SPAIN: A woman injured in an ETA attack reacts to the announcement of a ceasefire.

Record ID: 872831

  • Title: SPAIN: A woman injured in an ETA attack reacts to the announcement of a ceasefire.
  • Date: 24th March 2006
  • Summary: MARIA JESUS GONZALEZ
  • Embargoed: 8th April 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • City:
  • Country: Spain
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAA7AFPPGRN9KU8V10HH7Q4BO8Q
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Six years after loosing her arm and her leg because of an ETA car bomb in 2002, Maria Jesus Gonzalez receives the news of a ETA cease fire with hope. She, however is sceptical about the real intentions of the announcement and about idea of making contributions to the possible peace process.
    "We, the victims, have already contributed too much, my daughter and I actually contributed with part of our bodies and some others have lost their most loved ones. We cannot contribute anymore. Now it is for justice to act, that is the only way to defeat terrorism. They cannot make pacts with murderess," Gonzalez told Reuters in Madrid on Thursday (March 23). In Bilbao-the capital of the Basque country--most people positively await developments of the process.
    "We have the hope to solve all the problems that we have in the Basque country. I would be very happy if we reach a total agreement," said Alfonso Jimenez.
    Some 850 people have died in ETA's four-decade-long campaign to carve out an independent state between northern Spain and southwest France. It has not killed anybody since 2003, limiting itself to small bombs and extortion.
    Commentators said the government should tread very carefully until ETA moved from the word truce to laying down arms or ending "low level violence" like extortion and threats against local, non-nationalist politicians.
    "The terminology has been fallen through very carefully, ETA refers to a permanent cease fire as opposed to a truce and this is something that they had never said before," professor Charles Power from Madrid's CEU University told Reuters. "Of course that doesn't necessarily exclude other forms of violence, low level street violence for example, extortion and other forms of undemocratic activity," he added.
    In the upcoming days the government of Prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has reacted with caution to the ETA announcement, is expected to underline the first steps for a possible negotiation with ETA.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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