Basques relieved at arrests for bombings

By Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post

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SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain — Manu Neura, 34, stepped up to the tapas bar in San Sebastian's historic district last night, almost breathless as he spread the latest news on how three Moroccans and two Indians were arrested in connection with the Madrid train bombings.

This was like vindication, he told a knot of clients and restaurant workers serving wedges of egg pancakes and ham sandwiches.

For the past few days, the residents of San Sebastian, a major coastal city in Spain's Basque region, have bristled as federal government officials said they believed that the violent Basque separatist group ETA was behind the synchronized bombings that left 200 dead and almost 1,500 injured Thursday.

While the government cautioned it had no conclusive proof the attack was conducted by Muslim militants, the announcement was the closest indication yet of what many Basques have argued all along: Terrorists with Islamic roots, if not al-Qaida, were the perpetrators of a horrific assault that many are calling the European version of Sept. 11.

"I never accepted that ETA was behind it," Neura, a shopkeeper, said. "It was a lie. It was so clear."

"It wasn't possible," added Aitor Iturralde, 23, a waiter.

ETA, which translates as Basque Homeland and Liberty, has claimed responsibility for past small-scale bombing attacks against authorities but none on the scale of Thursday's carnage, which involved civilians.

The bombings, many Basques believe, were payback from al-Qaida or Islamic extremists who opposed the U.S.-led invasion. "This is the price of the war, Mr. Aznar," said one posted sign.

Many Basques also believe that Friday's extraordinary demonstrations against the bombing, involving perhaps 11 million people — a quarter of the nation's population — prodded the government to announce the arrests.

"Incredible!" said Esnal, 47, a promoter of musicians, as he watched the news in a corner tapas stand. "They were just saying that ETA was behind this — because tomorrow is an election. I think al-Qaida was behind it. There's no doubt that they're making politics out of this."
 
That was the opinion, too, in the Garin tavern in Hernani, where 22 color photographs hang above the bar.

Like a roll of honor, they are identified by name and by the prisons where they are serving sentences for political violence ranging from public-property damage to the attempted murder of police officers.

"These are our friends," says Aiert, a political activist in his late twenties who refuses to provide his last name because he says he fears arrest. "These are not marginal people, they are the children of this community."

Virtually no one here was willing to openly consider the possibility that ETA, which has waged a 40-year struggle for Basque independence in which more than 800 people have been killed, was responsible for the Madrid attacks.

"When I first got the news and I heard there were five dead I said, 'Oops, something slipped and someone in ETA must have made a mistake,' " said a former ETA member, who quit in the early 1980s but insisted that his name not be used because he said he fears harassment. "Then, when I heard it was 50 and more, I said it couldn't be."

The former member said the core of ETA these days probably consisted of 20 to 30 fighters, backed by perhaps 150 sympathizers who provided logistical support. He said the tough government-security crackdown of recent years had reduced the active career of a new recruit to between six months and one year.

"There used to be a long apprenticeship" before a recruit was sent on a mission, he said. "Now they go out without much training, and so they fall like rabbits."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company