ETA ended its ceasefire yesterday with a crude attack on the Madrid airport
What was feared by many has turned into reality faster than expected. With more than half a ton of explosives, the Basque underground organization ETA announced the end of the ceasefire it had been observing since March. It has thus dealt another heavy blow to the languishing peace process, which the Spanish government has now "suspended" was. Early Saturday, the bomb completely destroyed the parking garage at Terminal 4 of Madrid’s Barajas Airport. Three warning calls were received an hour before the attack, yet police apparently failed to clear the parking garage. Two people are missing, 24 were slightly injured.
Meanwhile, the regional government of the province of Madrid has declared that the Renault Traffic minibus parked in the parking garage was loaded with 500-800 kilograms of explosives. This is the only way to explain why the bomb brought down the entire parking garage. There are no further details about the explosives.
While it was initially amed that only 24 people were slightly injured due to the early warning, it is now possible that the 40 or so people who were killed in the explosion were also injured.000 tons of rubble hide two bodies. Two Ecuadorians are missing since yesterday, who are said to have slept in their cars in the parking garage. Affected by the explosion is an area of about 70.000 square meters. Until yesterday afternoon, the entire terminal was also closed to air traffic. The minibus was reportedly stolen on 27. have been robbed at gunpoint by ETA members in France. The Spanish driver was held captive by a commando until yesterday, when he was released after the attack in France.
Unlike the attacks of 11. Unlike the Madrid attacks of March 11, 2004, practically no one doubts that ETA was responsible for this attack and thus rescinded its March ceasefire. There was some confusion after the explosion when media reported that neither of the two warning calls had been made on behalf of ETA. Also, the proximity of the execution of Saddam Hussein to the time of the bombing may have given rise to speculation in another direction. In addition, ETA has always announced the end of a ceasefire in a communique, which was not the case this time. Until that time, however, it was not known that there was a third phone call in which the anonymous caller answered on behalf of ETA.
Completely surprised and shocked by the events, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis RodrIguez Zapatero appeared before the press only in the early evening. He had already left Madrid for a short vacation at the turn of the year and had to return to the capital in a hurry. "I have decided to suspend all initiatives for talks with ETA", Zapatero said at a press conference. "There can be no dialogue with violence." With the attack, ETA had violated the condition for the talks to turn away from violence.
By his actions it is obvious that Zapatero had completely misjudged the process. The day before the attack, he had presented his balance sheet for 2006. And declared on the peace process: "Today we are further along than we were a year ago" and "in a year we will be even further". In accordance with this misconception, he had to put up with some serious questions from the journalists.
Zapatero has obviously been completely wrongly advised in the last months. For months he has been pretending that everything, with small ups and downs, was largely in good order. The ETA has also been accusing him for months of not having kept the promises made in the run-up to the elections "permanent ceasefire" and even threatened to return to armed struggle in October.
Remembrance of the peace process in Ireland
Instead of gestures of detente, Madrid went on the offensive in public before Christmas to counter the gloomy mood. It was leaked to newspapers that there had been a first meeting with ETA in mid-December in a European country "European country" given. The pro-government newspaper El PaIs, referring to the socialist government, reported that ETA had given arances that it would stick to the ceasefire. The details are that the meeting was attended by Josu Urrutikoetxea, the alleged head of ETA.
These reports were neither confirmed nor denied by the government, but in order to emphasize them, Zapatero also invited opposition leader Mariano Rajoy to talk about the peace process. It was the first meeting with the head of the ultra-conservative Popular Party (PP) after nine months of. The PP, which was always against the peace process anyway, now once again called on Zapatero to definitively end the process. The declarations of Zapatero halt Rajoy for "unsatisfactory". The protests against the attack are as divided as the riots. In Madrid, Zapatero’s Socialists (PSOE) did not demonstrate with the supporters of the (PP).
The spokesman for the banned Basque party Batasuna, which had initiated the peace process, made it clear at a press conference that the peace process should not be "not destroyed" was. Arnaldo Otegi declared that he was "now even more urgent than before". He recalled that such a process had to be based on a solid foundation. Otegi reproached the Spanish head of government for the lack of "had been negotiated, but has not been fulfilled".
By this, Otegi meant, for example, the re-legalization of his party through the deletion of the law that was once created specifically for its prohibition. He also meant a relaxation for the prisoners. It was generally expected that Zapatero would take a hand here at Christmas. Shortly before, 150 Spanish lawyers had also ied a manifesto calling for the abolition of the law on political parties introduced by the PP. They also demanded the transfer of Basque prisoners to the Basque Country. This is not even a concession to the peace process, but only the implementation of current criminal law and will also advance the peace process.
Despite the devastating and potentially fatal attack, it does not have to mark the definitive end of a peace process. With the term "suspended" Zapatero loved the tower for the new open. He said this even though it was known at the time that there might have been two more deaths in ETA attacks for three years. That the newspaper El PaIs, which acts as the government’s mouthpiece, today of all days clearly recalls the peace process in Ireland also indicates that not all hopes for peace need be buried. The article recalls that the IRA twice broke its ceasefire before the peace agreement was reached. The IRA last ended a 17-month cease-fire on 10 October. February 1996, when it used half a ton of explosives to devastate London’s Canary Wharf financial district, killing two people in the process. "After further attacks, the IRA declared a new definitive ceasefire on July 20, 1997, which paved the way for the Good Friday Agreement of 1998", writes the newspaper.