Terrorism in Spain

Vietnam, Korea? No, Spain 1987.

When we think about terrorism, almost no one would think about Spain, but actually Spain has suffered terrorism for around 50 years.

Spain’s principal terrorist band is ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), also known as the Basque Country and Freedom. ETA wanted Basque Country’s independence from Spain and France. This territory is called Euskal Herria. ETA began its activity in 1958 during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in Spain. At first people supported the group because they saw it as another opposition to the regimen, but after Franco’s death in 1975 and with the start of the transition to democracy, ETA started to be seen as a terrorist band.  During Franco’s dictatorship, ETA committed one of their most famous attacks when they killed Carrero Blanco, Spain’s first minister in 1973.

Carrero Blanco’s car after the bomb exploded

It’s thought that ETA’s first victim was a 22 month old girl. Their biggest attack was a bomb in a Barcelona grocery store; 21 people died and 45 were injured. A more famous action by the group happened in 1996 when José Antonio Ortega Lara, an innocent man, was kidnapped from the garage of his home. Lara was kept in a dungeon near the Deva river for 532 days. During this time he lost 51 pounds. 10 days after it’s liberation, ETA kidnapped Miguel Angel Blanco, a town councilman of the Popular Party; three days later he was murdered. During the three days of kidnapping, Spain cried for peace. These protests were the biggest ones that took place in Spain, only beaten by the protests after the 11M attack which would come later.

Madrid after ETA murdered Miguel Angel Blanco.

The place where Ortega Lara was kept.

Since its creation, all of Spain’s presidents have tried to negotiate with ETA to stop their terrorist activity but sometimes more than negotiations have been used to stop it.

Between 1983 and 1987, a new terrorist band showed up called the GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación), an anti-terrorist liberation group. This band was organized by the government of Felipe Gonzalez. This fight between the ETA and GAL is what’s called the “dirty war”.

GAL would kidnap, murder and torture members of ETA but sometimes also innocent people.

One of the most dastardly actions of this band was the Lasa and Zabala case, where after torturing and murdering two members of ETA, GAL buried them in quicklime.

ETA would continue its activity until 2011, when they announced the stop of armed activity after almost 900 deaths and thousands of injured innocent people. All of this happened without ETA accomplishing their objective.

But ETA wasn’t alone. Many political parties have been considered ETA’s political arm. Some are:

• Herri Batasuna
• Euskal Herritarrok: Coalition integrated mostly by Herri Batasuna members
• Batasuna: Refoundation of Herri Batasuna

All three of them were declared illegal in 2003 because they were considered part of the scheme of ETA. In fact, some of the members of the parties were or had been members of ETA. These parties belong to the abertzale left .

The other terrorist band in Spain is the GRAPO (Grupos de Resistencia Antifascista Primero de Octubre). This band wanted Spain to became a Socialist State, similar to the ones in the Soviet Union. Even though GRAPO didn’t kill as much as ETA, it’s number of victims is around 80 people. Similar to ETA, the band also had a political arm: the PCE(r) . This is a communist party that came out of the PCE, Spain’s main communist party, that’s why it’s called reconstituted. It was declared illegal in 2006 for its relation with the GRAPO.

Even after all of the terrorist bands we’ve talked about, the biggest attack in Spanish land was made by Al-Qaeda in 2004. The attack was due to Spain’s participation in Iraq's war. Al-Qaeda blew up four trains in Madrid killing 193 people and injuring almost 2000. Spain’s president, Jose Maria Aznar, would say that the attack was done by ETA and not by Al-Qaeda, but why lie to your country?

On March 14, general elections were taking place in Spain. If people knew before the elections that the attack was done by Al-Qaeda, the Popular Party, which is Aznar’s party, would lose many votes because the public would blame the government for the attack. Many newspapers and TV programs also said the attack was done by ETA but before the election the public realized that the attack had been by Al-Qaeda.

The results of the people finding out the government was lying caused the Popular Party to be defeated by the Socialist Party.

In conclusion, I’d like to say that the best way to face terrorism is by not giving up on the fight. If the bands see that they are getting their objectives, then they will continue killing but if they see what they’re doing is useless, they'll end up stopping their activity just as ETA did.

The trains that Al-Qaeda blew up.