SPAIN: Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero visits the Madrid's Airport bomb site

After thanking rescue workers, firemen and police who have been working on the blast site at Madrid's airport, the Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero declared that his will to see an end to ETA violence is undiminished by this attack. "Just a few days after this grave attack the energy and determination I have to see the end of violence, to gain peace, is much greater. Nothing, nobody nor that which we have suffered on the 30th, will stop the right of all Spaniards' lives to be lives without bombs and without violence. And I am firmly convinced that we will achieve it'' Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told thursday (January 4) after his visit to the blast site. It was the first ETA attack to claim a life for more than three years and ended a nine-month ceasefire. The Spanish government sees Batasuna as ETAs political wing. The banned party refuses either to admit to links with the guerrillas or to condemn its attacks, in which more than 800 people have been killed in four decades of separatist struggle. A split between Batasuna and ETA could further complicate attempts to negotiate a solution to the Basque conflict, which began in the final phase of the Franco dictatorship when the regions distinctive language and culture were suppressed. ETA has not claimed responsibility for the attack, although the government said that one of three warning calls received in the hour before the blast claimed to be from the guerrillas. The last ETA killings took place in May 2003 when a car bomb killed two policemen in the northern Spanish town of Sanguesa. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was due to visit the scene of the explosion on Thursday morning but has called off the visit after meeting the families of the two victims at their hotel. Batasuna had warned for months of a crisis in the peace process that Zapatero began in June. Batasuna wants to be legalised again, as well as demanding police ease pressure on Basque nationalists and that ETA prisoners be transferred to jails closer to the Basque Country. About one in seven Basques support Batasuna, polls show.

ITN Source | January 5, 2007

Tags:. .prisoners. .demanding. .solution. .rescue. .legalised