BBC: Madrid blast 'ends Eta ceasefire' (the Spanish government has announced)

BBC ^ | Saturday, 30 December 2006, 13:38 GMT | BBC Staff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Madrid blast 'ends Eta ceasefire'

The government says Eta has ended the ceasefire

Basque separatist group Eta have carried out a car bomb attack at a Madrid airport ending a ceasefire, the Spanish government has announced.

At least four people were injured in the blast in the car park of terminal four at Barajas Airport.

"It is an attack which breaks nine months without violent actions by Eta," said Spain's interior minister.

He said the prime minister would stress later that "violence and dialogue are incompatible in democracy".

Officials said Eta had made a call to claim the attack - but the Spanish government has not called off peace talks with the separatists.

The Eta ceasefire was declared in March after four decades of violence aimed at creating an independent Basque state in the north of the country.

Pressure grows

The bomb exploded at about 0900 (0800 GMT), causing minor injuries to four people including two police officers and a taxi driver, emergency services said.

The authorities had time to evacuate the area, but one person is still missing. The bomb significantly damaged the car park, sending a huge plume of smoke over the terminal.

ETA TIMELINE 1959: Eta founded 1968: Eta kills San Sebastian secret police chief Meliton Manzanas, its first victim 1973: PM Luis Carrero Blanco assassinated 1978: Political wing Herri Batasuna formed 1980: 118 people killed in bloodiest year Sept 1998: Indefinite ceasefire Nov 1999: End of ceasefire, followed by more bomb attacks in January and February 2000 Dec 2001: EU declares Eta a terrorist organisation March 2003: Batasuna banned by Supreme Court May 2003: Two police killed in Eta's last deadly attack Nov 2005: 56 alleged Eta activists on trial in the largest prosecution of its kind March 2006: Eta declares permanent ceasefire Key events

Flights in and out of terminal four have been halted, and there is chaos at the other three terminals, officials say.

"It is an attack, I repeat, which breaks the permanent cease-fire which Eta ordered nearly nine months ago," Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told a news conference.

He said Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero would "do something more extensive" when he addresses the country at about 1700 GMT on Saturday.

"It is a brief political assessment," Mr Rubalcaba said, "in line with something which you have often heard me say, which it is appropriate to repeat today more categorically than ever.

"It is that violence is incompatible with dialogue in any democracy... And that is a rule which the government will firmly maintain."

In March, Eta declared that it was permanently ending an armed campaign that has killed more than 800 people.

In response, Mr Zapatero announced the beginning of talks with the militant separatist group, although discussions have not officially started.

Victims' associations and the conservative opposition are renewing their demands that the government immediately call off the peace process, says the BBC's Danny Wood in Madrid.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

Strong Explosion in Madrid
CNN ^ | 12-29-06 | CNN
Posted on 12/30/2006 12:36:46 AM PST by canadianally

[ScaniaBoy]

WHAT!!!! ONE BOMB AND THE CEASE-FIRE IS ENDED???

Has anyone told Olmert about this?

[NonValueAdded]

Free from the strong shadow of Saddam, ETA reasserts themselves on the world stage.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the AP:

26 Hurt in Car Bombing at Madrid Airport

*************************************************************

December 30, 2006 at 5:5:10 PST

26 Hurt in Car Bombing at Madrid Airport

By HAROLD HECKLE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MADRID, Spain (AP) -

A car bomb exploded in a parking lot at Madrid's glittery new airport terminal on Saturday, and the government blamed the Basque separatist group ETA. One person was missing and 26 were slightly injured, most of them with damage to their ears from the shockwave.

The blast halted all air traffic on one of the year's busiest travel days and brought a fiery end to an nine-month-old ETA cease-fire and plans for peace talks that had spurred the greatest hopes in a decade of a peaceful end to the conflict.

"Violence is incompatible with dialogue in a democracy," said Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba at a press conference. "This attack interrupts nine months without violent activity. It breaks a permanent cease-fire that ETA issued nine months ago."

Rubalcaba also said that there was one person missing inside the parking lot.

More than 800 people have died since the ETA took up arms in the late 1960s.

The timing of the explosion - just hours after the execution in Baghdad of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein - caused initial fears that Islamic militants might be involved. But officials soon discounted that, saying that two warning calls were received in the Basque region just before the explosion.

In the second call, a man claimed responsibility for the separatists, the Basque Interior Department's emergency rescue services said.

