A powerful car bomb slightly injured three people in the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Wednesday, and officials blamed the armed Basque separatist group ETA, which reportedly gave a telephone warning shortly beforehand.
The Basque newspaper Gara said it had received advance warning of the blast, which occurred at about 9.30am local time, from ETA.
Police were able to evacuate the area before the bomb — which consisted of explosives stuffed inside two backpacks and placed inside a car believed to have been stolen a day earlier — went off.
Three local workers were very slightly injured, according to emergency services, who added that 15 people required treatment after the blasts.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who only last week won controversial parliamentary backing for a plan to open talks with ETA if the group agrees to disband, condemned the blast.
”I reject this violent act of terrorism. I reiterate — the objective of the government is to combat terrorism and put an end to it,” Zapatero said.
”ETA’s only future is to lay down its arms and dissolve itself,” the Socialist premier added.
Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso condemned the attack and praised police for their prompt arrival on the scene, adding that the state will not give in to ETA.
”A considerable explosion occurred at 9.30am,” said Alonso.
”It was a 20kg device, so it was a really strong explosion,” Alonso explained, adding that he knew of two injured and a further 10 people requiring treatment following the blast.
Alonso added that the government is bound to continue ”fighting determinedly” against ETA.
The organisation is blamed for the deaths of about 800 people in a four-decade campaign of violence to win independence for the Basque region spanning the Pyrenees in northern Spain and south-western France.
Last week, the Spanish Parliament gave the government the green light to begin a dialogue with the group — but only if it eschews violence.
All parliamentary groups except the main opposition Popular Party (PP) backed the resolution, which was sponsored by the ruling Socialists.
In allusion to the PP’s refusal to lend its support, breaking a long consensus between the mainstream parties on how to deal with ETA, Zapatero pleaded for a united front.
”Democratic unity is vital — it has been a source of great strength [in standing up to ETA] over more than 25 years,” said Zapatero, who added that his government requires ”maximum consensus” on the issue.
”There is no political price regarding the end of violence,” he insisted.
”I assure you, the government will step up its efforts for democratic unity,” he concluded.
Madrid mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon urged anyone who has any kind of sympathy for ETA’s objectives to ”let the scales fall from their eyes if they think ETA is anything other than what it is” — simply a ”terrorist gang, an instrument of terror, of pain”.
Representatives of ETA victims plan to demonstrate in Madrid on June 11 to protest Parliament’s decision to start negotiations with the group, which a victims’ association spokesperson said will ”humiliate both the living and the dead”.
Yet even among anti-terrorist associations in Spain there exist stark political differences across party lines.
An opinion poll suggested earlier this month that two-thirds of Spaniards would support the opening of talks between Madrid and ETA, if the group renounces violence.
Moderate Basque nationalists, who in last month’s regional Basque election returned to the government but without an absolute majority, are currently pushing a plan for upgraded autonomy from the central government in Madrid, which the mainstream parties in the capital reject.
However, Zapatero has held out the possibility of a degree of widened autonomy.
Mainstream parties, while supporting a revision of regional autonomous statutes dating back to the late 1970s, fear that acceding to Basque demands to go further could presage similar demands from other regions, including the north-eastern region of Catalonia. — AFP
