SPAIN: ETA Claims Bombing, But Says Ceasefire Still Stands

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jan 9 2007 (IPS) - The Basque separatist group ETA said Tuesday that a “permanent ceasefire” was still standing, even though it claimed responsibility for a recent explosion in the Madrid airport.

In the meantime, the government of socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is seeking consensus among the political parties on the search for peace.

Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba held individual meetings Tuesday with representatives of the country’s political parties, to express the government’s position and seek agreement on an anti-terrorism policy.

The only party that criticised the government was the main opposition force, the centre-right Popular Party (PP). Its spokesman in parliament, Eduardo Zaplana, told Rubalcaba that his party wanted to hear the government say that “negotiations and dialogue with terrorism are finished forever.”

Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA – Basque Fatherland and Freedom in the Basque language), announced the ceasefire on Mar. 24, 2006. But it broke the ceasefire on Dec. 30 when a car bomb carrying 500 kg of explosives destroyed a four-storey parking ramp at the Barajas airport in Madrid.

In a statement published by the Basque language newspaper Gara on Tuesday, ETA claimed responsibility for the attack and blamed the police for the deaths of two Ecuadorians who died in the explosion.

According to ETA, because they phoned in a warning of the bombing one hour before it occurred, the police had enough time to evacuate the parking ramp.

But police sources pointed out to IPS that the ramp had four storeys full of cars, and that by the time the police arrived, they barely had time – “risking their lives” – to go through the different floors and warn everyone they saw to evacuate.

The two Ecuadorians, however, were sleeping in their cars, waiting to pick up passengers for a flight set to arrive a few hours later.

In its communiqué, ETA accused Zapatero and the governing Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) of blocking the peace process “by endlessly throwing up obstacles.” It also blamed the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which heads the government of the Basque Country, one of the 17 autonomous communities into which Spain is divided.

In order for a peace process to flourish, ETA urged the government “to abandon failed political police-based formulas,” and added that as long as the government did not change its position, it would maintain “the firm decision to respond” to any crackdown.

In response, Rubalcaba told a press conference that ETA “has only one option left: to put an end to the terror,” without prior negotiations. Meanwhile, two members of ETA were arrested in France Tuesday, in a joint operation by French and Spanish police.

According to police sources, both men were linked to explosives found by Ertzaintza, the Basque police, at Amoberieta in the Basque Country, and also to the transport of the explosives that blew up the car park at the airport.

They were arrested in Ascain, a small village near the border, as they were walking with backpacks on their shoulders, moments after they had crossed into France from Spain.

A mobile telephone was the clue to finding them. On Dec. 23, when three members of ETA passed through Amorebieta, in Vizcaya province, they were carrying a cell phone purchased in Bilbao. The same phone was used to make the call on Dec. 30 at 8 a.m. announcing the car bomb.

Whoever received the message called the mobile phone back to ask for more details, but there was no reply as the phone was out of order. The police suspect that the phone was destroyed immediately after the first call, and they have evidence linking the two men arrested today with the people who bought the phone.

The home of one of the detainees was searched last Thursday, and the other’s house had been searched on Dec. 23. The arrest in France was accomplished without violence, although a pistol found in one of the backpacks was confiscated.

Meanwhile, the National Federation of Ecuadorians in Spain and the two largest trade union federations, the General Workers Union (UGT) and the Workers’ Commissions (CCOO), called for a protest march against ETA terrorism on Saturday. The demonstrators will march behind a banner reading “For Peace and Freedom, Against Terrorism.”

A demonstration will also be held in the Basque Country, called by Governor Juan José Ibarretxe, a moderate nationalist, under the slogan “Peace and Dialogue.” The PSOE secretary general in the Basque Country, Patxi López, announced that his party will participate, although he said Ibarretxe was mistaken to insist on dialogue while ETA has not renounced violence.