Batasuna condemns Madrid blast
2004-03-11 17:23
San Sebastian, Spain - A spokesperson for Batasuna, the banned political wing of Basque armed separatist group ETA, condemned a co-ordinated attack on four trains on Thursday which killed more than 173 commuters in Madrid.
The spokesperson, Arnaldo Otegi, dismissed ETA involvement, insisting that the "separatist Basque left cannot imagine there is even a hypothetical chance that ETA could be behind what happened today in Madrid".
The government earlier directly blamed the carnage on ETA, fighting for an independent state in northern Spain and parts of southwestern France.
ETA had already killed more than 800 people in a 36-year independence campaign prior to Thursday - but the latest carnage was worse by far than its previous deadliest attack, which saw 21 die in a supermarket bombing in Barcelona in 1987.
"The pro-independence Basque left wishes to show its total rejection of what happened today in Madrid and of the blind actions carried out against civilians and workers on their way to their workplaces," Otegi told reporters in the Basque coastal town of San Sebastian.
"Neither the targets hit nor the modus operandi suggest that we can affirm ETA was behind this," he added of the wave of rush-hour attacks which left more than 600 people injured.
Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes rejected that view, telling a news conference there was "no doubt" that ETA was responsible and blasting any attempt to place responsibility elsewhere as "disgraceful".
Batasuna, banned by Spanish justice from competing in Sunday's Spanish general election for its links with ETA, has never condemned past attacks by the organisation.
In an earlier radio interview Otegi said he believed that "the Arab resistance" was behind the attacks, recalling that "Spain maintains occupation forces in Iraq and we should not forget that it had a responsibility for the war in Iraq."
In the run-up to the war, Spain was the strongest supporter of the US and Britain push for war on Iraq, and a co-sponsor of their unsuccessful attempt to get a resolution through the UN Security Council authorising an invasion.
Otegi insisted that "ETA has always issued a warning whenever it left a bomb to explode" and added: "There is every reason to think that no kind of warning was given today."