BASQUE TERRORIST GROUP ETA STEPS UP OPERATIONAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MADRID 001055 SIPDIS FOR EUR/WE - ESAMSON AND S/CT - MNORMAN E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/02/2018 TAGS: PGOV PTER PINS SP SUBJECT: BASQUE TERRORIST GROUP ETA STEPS UP OPERATIONAL TEMPO Classified By: DCM Arnold A. Chacon for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The Basque terrorist group ETA (Basque Fatherland and Liberty) has conducted a series of bombing attacks in Spain in recent weeks as a "show of force" to counter Spanish judicial efforts to outlaw political parties affiliated with ETA. The Zapatero government and all opposition parties in Madrid have unanimously denounced the attacks, in a rare show of unity among counter-terrorism policy in Spain since 2004. Basque political officials and Spanish security officials consulted by the Embassy expect ETA's violence to continue in the coming months and suspect that ETA is all but certain to conduct attacks in the run-up to the regional elections in the Basque Country in February or March of 2009. END SUMMARY. //RECENT JUDICIAL RULINGS// ¶2. (SBU) As part of a broader judicial sweep by the GOS to deny ETA-related political parties the right to a role in the legitimate political process, the Spanish Supreme Court has thwarted attempts by various ETA sympathizers in the Basque Country to re-organize themselves under different political umbrellas ever since ETA's long-time political arm, Batasuna, was outlawed in 2003. On September 16, the Supreme Court unanimously outlawed the Basque Nationalist Action (ANV) and ordering its dissolution as a political party (which means its deletion from Registry of Political Parties). The ruling also prohibited the ANV from organizing any public events and froze all of its assets. The ruling means that the ANV municipal groups must also be dissolved. ANV governs in 42 city halls in the Basque Country and Navarra, it has 337 town council members in the Basque Country and other 97 in Navarra. The ANV will no longer receive public financing, and its offices and facilities will be closed down. ANV,s elected members cannot be expelled from the city halls to where they were elected, and they will be receiving their salaries, but they will no longer represent ANV and will need to join the "Grupo Mixto." Two days later, the Court unanimously outlawed the Communist Party of the Basque Lands (PCTV),which has nine representatives in the Basque Parliament, on the same grounds. Both parties can appeal the decision to the Constitutional Court, and to the EU Court of Strasbourg after that. On October 4, as many as 15,000 people reportedly took part in a demonstration in Bilbao, the economic engine of the Basque country, to protest the recent judicial rulings and show their support for ETA. //ETA RESPONDS WITH ATTACKS// ¶3. (C) During September 20-22, ETA conducted three car-bomb attacks in roughly 24 hours, one of which proved fatal. The first attack, which targeted the headquarters of a regional savings bank in the Basque capital of Vitoria with 82 kilos of explosives, caused extensive damage but no injuries. The second attack occurred a few hours later on a police station in the Basque town of Ondarra. ETA did not issue a customary warning call for police to clear the area in the second attack, but rather threw Molotov cocktails to lure police forces out of their building before detonating a car bomb with 100 kilos of explosives, resulting in 11 injuries. The third attack, at about 1:00 on Monday morning, targeted a military academy in Santoa, in the neighboring region of Cantabria. The attack killed Sergeant Major Luis Conde de la Cruz, wounded six other people - one seriously - and caused extensive damage. POLOFF met on September 29 with Mikel Burzako Samper, Director of Foreign Affairs for the Presidency of the Basque Government, and former Spanish Senator, Pedro "Pello" Caballero Lasquibar, who is now a delegate from the Basque Government to Madrid. (Both are members of the Basque National Party or PNV). Both suggested the choice of targets in these three attacks symbolized ETA's abhorrence of capitalism, the Basque police force, and the Spanish army. More recently, on October 4, ETA exploded a 10-kilo bomb at the door of the courthouse in the Basque city of Tolosa, which caused extensive damage and reportedly narrowly missed killing a security guard. ¶4. (SBU) ETA,s bombings since the judicial ruling have marked an increase in operational tempo for the group. The death of Conde on September 22 raised to three the number of people killed in ETA attacks in 2008, making it