SPAIN: Spanish prime minister suspends talks with Basque separatists ETA after car bomb at Madrid airport car park

Record ID: 356933

  • Title: SPAIN: Spanish prime minister suspends talks with Basque separatists ETA after car bomb at Madrid airport car park
  • Date: 31st December 2006
  • Summary: (W3) MADRID, SPAIN (DECEMBER 30, 2006) (REUTERS) PASSENGERS ON AIRPORT TARMAC WHERE THEY WERE EVACUATED FOR SAFETY AWAY FROM BOMBED AREA
  • Embargoed: 15th January 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • Country: Spain
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA77307CBSZ1SP0L3I5SJ4D6GUT
  • Story Text: A car bomb wrecked a car park at Madrid's international airport on Saturday (December 30), injuring at least 19 people in an attack the government said smashed a nine-month-old ceasefire by ETA Basque guerrillas.
    A huge pall of smoke rose over Barajas Airport's Terminal Four after the explosion which appeared to end a ceasefire declared by ETA in March after four decades of armed struggle for independence of the Basque Country.
    The attack took place on a day Barajas airport was crowded with holiday travellers but they were not evacuated until after the blast filled the departure hall with smoke, causing panic.
    "We felt the explosion. I looked to the left and saw a big black cloud. Glasses were trembling and we were all shaken," a woman said.
    Officials received three telephoned warnings about a bomb in a purple Renault Traffic van in the hour before the explosion, one of them claiming responsibility for ETA.
    Police cordoned off the carpark area before the bomb blew up, sending a huge pall of smoke over the airport terminal.
    The blast brought down several concrete floors of the multi-storey car park at about 9 a.m. (0800 GMT), an hour after the first of three telephone warnings of an attack at Barajas Airport's ultra-modern Terminal Four, officials said.
    ETA's last killings were more than three years ago, but that could change if two people reported missing have died in the blast.
    Rescuers searched the rubble for the two people, including a man sleeping in his car while his girlfriend went to meet a passenger.
    A mother holding her young daughter described the panic after being rescued by a police car.
    "It was desperate. People did not know where to go. It was quite scary -- mostly because of my daughter," she said.
    The attack took place on a day Barajas airport was crowded with holiday travellers but they were not evacuated until after the blast filled the departure hall with smoke, causing panic.
    The bomb exploded at about 9 a.m. (0800 GMT), causing minor injuries to four people including two police officers and a taxi driver. All suffered only minor bruises or cuts, a member of the emergency services said. Another seven people had been attended for panic and psychological reactions.
    Stranded passengers were hurried out on to the airport runway, together with their luggage. Terminal Four suspended all flights for several hours.
    Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said at a news conference later that he was suspending all dialogue with Basque guerrillas ETA.
    "I have ordered the suspension of all initiatives for dialogue. From the beginning I said that the government knew that this process would be long, hard and difficult. Today has been a difficult day, it has been a hard day, very hard, because two citizens could have lost their lives, several more have been injured and because millions have felt the distancing of the possibility of living in peace and freedom," he told reporters.
    Zapatero said there was no deadline to continue the peace process he started in June to end ETA's four-decade armed struggle for independence of the Basque Country in which the group killed over 800 people.
    "Until when, in the future, there is an unequivocal intention, there will be no possibility on the part of the government, to come to any dialogue with the ETA gang," Zapatero added.
    But ETA's political ally Batasuna, which is banned for its links to the guerrillas, said the bombing did not mean the search for an end to the conflict was over.
    At a news conference in San Sebastian, Arnaldo Otegi, leader of ETA's political ally Batasuna, blamed the attack on the government's failure to make concessions to the separatist.
    "The process for the solution of the Basque political conflict is not broken: this is something we want to transmit with absolute clarity. From our point of view this process is not broken. And we want to say more; not only is it not broken but it is more necessary than ever because this is the process that the popular majority of the Basque Country and also, we are sure, the majority of Spanish society want," he said.
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