Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
04MADRID4627
2004-12-09 08:09:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Madrid
Cable title:  

WEEKEND BOMBINGS MASK DECLINING ETA CAPABILITIES

Tags:  PTER PGOV SP 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MADRID 004627 

SIPDIS

S/CT
DS/IP/EUR
DS/ICI/PII
DS/DSS/ITA
DS/DSS/OSAC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/05/2014
TAGS: PTER PGOV SP
SUBJECT: WEEKEND BOMBINGS MASK DECLINING ETA CAPABILITIES

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Bob Manzanares; reason 1.5 (B) and (D)
.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MADRID 004627

SIPDIS

S/CT
DS/IP/EUR
DS/ICI/PII
DS/DSS/ITA
DS/DSS/OSAC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/05/2014
TAGS: PTER PGOV SP
SUBJECT: WEEKEND BOMBINGS MASK DECLINING ETA CAPABILITIES

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Bob Manzanares; reason 1.5 (B) and (D)
.


1. (C) Summary. ETA terrorists carried out twelve bombings in
two sets of coordinated attacks during the December 3-6
holiday weekend in Spain. The bombs consisted of small
devices and there were no fatalities, though 10-20 people
sustained minor injuries. The first series of bombings took
place the evening of December 3 in five gas stations around
Madrid, attacks evidently aimed at disrupting the exodus of
holiday travelers streaming out of the city. ETA issued a
warning before the second set of bombings, which took place
at 1330 local time on December 6. Most observers are
interpreting the attacks as an ETA show of force after months
of dramatic reverses due to police arrests of top ETA
militants. These bombings notwithstanding, Basque security
officials, politicians, and journalists from across the
political spectrum recently told us that ETA is in a steep
decline from which it cannot recover. A thornier question is
how the 130,000 militant Basque nationalists who currently
accept ETA's methods can be drawn into the legitimate
political process, and how nationalists and non-nationalists
can co-exist in the face of radically different views on the
Basque Region's political direction. End Summary.

//THE BOMBINGS//


2. (U) After months of arrests of key ETA leaders and
organizers by Spanish and French police, ETA struck back with
two sets of simultaneous bombings in eight cities across
Spain, including Madrid, Leon, Valladolid, Avila, Ciudad
Real, Santillana del Mar (Cantabria),Alicante, and Malaga.
Another explosive device was deactivated by police in Almeria
and police responded to a false bomb threat against Popular
Party (PP) headquarters in downtown Madrid. The first round
of five explosions occured on December 3 at approximately
1700 hours at gas stations along major exit routes from
Madrid. The bombings were preceded by calls to the Basque
newspaper "Gara" warning of the impending attacks. The
selection of the targets was evidently intended to disrupt
the large number of Madrid residents leaving the city for the
long "Constitution Day" weekend.


3. (U) On December 6, Spanish Constitution Day, "Gara" again
received a telephone call warning that explosives had been
placed in specific locations in Valladolid, Leon, Avila, and
Santillana del Mar. This was followed by a second call
warning of bombs in Alicante, Malaga, and Ciudad Real. Most
of the explosives had been placed in restaurants near plazas
and tourist sites. Police were able to evacuate potential
victims from most of the sites, though a total of 10-20
persons suffered minor injuries in Santillana del Mar and
Ciudad Real. Damage from the bombings varied, with some
restaurants gutted by the blasts and other sites suffering
scarcely any damage.


4. (U) Police believe two separate ETA "comandos" (cells)
carried out the bombings, with one cell organizing the
Malaga, Alicante, and Ciudad Real attacks while the second
cell placed devices in Avila, Valladolid, Leon, and
Sanitillana del Mar. Police are uncertain which ETA cell
carried out the Madrid bombings. Each of the devices
contained approximately 300 grams of an explosive material,
which police believe to be a substance identical to that
typically employed by ETA. Police sources told reporters
that the bombs were superior to recent ETA devices and that
similarties among them point to a single, highly-qualified
bomb maker.

//PROOF OF LIFE//


5. (U) Most commentators are characterizing the attacks as a
show of force by ETA to demonstrate that it retains a
military and organizational capacity despite political
setbacks and months of police arrests of top ETA militants by
French and Spanish police. During the year, authorities have
arrested dozens of terrorist suspects and members of ETA's
logistical support network (including ETA leader Mikel
Antza),six jailed ETA members wrote a letter calling for an
end to the armed conflict, and Batasuna, ETA's political
wing, suggested peace talks might be possible (though
Batasuna did not renounce ETA violence). The Constitution
Day attacks are interpreted as the rejection by ETA fighters
of calls for them to lay down their arms and pursue a
political solution. At the same time, ETA's care to avoid
fatalities, as it has for the last 18 months, is seen as an
acknowledgement of their weak political position and the
growing rejection of violent methods in the wake of the March
11 train bombings and prior ETA attacks.

