'It Has To Be Al Qaeda'
An expert on Basque history and culture discusses his doubts about whether ETA could have been behind Thursday’s train attacks—and why any involvement would mean the end of the separatist group
By Brian Braiker
Newsweek
Updated: 6:44 p.m. ET March 12, 2004March 12 - What started off as a typical weekday commute to work ended in a hell of twisted metal, shattered glass and broken bodies Thursday morning. Exactly 911 days after September 11, 2001, Spain was rocked by the biggest terrorist attack on European soil since World War II: 10 synchronized bombs ripped through commuter trains outside Madrid, killing at least 199 people and wounding 1,400 others. No one claimed responsibility for the blasts, but suspicions turned instantly toward the Basque separatist group known as ETA. There were also some suggestions that Islamic terrorists may have been carried out the attacks because Spain supported Washington in the Iraq war.
The ETA, which stands for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna and means "Basque Homeland and Freedom," today took the unusual step of denying any involvement. But it is little surprise that many Spaniards still blame them: the underground group has been committing acts of terror violence in its campaign for a separate Basque state in north-western Spain since 1968. Not counting Thursday’s attack, it has been estimated that ETA violence has claimed the lives of about 800 people in the struggle for autonomy. Today many Basques support the idea of independence, but ETA remains a fringe group that wins headlines—but little sympathy—with every strike, says Joseba Zulaika, director of the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada in Reno. Despite enjoying a good deal of autonomy within Spain, Basque separatists have attempted to assassinate Spain's King Juan Carlos as well as Jose Maria Aznar, then leader of the conservative Popular Party, now Spain's outgoing prime minister. On September 16, 1998, ETA declared a "unilateral and indefinite" cease-fire, and engaged in the first direct talks with the Spanish government in 10 years. The talks quickly failed, however, and the ceasefire was called off a year later. Violence once again became their means of negotiation.
Zulaika spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker about Thursday’s tragic bombing. Himself a native of Spain’s Basque country, Zulaika says he harbors no sympathy for the ETA. But, he adds, this week’s attack was on a scale so unprecedented even in the ETA’s own blood-soaked history that he is not convinced the group is responsible. But if they are in any way connected to this week’s terrorist attack, he predicts the “death” of the fringe nationalist group. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Based on what you’ve seen do you think that this is the work of the ETA?
Joseba Zulaika: Well, I am split. On the one hand this is like nothing ETA has done in the past for several reasons. When they have [placed] a bomb, they use that essentially to make news and to let everyone know, “We are a threat.” But then they would call the police and the media so people would know and people would empty the place. Except in Barcelona [where a Basque bomb killed 21 in a supermarket in 1987], where they alleged they called the police who did not transmit that message to the media. They apologized profusely for that. That was a black eye for ETA, something that their own public did not approve.
What is the response of the general Basque community to this?
Their own leader, Arnold Otegi said yesterday they are totally opposed to this. ETA could not have done this. In a way it goes against the grain of ETA. If ETA has done this, it is ETA’s death among their own supporters. Obviously there is my own wish that this not ETA—it would be so shameful and so infamous for every Basque. Yet you cannot rule out that in that kind of organization: They are like cornered animals where they are constantly pursued, they feel relentlessly beaten by the Spanish police. I don’t know, maybe a group of them went to this extreme. I want to believe that it’s not the case, but you never know.
Normally do you sympathize with ETA?
No, not at all. I am an anthropologist. Twenty-five years ago as a graduate student I did an ethnography of political violence of my own village, Itziar. I did an ethnography of how people got into becoming ETA sympathizers or ETA activists. The roots of it were very much in religion, in the church. There was a lot of it in the Spanish Civil War [at the end of which General Francisco Franco took power and ruthlessly oppressed the Basques]. It was a kind of peer pressure thing also. It’s like a kind of Homeric tragedy in which you see people getting into it—and you might have done the same thing—but it ends in tragedy; it ends in error; it ends in murder that is unjustified. These past couple of decades I have abhorred ETA’s madness. These last years they have killed intellectuals, journalists, some of them friends of mine. I couldn’t be more ashamed of being Basque.
ETA seems to be distancing itself from these bombings.
I just heard that they have disclaimed it. Can you believe them?
I tend to believe it.
The main source of the news seems to be the Spanish government. Which has a complicated relationship with the ETA. They are obviously the people who must know the most about this. But the Spanish government does have a vested interest in the ETA [having done this], and not Al Qaeda, because of the elections this Sunday. If the ETA did this, it favors the [incumbent] government because they have been the toughest [on them]. Their main opponents, the socialists, got into a government of coalition with a Catalan independence group whose leader did the incredibly naïve thing of getting together with ETA leadership in January; they were just blasted by that. If ETA [is guilty of this], it looks like those socialists are, by logic of contamination, aligned with ETA, whereas [Prime Minister] Aznar can say, “We are the only ones who oppose anything having to do with terrorism.” In the post-9/11 global terrorism discourse, this really works very well for the governing party.
And if Al Qaeda is responsible?
If it is Al Qaeda, it is a totally different story. More than 90 percent of the Spaniards were opposed to the war on Iraq. Still, Aznar, who had a political upper hand and absolute majority, just went with Bush. He didn’t care about public opinion. This will be a reminder to all of those 90 percent who didn’t want [war in] Iraq who will say, “Look, here is one more offshoot of that war that we didn’t have to fight.” So that would be negative for the government in this election.
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