Eta bomb takes toll on Zapatero government

SPAIN: One of the main pillars of the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero came crashing to the ground last …

SPAIN:One of the main pillars of the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero came crashing to the ground last Saturday morning with the devastating car bomb in a multistorey car park at Madrid's Barajas airport.

Twenty people were injured in the blast, including two Ecuadorians who were sleeping in separate cars awaiting the arrival of relatives on an early morning flight. Rescue workers have found the body of one of the Ecuadorians buried under the rubble.

Officials fear many of the bodies could have been reduced to ashes in temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees caused by the bomb, which was hidden in a stolen Renault Traffic van.

The five-storey car park adjoining the new Terminal 4 building will almost certainly be demolished and rebuilt.

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Rescue workers are sifting through the debris to reach the epicentre of the bombing to determine the exact size, estimated at around 800kg, and contents of the bomb.

Hundreds of passengers who parked cars at the airport are arriving back in Madrid after the Christmas holidays only to find, in more than 600 cases, a heap of crumpled metal, and severely damaged vehicles in some 1,500 others.

Not only does the bombing mark the end of the nine-month ceasefire declared by the Basque separatist movement, but the deaths of the two Ecuadorean victims will bring to an end the 1,028 days without a terrorist killing.

When Mr Zapatero became prime minister two years ago, he declared that one of his main aims was to bring an end to more than 30 years of Eta violence, which has claimed 800 lives. He won parliamentary support - although not that of the conservative opposition Popular Party - to initiate contacts with Eta but without making concessions.

This led to the announcement in March this year of a "permanent" ceasefire by Eta and start of secret meetings between its leaders and government representatives. Unlike the previous ceasefire in 1998 under the Aznar government, no prisoners were released from jail, and none were moved to prisons nearer their homes. That truce lasted 14 months and also ended with a car bomb in Madrid.

El Pais reported yesterday that divisions in Eta ranks had emerged at the end of the summer when one sector withdrew its support for its chief negotiator and veteran leader Josu Ternera, whom it accused of being too weak. These were probably the first signs of a crumbling of the process.

Interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said yesterday the peace process was definitively "broken, liquidated and ended". He admitted that although the security forces had never "taken their eye off the ball", they had had no warning or hint that Eta was about to end the ceasefire.

Mr Rubalcaba was not alone in his pessimism. In a radio interview yesterday Joseba Alvarez, a spokesman for Batasuna, the illegal party close to Eta, criticised the Socialist Party for failing to make concessions in the peace process but said the attack was unexpected. "Although the situation was not ideal I don't think anyone expected an attack like the one in Madrid. It has certainly not improved the situation," he said.