Terror before an election 
Mar 11th 2004 | MADRID  
From The Economist print edition

Reuters

 

 
A co-ordinated series of bombings sows carnage in Madrid
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COMING just three days before a general election which the ruling conservatives now 
seem even more likely to win, it was the worst terrorist outrage of recent times in 
Western Europe. In a series of co-ordinated blasts in three railway stations in Madrid, 
including its biggest one, Atocha, at least 170 people were reported to have perished 
in the morning rush-hour. 
The Spanish authorities were quick to say that the perpetrators were members of 
ETA, the Basque separatist group, which has been using terror for more than 30 
years in its campaign to win full independence for the already autonomous region of 
north-western Spain. José María Aznar, the outgoing prime minister, vowed to crush 
this “terrorist band”.
This would be easily ETA's biggest act of bloodshed, far worse than the death of 21 
people it blew up in a supermarket in 1987. Indeed, the scale of the attack and the 
apparent absence of a warning prompted speculation that this might not be ETA's 
work. ETA, moreover, has almost always claimed responsibility for its deeds. This 
time, Arnaldo Otegi, a politician close to the movement, denied that the group was 
responsible, pointing a finger instead at the “Arab resistance”. 
The sad truth is that Spain is a target for both kinds of terrorist. Mr Aznar has been a 
leading supporter of America's “war against terror” and has backed the Americans, 
with troops, in Iraq (and the anniversary of that war falls next week). On the other 
hand, only two weeks ago Spain's security forces seized a huge load of ETA 
explosives destined for Madrid. Last December Spanish police said they had foiled an 
ETA plot to blow up a train in a Madrid station. And in the summer police arrested an 
ETA cell that had planted explosives on a railway track outside Madrid. 
In any event, the scale of the attack has shaken and angered Spaniards, including 
Basques, as never before. In the past eight years, under the People's Party (PP), 
Spain has gained in confidence. Its economy is buoyant, having grown at an annual 
average of 3.6% for the past seven years. Its standing on the world stage is higher. 
And, under the stern Mr Aznar, it even seemed to be getting on top of the Basque 
terrorists. Last year, ETA, which has killed over 800 people in the past 30-odd years, 
managed to kill only three. 
So the attack has served as a painful reminder that Spain's regional animosities are 
unresolved. Beating terrorism has been a priority for Mr Aznar. Both his PP and the 
security services reckoned that ETA was on the ropes after two years of successes on 
both sides of the Franco-Spanish border. The group was known to have wanted to 
pull off a spectacular to show that it still counts. In the last general election, four 
years ago, its political arm won almost 8% of the votes in the Basque region. But Mr 
Aznar banned it two years ago.
Yet if this was an ETA attack, it may smack of desperation. Under the auspices of Mr 
Aznar's anointed successor, Mariano Rajoy, the PP has been cruising towards its third 
election victory in a row, with latest opinion polls giving it a lead of around six 
percentage points. The question in politicians' minds was whether Mr Rajoy and his 
party would be able to form a government on their own or whether they would have 
to team up with a regional partner, such as the conservative but moderate Catalan 
nationalists. Now the PP has a better chance of ruling alone.
Even then, regional politics would be likely to create continuing tension. In the 
election run-up, the Basque regional premier, Juan José Ibarretxe, of the non-violent 
Basque Nationalist Party that dominates in the region, has continued to promote a 
plan for a referendum on the Basques' claimed right to self-determination. The 
aspirations of both Basques and Catalans to wrest more power from the centre, and 
the PP's fierce opposition to such notions, have created unprecedented crispación, or 
political tension. 
This had already risen sharply earlier this year when it was revealed that the Catalan 
regional government's number two, Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira, a left-wing nationalist 
whose party is in a ruling coalition with the Socialists in Catalonia, had secretly met 
ETA leaders with a view to brokering a ceasefire—but only in Catalonia. The bad 
blood was stirred still more when a senior Socialist suggested that the discovery of 
explosives a few weeks ago had been a put-up job by the PP. The Socialists will not 
make such claims now. But their chances of taking office next week, in Madrid, look 
even slimmer.