the group's deadliest year since the Zapatero government took office in ¶2004. In the days before the rulings, ETA had already been actively carrying out a series of operations, which included a number of near-misses. In mid-September, ETA placed a bomb under the private vehicle of a Spanish National Police officer, although the bomb failed to detonate. The group also placed an unexploded device on the doorstep of a Basque MADRID 00001055 002 OF 002 policeman. The National Court is looking into whether ETA is behind a bizarre recent kidnapping case in Madrid in which a gardener was kidnapped but released an hour later after the kidnappers realized he was not a town hall official. In a suspected incident of ETA-influenced street violence, two cars were burned in Bilbao and two others damaged by unknown persons. ¶5. (C) Joaquin Collado Callau, an adviser to Deputy Interior Minister Antonio Camacho, told POLOFF on September 29 that the attacks on September 20-22 was ETA's answer to the recent judicial rulings and was the group's way of saying, "We're still here and are a force to reckoned with." Collado noted that the Spanish police have made important strides against the terrorist group since the end of its unilateral "permanent ceasefire" in mid-2007. He pointed out that a series of police arrests that detained a number of alleged key leaders and operational figures have significantly weakened the organization. //PP AND PSOE SEE EYE-TO-EYE ON RESPONSE// ¶6. (SBU) The division between the PP and the incumbent Socialists that marked counter-terrorism policy during the Zapatero government's first term in office (2004-08) appears to have abated. All of the parties in the Congress unanimously condemned ETA's attacks, especially the death of Conde, and agreed to a joint declaration of unity and strength against terrorism, something which the Spanish press noted had not been done in years. In particular, the press focused on the reaction of the center-right Popular Party (PP) and its support of the joint statement and suggested that the PP is no longer isolating itself in parliament by insisting that the joint declaration include a specific refusal to hold dialogue with the terrorist group. The PP had bitterly opposed the Zapatero's government's efforts to conduct talks with ETA after the group declared its ceasefire in 2006 but refused to lay down its arms. The PP had further argued at the time that the Zapatero government was breaking a pact it had signed years before with the PP in which both parties agreed to present a united front against ETA, to prevent the terrorist group from playing one party off against the other. PP officials reportedly say their party did not insist on a specific mention refusing any attempts at dialogue with ETA because, in the aftermath of the band's deadly bombing in 2006 while the ceasefire was still in force, the Socialists have now ruled out further plans for talks and it would not have been necessary for the PP to force the issue. Meanwhile, some political analysts see less dogmatic move by PP leader Mariano Rajoy as part of a broader effort to make his party more appealing to centrist voters. //MORE ATTACKS EXPECTED// ¶7. (C) Following the arrests of several members of one of ETA's most active cells this past summer, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rublacaba publicly declared that he feared that Spain was in for a long series of attacks. These reprisals appear to be coming to pass. Burzako and Caballero predict that ETA will continue to launch attacks in the coming months and opined that how and who ETA chooses to attack will be important. They claimed that ETA is especially likely to attempt to disrupt the upcoming regional elections in the Basque Country, expected to take place in February or March of 2009, and suggested that ETA will "surely" launch an attack in the final week before the election. The duo noted that it is incumbent upon ETA to be the ones who decide to lay down their arms, but in the aftermath of failed talks with the government in 2006, the group is now being run by younger and more hard-core nationalists who are not disposed to negotiating with Madrid. They also opined that ETA will launch these attacks so that they can be in a position of strength in any possible future discussions with Madrid. Similarly, Burzako and Caballero discounted press reports that ETA sympathizers will seek to place sympathetic persons with clean records as their candidates in the Basque election, suggesting instead that the roughly 150,000 members of the radical left will abstain in the upcoming vote to hide their lack of strength. CHACON