//BASQUE OBSERVERS: ETA IN ITS FINAL PHASE//


6. (C) The ETA bombings came one day after Basque Government
officials, Basque politicians, and journalists who cover ETA
told us that conditions in the Basque region have shifted
against ETA and that the organization is in a state of rapid
and irreversible decline. Basque Government Deputy Adviser
for Security Mikel Legarda said that over his six years in
the Basque Interior Department Basque, Spanish, and French
police have steadily chipped away at ETA's military base and
that a definitive end to the conflict is very likely within
the next few years. Criticizing the uniformly tough approach
of the Aznar government, Legarda said it was important to be
"practical" in this final phase, continuing to erode ETA
capabilities while avoiding fanning the flames of radical
nationalism. "I don't care whether I convince them of the
rightness my position, as long as they are convinced that the
armed struggle has been a total failure."


7. (C) Legarda and Basque Secretary General for External
Affairs Inaki Aguirre told poloff that the ruling Basque
Nationalist Party (PNV) is attempting to strangle political
support for ETA by co-opting some of ETA's political
positions. In particular, PNV leader Ibarretxe's effort to
bring about a new agreement with Madrid expanding the scope
of Basque autonomy (Plan Ibarretxe) is directly aimed at the
130,000 Basque voters who currently support Batasuna and, by
implication, ETA's radical methods. Legarda and Aguirre said
tolerance for ETA violence has declined in every sector of
the Basque nationalist camp, with the exception of this group
of voters located mostly in Guipuzcoa province, the bastion
of radical Basque nationalism. The PNV believes that by
proving it can gain greater independence from Madrid through
legal methods it can discredit ETA among its core supporters
and make a continuation of the armed struggle untenable. The
PNV expects to lose a December 30 Basque Parliament vote on
whether to move forward with Plan Ibarretxe, a loss the PNV
intends to use to rally nationalist support (including from
Batasuna supporters) during Basque regional elections in May

2005.

//NON-NATIONALIST VIEWS ON ETA AND BASQUE NATIONALISM//


8. (C) Non-nationalist interlocutors in the PP and the
Socialist Party agreed with the PNV's analysis of declining
popular support for ETA and with the notion that ETA is in
its last years, but strongly disagreed with the PNV's
description of the motives behind Plan Ibarretxe. Santiago
Abascal, a PP youth leader and member of the Basque
Parliament, described the PNV to poloff as "enemies, not
political adversaries" and insisted that Plan Ibarretxe was a
thinly disguised effort by the PNV to solidify its political
control over the Basque Region at the expense of other
groupings. Jon Juaristi, a prominent academic from a Basque
nationalist family who has gradually shifted to
anti-nationalist positions, said the PNV can't fathom the
possibility of losing political control in the Basque Region
and will compromise with ETA as needed in order to retain
that control. Juaristi asserted that the PNV and other
nationalist groups consider ETA "part of the family" and,
while genuinely against ETA violence, they are loath to see
ETA firmly crushed by Spanish security forces. Both Juaristi
and Abascal have been identified as targets in ETA documents
seized by police.

//CAN A MILITANT ETA SURVIVE?//


9. (C) Basque journalist and long-time ETA observer Oscar
Beltran told poloff that he expects to "stop having to write
about ETA in less than five years." He said that ETA
terrorist leader Josu Ternera is near death from a medical
condition, creating more instability at the top of the
organization. Beltran's fear is that ETA will respond as it
has in past crises, by bringing back semi-retired cadres from
Latin America to reconstitute the organization. Beltran, a
specialist on ETA relations with Latin American
revolutionaries, said that ETA members who worked with
Nicaragua's Sandinistas form a particularly skilled group
that could reestablish order and train new members in basic
operational methods. Interestingly, Beltran had heard rumors
within radical circles that with the disappearance of France
as a safe-haven and the decline of French-language
instruction in Basque schools, more and more ETA activists
are establishing themselves in the United Kingdom while not
in action. Though ETA has the power to extend its life
through such adaptations, Beltran ventured that nothing can
save it from the decline in nationalist fervor in the Basque
Country (except among core ETA supporters) coupled with
improved effectiveness by security forces.

//COMMENT//


10. (C) ETA is clearly in a state of decline, but the small
group of radicals (fielding perhaps no more than 50
operatives) continues to cast a long shadow over the Basque
political landscape. Conversations with various sectors
revealed a continuing deep insecurity and mistrust among the
different political groups, divisions based on radically
different views of national identity and an ingrained sense
of victimhood within all the major factions. With the
population nearly evenly divided between nationalists and
non-nationalists, there is little likelihood of change in the
political equation that has guaranteed PNV power since the
fall of Franco, but power in the face of a strong opposition
backed by Madrid. The good news is that, to a greater extent
than at any time in the last 30 years, observers are
beginning to speak of the post-ETA era as inevitable, rather
than a desirable, but unlikely eventuality.
MANZANARES