Terrorist attack in Spain

There's certainly not time enough for me to blog about everything I might like to. I probably try to blog about too many things anyway.

But I do want to start at least taking blog notice of terrorist attacks in Spain. Because most of them come from the Basque separatist group ETA. Our broken media give some attention to terrorist attacks and to real or alleged Muslim terrorist groups. But non-Muslim domestic terrorist groups and individuals, which are surely far more numerous in the US, don't get even that inadequate amount of coverage.

And to understand terrorism, as opposed to the fearful images of The Terrorists that the Republicans use to justify war and increasing military budgets, terrorist attacks like those from ETA in Spain give a broader picture of the concept of real existing terrorism.

ETA stands for "Euskadi Ta Askatasuna", which in the Basque language means "Euskadi (their name for a Basque fatherland) and liberty". ETA styles itself as a leftwing revolutionary group. It traces its origins to 1959 during the Franco regime.

ETA carried out attacks against targets during the Franco regime and continued to do so under the Spanish democracy established in 1975. ETA observed a truce in 1998-99 and renounced assassination as a tactic in 2000.

During the current Socialist (PSOE) administration of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the government achieved a difficult truce with ETA. As El Mundo summarizes it:

El 30 de diciembre de 2006, la organización terrorista ETA rompe el alto el fuego que había declarado el 22 de marzo del mismo año. Aún pasan cinco meses hasta que la banda terrorista anuncia de manera oficial, el 5 de junio de 2007, que a partir de las 0.00 horas del 6 de junio «quedan abiertos todos los frentes».

[On December 30, 2006, the terrorist organization ETA broke the cease-fire it had declared on March 22 of the same year. It was five months later that the terrorist group officially announced, on June 5, 2007, that beginning on midnight of June 6, "all fronts would be open".]

And so it has been since.

The Basque country (País Vasco) in northern Spain

The Council on Foreign Relations Web site has a useful Q&A - or maybe I should call it a FAQ - on ETA. It gives a quick summary of Basque history:

The Basques are a linguistically and culturally distinct Christian group that has lived since the Stone Age in the mountainous region that straddles the border between modern-day Spain and France. The Basques have never had their own independent state, but have enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy over the centuries under Spanish and French rule. About half of the 2.1 million residents of the three provinces that make up the autonomous Basque region speak fluent Basque or understand some of the language. Basque nationalists include other areas with smaller Basque-speaking minorities - the Spanish province of Navarre and three departments in southwest France - in their vision of a Basque homeland.

The most recent attack by ETA was on Wednesday, ETA mata a un guardia civil y hiere a otros cuatro con un coche bomba en Álava El Mundo 14.05.2008; Resurgent Eta kills policeman in car-bomb attack by Elizabeth Nash The Independent 05/15/08.

A member of the Spanish security forces was killed and four people wounded. Nash's Independent report says:

The Prime Minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, condemned the attack as "cowardly, miserable and criminal", and thanked MPs for closing ranks in a declaration of repudiation. "We are stronger when we are united," he said.

"Eta has a very powerful infrastructure," Javier Balza, who is responsible for security in the Basque region, said yesterday. Eta enjoyed backing from a great number of radical sympathisers who provided the organisation with help and support, Mr Balza warned.

Unusually, police received no advance warning before the bomb ripped through the barracks where officers and their families, including five children, were sleeping. Four officers, two of them women, were being treated in hospital for serious injuries.

And, in contrast to the approach of the Cheney-Bush administration which went to an extreme of cynicism in exploiting fear of terrorism for crass, narrow partisan purposes, Zapatero's government has worked to achieve a broad consensus on fighting ETA terrorism. Nash reports:

MPs from all parties signed a joint statement condemning the attack, which included for the first time in many years the wholehearted participation of the conservative opposition Popular Party. "The government knows it has the PP's maximum support for whatever measures are needed to defeat Eta," a party spokeswoman said.

This marks an important change of tack for the PP, which refused to join a cross-party statement condemning Eta's previous fatal attack in March.

Party differences over terrorism have embittered Spain's political scene for years, and weakened Mr Zapatero's anti-terror policy during his first term. But following defeat at the polls, the PP has recognised that public opinion yearns for cross-party consensus. The PP is undergoing a deep crisis following its second electoral defeat, with barely veiled challenges to Mariano Rajoy's leadership.

Background sites on ETA: La dictatura del terror El Mundo; Chronology - Basque separatist group ETA Reuters 05/14/08; La pesadilla dura ya 40 años El País 15.05.2008.

Tags: españa, eta, spain, zapatero