The explosion happened at around 9:00 a.m. at the airport's new Terminal 4, and witnesses said it sent shock waves over a wide area.

"I was outside my booth talking to a colleague when there was a massive blast that really shook us and rattled the roof of the toll complex," said Renzo Zarzal, 28, who was manning a highway toll booth some 500 yards away.

Smoke rose from the blast site more than an hour after the explosion and the building housing the parking lot appeared to be on fire.

The Civil Guard, a paramilitary police agency under Interior Ministry command, said the blast was from a car bomb. Javier Ayuso, a spokesman for the emergency rescue services of the Madrid city government, said five of the 26 people injured were taken to the hospital for evaluation, but none of their injuries was serious. The worst off appeared to be a policeman who received cuts from flying glass.

The bombing is likely to quash the nascent peace effort championed by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. ETA has not killed anyone since May 2003, but continued a series of low-level bombings until just before the March cease-fire.

Zapatero had said in June that his government would negotiate with the ETA only after having concluded that its truce was serious. No talks are known to have taken place.

As recently as Friday, Zapatero said the government remained optimistic that the ETA cease-fire would lead to a definitive peace process, despite increased speculation that ETA might resume attacks.

--

[AD from SpringBay]

If only Spain would vote to get out of Iraq. Then the bombers would leave them alone.

[Gideon Reader]

It appears to to me that the announcement of the breaking of the "cease fire" was made by ETA,
NOT the Socialist Spanish government.

[Gideon Reader]

Shhhhh. PM Olmert is thinking.
With what I dont know.
It sure ain't his head.
Ass maybe.

[Incorrigible]

Bump

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Government got to the BBC first.

[Beth528]

You would think by now that Spain and England would send these morons back to where ever they came from..All they were doing is letting the Spanish know they were still in charge..Next will be England since the British love the morons so much...

[J Aguilar]

"It is an attack, I repeat, which breaks the permanent cease-fire which Eta ordered nearly nine months ago," Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told a news conference.

What cease fire? ETA low-level street violence has been going on all this fall. ETA extortion network has collected six million euro during the months of the so called "truce". ETA stole in November 350 handguns in France....

That was not a cease fire, it was a collaboration between the main beneficiaries of 3/11: the Spanish Socialist Party and ETA, disguished by the MSM as "peace talks". That same MSM have silenced the protest of the Spanish citizens.

As I wrote in this thread:

3/11: Police Officers Investigated on Explosives Trafficking in Madrid

[...] Moreover, the global strategy is clearer now: ETA needed the Socialist in office for lifting the police pressure on them. The Socialists needed the office to rinse its party monstrous debt: banks have cancelled during Zapatero’s term 40 million Euro in debt to the Socialist Party.

What is the exit strategy? Evidently, give ETA what has always asked for, but disguising it as a “Peace Plan”. The control of most mass media in Spain and ALL mass media outside Spain makes possible to carry out such a crazy plan.

Now ETA is threatening Zapatero to kill again, and Zapatero threatens ETA telling them that if they do so, the Popular Party will win the elections and this time the Police pressure on them may be fatal.[...]

ETA collaborated in 3/11, now they are asking the Socialist to pay their debt, and they are losing patience, raising the stakes in their attacks.

[Gideon Reader]

Screw BBC.
Ernest, the announcement WAS the explosion.
Unless the Spanish government made the announcement BEFORE the blast, and would'nt THAT knock the tinfoil hat off your head?
:~)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Very, very interesting.....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See post #12....and the link....

[Dallas59]

The ETA are FREEDOM FIGHTERS...Spain must learn another lesson...../s

[Strategerist]

You would think by now that Spain and England would send these morons back to where ever they came from..

Ummmm....the ETA are from Spain. The Basque region in the northeast.

[Gideon Reader]

OK.
How?

[J Aguilar]

Aznar cornered ETA twice, it is said that with assistance of American intelligence. Aznar proved they can be defeated and showed that the Nationalist and Socialist regime founded on Franco's one that have ruled Spain since 1975 will come to an end.

That might be the reason 3/11 happened.

Now the main beneficiaries of that coup are fighting. ETA wants what they thought the Socialists owns them, and the Socialists tell ETA that they should be content with what they offer, otherwise will come back the right wing Popular Party and probably cornered them again.

ETA is arguably the cleverest terrorist group, they survive even in today's environment where the public opinion is very concerned on terrorism. They may hold the key to sink yet another Spanish government (the truth on 3/11), but they can be defeated, Aznar proved it.