POLITICS-US: Fear of Terrorist Attacks Spreads through Europe

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Sep 11 2001 (IPS) - European authorities have put their military bases, embassies and government buildings on alert as questions persist about who was behind the terrorist attacks in the United States Tuesday morning.

Spain’s King Juan Carlos and president José María Aznar, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and prime ministers Tony Blair, of Britain, and Lionel Jospin, of France, were among the national leaders in the region who expressed outrage and horror about the attacks and extended condolences and words of solidarity to the government and the people of the United States.

Two commercial airliners, which had apparently been hijacked, crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York City, causing the 110-story twin towers to collapse two hours later.

A third plane crashed into the Pentagon, headquarters of the US Defence Department, located across the Potomac River from Washington.

The death toll is estimated to run in the thousands, though no official figures on casualties have been announced.

After receiving news of the attacks, Aznar and the president of the European Union, Romano Prodi, who were participating in a conference in Estonia, interrupted their activities and headed home, Prodi to Brussels, Aznar to Madrid.

In Brussels, the European Parliament suspended its sessions and the building was evacuated.

Fear quickly spread beyond the borders of the United States, reflected in the stock exchanges around the world.

Two hours after the towers of the World Trade Centre in New York collapsed, the Paris stock exchange fell six percent, Frankfurt by eight percent, Milan by 7.4 percent, Brussels by 4.1 percent, London 4.1 percent and Madrid’s by six percent.

In contrast, the exchange rate of the European currency, the euro, rose nearly a dollar on the currency market, and petroleum prices surpassed 30 dollars a barrel for the first time this year.

Several European countries have declared states of alert and beefed up security around US embassies and military bases.

Felipe Sahagún, television journalist and international relations professor in Spain, pointed out that when a car-bomb destroyed a federal government building in Oklahoma on April 19, 1995, it was immediately blamed on Islamic extremists.

But in the end it was found that the attack was committed by a US citizen, the ultra-rightist Timothy McVeigh, a decorated hero of the Gulf War (1991). McVeigh was found guilty by a federal court and given the death sentence. He was executed last June 14.

Spanish journalist Jesús Hermida, who has worked as a news correspondent in New York, commented that the events Tuesday “awakened the lion…(the United States) is no longer asleep.”

This is war, though we do not know who the enemy is, said Hermida, who predicted that US President George W. Bush “will declare war, with a historic response.”

“The magnitude of the trauma goes beyond anything imaginable, and from there it is virtually impossible to predict the consequences,” said Joaquín Roy, a Spanish university professor living in the US city of Miami.

But Roy told IPS he thinks it is possible that the US government will reinforce its national security apparatus, “with the consequent erosion of civil rights.”

“One cannot rule out house searches or telephone wiretaps. Internet use will be subject to strict regulation. The multiple attack today will give a foothold to the proponents of the anti- missile defence system, to continue forward in its development” and will feed intolerance of immigrants, he said.

The world must realise that this was not a selective attack against the United States, the attacks were aimed “at all civilised norms,” stressed Roy.

Television journalist Sahagún pointed out that Tuesday’s attacks highlight the vulnerability of the world’s sole superpower, and said he did not think Bush had made an empty promise to “hunt down and punish those responsible.”

This time the promise, which has been made by many US presidents in response to different events, will not be just words, Sahagún stated.

Aznar, in condemning the attacks and expressing his solidarity with the United States, emphasised that terrorism is a worldwide problem, one that Spain knows well, referring to the Basque separatist organisation ETA.

Given this reality, the Spanish president called for “firm international solidarity to wipe out terrorism wherever it occurs.”

POLITICS-US: Fear of Terrorist Attacks Spreads through Europe

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Sep 11 2001 (IPS) - European authorities have put their military bases, embassies and government buildings on alert as questions persist about who was behind the terrorist attacks in the United States Tuesday morning.
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