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Explosives blow up Spain's hopes for peace with Basques

Last Updated: Friday, January 5, 2007 | 3:33 PM ET

CBC News

A representative of Spain's ruling party has admitted the government's hopes for peace with separatists are in trouble after police found hundreds of kilograms of explosives in Basque areas on Thursday and Friday.

"We have to recognize that there was a problem of information and no dialogue," Socialist party official Jose Blanco told a Spanish radio station. "We have to analyze what happened to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future," he said.

Blanco made the comments a week after a car bomb killed two people at Madrid's airport, and after police found 80 kilograms of explosives and bomb-making materials hidden in two caches near the Basque towns of Amorebieta and Durango on Friday.

On Thursday, officials found 100 kilograms of explosives in the same area.

The Basque separatist group ETA proclaimed a ceasefire last summer and Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in June that the government would start peace talks with the rebels.

But negotiations never began, and while ETA has not formally said it was behind the Dec. 30 attack in Madrid, a man claiming to represent the group phoned a warning to officials.

ETA wants an independent Basque state. More than 800 people have died in violence over 40 years, although the Madrid airport bomb caused the first deaths in more than three years.

An Ecuadorian, Carlos Alonso Palate, 35, was found in the debris on Wednesday. On Friday, firefighters spotted what may be the body of another Ecuadorian, Diego Armando Estacio, 19.

This story is now closed to commenting.

Internal Links

Madrid airport blast breaks ETA ceasefire
Spain formally announces peace talks with Basque rebels
Spain
ETA

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