'It Has To Be Al Qaeda'

They saw themselves as too dependent on Madrid; they wanted a more radical break. But even out of all the Basques, only 25 percent are for an independent country. In a move that then later was seen not to have been very wise, the moderate nationalists and the radical nationalists had a complicit agreement by which ETA would stop the killings and the moderates would assert sovereignty more vigorously. It didn't work for a variety of reasons. Madrid did all it could not to let it happen. Madrid had a meeting with ETA in 1998 or '99. A couple of months later they arrested one of the two emissaries of ETA in this negotiation with the excuse of a traffic violation. So ETA came back to killing. The whole coalition between the moderates and the radicals broke down; they started blaming each other. The whole thing became a sham and ETA began to be even more foolish than before--attacking, threatening all types of journalists, intellectuals, judges even town councilors with no responsibility of any kind. This became really alarming for 90 to 95 percent of the Basque society.

So it sounds like you are describing a minority band of thugs. Do they have any future?

I don't think they have any future. And if this [bombing] is ETA, this is their death. Their own political party has said that they totally condemn this, which they never do. They are taking part in demonstrations against this terrorism. There could be a fringe inside ETA that has done this folly, but it would be the end [of the ETA]. So that's why I tend to believe it has to be Al Qaeda.

© 2004