New Basque leader vows to combat ETA

The new leader of the Basque government in Spain said that he will combat armed separatist group ETA.

"I will be a president who will fight ETA day in and day out," Basque Socialist Party leader Patxi Lopez said to the regional legislature shortly before he was elected as Basque President. Lopez became the first non-nationalist Basque head in three decades after he was backed by two of Spain’s traditional parties: the leftist socialists and the right-wing Popular Party.

With no-pro-ETA groups elected to the Basque parliament, Lopez’ minority government will focus on combating the separatists as well as improving the region’s ailing economy:

"We are closer to the end of ETA but we have not arrived at that point yet," he said in a reference to a recent wave of arrests of members of the outfit in Spain as well as across the border in France.

In its latest statement ETA warned that Mr. Lopez's government would be its "priority target"…

His government plans to abolish subsidies for associations representing imprisoned ETA, ban public tributes to members of the outfit and provide Basque police with more means to fight the group.

It also intends to halt a program aimed at making Basque the main language in school, with children given the option to study mainly in Spanish if their families want them to.

As we’ve mentioned previously, rumors have linked ETA to other rebel armies such as Colombia’s FARC.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- Time, The Telegraph, The Latin Americanist, AP

Beyond Borders: Bomb explodes in Madrid

Spanish authorities have blamed Basque separatist group ETA for detonating a car bomb in Madrid.

The explosive was placed in an auto in Madrid's business district and may have targeted a transportation firm working on a high-speed rail line. The bomb has not claimed any fatalities yet has caused some extensive material damage. The Red Cross organized a rapid evacuation before the explosion and after receiving a telephone warning ahead of the blast.

If ETA was behind the bombing then that would signal the group’s first attack on the Spanish capital in about two years.

Today’s bombing comes hours after two Basque political parties supposedly tied to ETA were banned from local elections:

Spain's supreme court backed Sunday a government request to bar two Basque pro-independence parties from regional elections next month, judicial sources said…

The government and prosecutors charged that Democracy Three Million (D3M) and Askatasuna have links to the armed Basque separatist group ETA and its political arm Batasuna, which the court outlawed in 2003.

Anti-terrorist Judge Baltasar Garzon is to hand down a separate decision Tuesday on whether to suspend the parties' political activities.

Image- AFP
Online Sources- AFP, Guardian UK, CNN, UPI, Times Online