| It's easier for Zappie to go after the ETA than the Islamicists, though the latter is the mortal threat to Spain. Then again, Zappie's a socialist, so he has sympathies for the Islamicists. But pay attention: if we end up with President Barack Obama, he too will see the value of going after terrorists starting in, oh, late 2011 ... |
The December arrest of Gorostiaga, 66, a former mayor, is part of a crackdown on separatists that is fueling tensions in Spain's Basque region. It's also helping Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero maintain a lead in opinion polls over People's Party leader Mariano Rajoy before general elections March 9. ``This is the politics of revenge,'' said Gorostiaga's son Xabier, 40. ``They just do it to show they are in charge.'' Gorostiaga was already being prosecuted; the arrest after 18 months of trial was to ensure he wouldn't flee, police said.
No country on Europe's continent has suffered more terrorism violence, homegrown and international, than Spain. Zapatero came to power in 2004 after Islamic militants killed 191 in an attack on Madrid trains that tipped the vote against the ruling People's Party. In 2006, he tried to negotiate an end to 40 years of Basque violence that has cost more than 800 lives.
Those talks, which Rajoy told Zapatero consisted of ``so many errors they are burying you,'' ended when ETA bombed Madrid's Barajas airport in December 2006, killing two. Since then, Zapatero has switched from peacemaker to crusader, ramping up police pressure on the separatists.
Spanish police have arrested 98 suspected ETA operatives since the Barajas bombing, as well as at least 34 people accused of links to terrorists. Ten days after his arrest, Gorostiaga was sentenced to nine years in prison. ``Zapatero needed to show that he was tough,'' said Javier Elzo, professor of sociology at Deusto University in Bilbao. ``The PP always used terrorism as part of its bid to win elections and when Zapatero's attempt at negotiations failed, he did the same.''
The month following ETA's attack on the Madrid airport was the last time Zapatero, 47, trailed Rajoy, 52, in opinion polls. The prime minister now trails Rajoy by less than 2 percentage points on anti-terror policy while leading on almost every other issue. Zapatero led the People's Party by 5.5 percentage points, compared with 6.4 points a week earlier, according to an opinion poll of 4,008 Spaniards published on Feb. 11 in Publico newspaper.
Zapatero's terrorism initiative has also been aided by Spain's independent judiciary. National Court Magistrate Baltasar Garzon last week suspended two separatist parties over alleged links to ETA, provoking a Feb. 10 protest in Bilbao in which police clashed with demonstrators. ``There is much more pressure on us since the cease-fire ended,'' said Arantza Urkaregi, a spokeswoman for suspended party Basque Nationalist Action.
ETA has been using violence for more than 40 years in a bid to create a Basque region independent from France and Spain. The effort has left thousands of relatives of victims and survivors of their attacks in its wake. The country's largest such group, the Association of Terrorism Victims, has become a political force, organizing large-scale protests to oppose Zapatero's talks with ETA. About 1,000 politicians, business executives and journalists live with bodyguards, according to the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee.
``Business people, judges, politicians and some journalists have to live with this danger day in, day out,'' said Antonio Basagoiti, head of the PP in Bilbao, who has had bodyguards for 10 years. ``The tension has increased; we all realize that one day we might be dealt a bad hand.''
The end of the truce and signs that Islamic militants may also be planning new violence are stoking concerns about an electoral attack. In January, Spanish authorities arrested 14 people in Barcelona whom they said were linked to an Islamic terror cell planning an attack on the city. It was a group inspired by al-Qaeda that carried out the Madrid train bombing three days ahead of the 2004 election to punish the PP government for backing the U.S.-led war in Iraq, prosecutors in the case said. Zapatero had trailed Rajoy in polls before the attack.
``Al-Qaeda has already boasted of its ability to intervene in Spanish political life,'' while ``ETA will try for a spectacular attack with the elections approaching,'' said Fernando Reinares, head of research in international terrorism at the Elcano Institute in Madrid.
| They won't do it this time: Zappie is their man, and al-Qaeda doesn't want the PP back in power. |