month ago, 37.4 percent of those interviewed held a ”good” or ”very good” image of the government of Prime Minister José María Aznar, compared to 31.9 percent in this month’s survey.

The results were even more unfavourable when respondents were asked their opinion on how the government handled the emergency caused when an oil tanker, the Prestige, began to break apart on Nov 13, was towed out to sea, and eventually sunk, causing a major environmental disaster along the northern coast of Spain.

The damage was extensive, although its full magnitude has not yet been assessed. Of those asked about the incident, 82.5 percent said the government reacted too slowly, 75.2 percent said it acted with reluctance, and 64.1 percent believed it handled the catastrophe in an ineffective manner.

Another opinion poll, carried out by the Instituto Opina, with ties to the prestigious Spanish daily El País, found that the image of the cabinet ministers directly or indirectly involved in the Prestige incident had suffered, due to their actions or omissions.

Sources close to the Instituto Opina said the responses would have been even more negative if the survey had been carried out after the circumstances surrounding the interception of a Cambodian-flagged freighter, the So San, by a Spanish warship in the Arabian sea were made public.

On Dec 9, a Spanish warship intercepted the So San, acting on information from U.S. intelligence services, which reported that it was flying without a flag and should thus be boarded on suspicions that it was a pirate ship.

After a Spanish frigate ordered the freighter to slow down and fired warning shots, Spanish special forces boarded the ship and found 15 Scud missiles, conventional warheads, 23 tanks of nitric acid, and drums of unidentified chemicals hidden under thousands of bags of cement.

The weapons and chemicals, which came from North Korea, did not appear on the ship’s manifest, which only showed that the merchant vessel was carrying cement.

Spain handed the ship over to the U.S. navy, and the initial official explanations out of Washington and Madrid said the missiles might have been headed for the Al-Qaeda network that the U.S. government holds responsible for the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

But the U.S. administration then took Spain by surprise by turning the So San over to Yemen, explaining that the cargo was actually a legal shipment of weapons purchased from North Korea by the government of Yemen.

Spanish military sources speaking off the record said it was ”curious” that Yemen would need such weapons.

Other sources said the episode was a result of a lack of coordination between two U.S. espionage teams, according to a report by the Spanish on-line daily DiarioDirecto.

The on-line newspaper reported that one of the teams was purportedly behind an operation to take the Scuds to a remote area of Iraq, pretend to discover them there, and accuse the Saddam Hussein regime of violating its United Nations disarmament obligations.

The other intelligence team, which had nothing to do with the operation organised by the first, apparently suspected that the So San was carrying weapons and began the process that led to the vessel’s interception by the Spanish ships, DiarioDirecto reported.

The sources cited by the on-line daily said Washington then decided that the ship should continue on to Yemen to deliver the cargo, in order to prevent the operation against Baghdad from being revealed.

Madrid immediately expressed annoyance, but in cautious terms, because Aznar is a staunch ally of the government of President George W. Bush.

But shortly after it was announced that the So San would be released, an official spokesman for Spain’s Defence Ministry said ”the U.S. government should explain to international public opinion its change of mind regarding this operation.”

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that while Washington might be concerned about the shipment of weapons from North Korea, ”international law is still international law,” and the cargo was legal.

Thus, what was initially presented as a brilliant operation by Spanish military forces to head off trafficking in weapons of mass destruction ended up being reduced to a ”misunderstanding” – and perhaps a manipulation by Washington – in which Madrid merely followed instructions.

The two ship-related incidents have hurt the government’s image, which was strong because this year Spain has maintained economic growth levels above the European Union average; dealt heavy blows to the illegal Basque separatist organisation ETA; and successfully organised a European Summit, as well as a meeting of leaders from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.

And the Prestige, which is sitting at 3,600 metres below sea level and is still leaking fuel, promises to continue damaging not only the environment but the Aznar administration’s popularity.

Of the 77,000 tons of fuel oil carried by the tanker, an estimated 50,000 remain in its tanks.

The oil slick is threatening the coasts of Portugal and France, and has caused an environmental catastrophe along the shoreline of northern Spain, which for years will affect two key local industries, fishing and tourism.

SPAIN: Two Ships Sink the Government’s Prestige

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Dec 18 2002 (IPS) - Two recent incidents — the sinking of an oil tanker off the coast of Spain and the interception of a freighter by Spanish warships acting on U.S. intelligence — dealt harsh blows to the image of the governing Popular Party (PP), which is running the risk of losing elections for the first time since it came to power in 1996.
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