Spain: Despite waves of arrests the Basque terrorists have not gone away, writes Paddy Woodworth
After an unusually long lull of almost four months since its last killing, yesterday's lethal bombing by ETA, the Basque terrorist group, came as a shock, but not a surprise.
"I expect attacks, and bad ones, over the next few weeks," Ander Landaburu, editor of El País in the Basque Country, had told The Irish Times in Bilbao just four days ago.
Shortly before the local elections in Spain last Sunday, an ambiguous statement from ETA had raised hopes that the group, badly weakened by successive arrests of key activists over the last two years, was about to call a ceasefire.
The Madrid government, which regarded ETA's 1998-99 ceasefire as a "truce-trap" from the outset, added to speculation that some sort of cessation was in the offing. It accused the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which shares some of ETA's aims but abhors its methods, of secretly negotiating a bogus ceasefire to boost its electoral prospects. Relations between Madrid and the democratic but increasingly radical PNV have never been worse.
Days later, however, a hardline ETA statement not only insisted that "all \ fronts remain open" but said that the group was going to widen a grim list of targets that already includes local councillors, academics and journalists regarded as hostile by ETA.
"It's logical, from their point of view, that they feel they have to do something after making a statement like that." Mr Landaburu said resignedly last night. He knows what he is talking about, having been a member of ETA himself in his youth.
As Spain made its transition from dictatorship in the late 1970s, Mr Landaburu shifted into the democratic mainstream. Now he has to live in the shadow of a permanent ETA death threat because of his critical attitude to terrorism. His brother, Gorka, also a journalist, lost a thumb, two fingers and an eye in an ETA letter-bomb attack two years ago.
The three main victims of yesterday's attack in Navarre were among ETA's more traditional targets, members of the Spanish National Police. All branches of the Spanish security forces have suffered heavy casualties during ETA's 35-year armed campaign.
But many people in the region fear that heightened political tension in the region will now lead the group to "open a new front" by killing PNV councillors, despite the PNV's current bitter confrontation with Madrid.
This follows the Spanish government's banning of Batasuna, regarded by the parliament and courts as ETA's political wing, Batasuna members are furious that the PNV has benefited from their exclusion from politics in last Sunday's vote. On polling day I spoke to a former Batasuna representative in Ondarroa, a town where Batasuna had had a majority.
"If the people see the PNV usurping our seats," she said, "they will be very angry and take action against them. We do not want this to happen, but we will not be able to stop it."
This kind of language bodes ill for the PNV, because it is typical of Batasuna's ambiguity towards ETA's terrorism. Members often express regret, even revulsion, at the group's actions. But they go on to explain them as "the inevitable result of a conflict which should be resolved by negotiation".
Last Sunday up to 140,000 votes were spoiled by Batasuna supporters, which indicates that ETA still enjoys deep-rooted support in the Basque Country.
A long, hot summer is in the offing when the new councillors take their seats. Whether Madrid's confrontational strategy of banning a political party will bring more, or less, conflict to the region remains an open question.