Because I know that some non Spanish speakers that I met in the last months (and others that are interested in knowing a bit more about the situation of Spain and about some of the topics that we talk about in this web page), I’m going to try to explain the political and social situation of Spain in the last days after the terrorist attack of the 30th of December of 2006. Anyway the new government, who has a political pact with the most radical parties of the country since the elections of 2004, like the independentists of Catalonia, or the communists of IU, didn’t respect the pact and started the conversations with the murderers… There were a lot of meetings of the association for of the victims of the terrorism against this conversations, thousands of hundreds of persons went to the streets of Spain for screaming to Mr Zapatero and to his government that we were not in favour of what they were doing, but they didn’t listen to us and to the opposition party either…
Nine months ago the terrorist group ETA, who has been killing people since 30 years ago (almost one thousand persons have been murdered by them), announced a stop in their military activity against the democracy. The government of Mr Zapatero, the prime minister who got the power because of another terrorist attacks on March of 2004 with two hundred people dead, three days before the general elections, accepted with a big smile the announcement of the terrorists and broke the pact for the freedom against the terrorism signed with the "Partido Popular" a few years ago… This pact, which was proposed by Zapatero when the last prime minister, Mr. Aznar, was on the power in the 2000, said that the two most important political parties of the country (the only political options for governing Spain), those who accepted the constitution and the laws, were supposed to work together and never negotiate with the terrorists any more because in the short democratic history of our nation they had showed to the democracy that the only thing that they have been looking for is to murder and to kidnap people and also because the other truces that they had announced were completely false…
The band, as always, has used the truces for becoming stronger and more powerful, but only the French police accepted that after the terrorist attacks of the 30th it happened in Spain again. Our government, the government of the peace and the dialogs with the terrorists, has not accepted this to the public opinion of Spain already. The attempt, which cost the life of two persons the other day is just the beginning of what is coming, because the band is much stronger now… What can we do? What is the president of the government supposed to do in this situation when he has been totally wrong all this time? Some people here have been telling him that he was absolutely wrong all the time, but now is the moment that there are not more conversations with the ETA and now is the moment of the true… What would happen in the rest of the countries of the world in the similar situation? Well, I can imagine what would happen in a normal nation… But for sure that nothing is going to happen here because, as we usually say… Spain is different…
Sólo un apunte: Manifestación se dice “demonstration”. Por si alguien no entiende lo de las manifas de la AVT.
Comment by snipfer — 4 January, 2007 @ 6:17 pm
It is possible to use the word “meeting” when you talk about a huge number of persons expresing their feelings and their emotions against or in favour of something in the streets… Anyway this post is not about english, it has just been writing in english because i think that some non spanierds are interested in knowing something about our country, so please, make comments about the issue that we are talking about…
Thank you anyway…
Comment by Winston — 4 January, 2007 @ 6:35 pm
Spain is not so different: like everywhere else in the world, there are different opinions and different ways to approach reality.
The author of this post does not represent all of them (not even the most common).
The so called “pact for the freedom against the terrorism” did not said a word about “never negotiating with the terrorist anymore”, it was more about pulling away terrorism from the political discussion, and showing unity of the two big parties against it.
SInce it lost the 2004 election the Popular Party (and the media close to it) has been using terrorism in their political agenda against the Goverment, not to say that has been feeding conspirational theories about the M-11 attacks, trying to make people believe that ETA (or even the PSOE) was behind them. It was a 100% legal election, with a huge participation, but they have never accepted they lost it.
By the way, the same PP that now talks about the Pacto simply “forgot “to follow use it during the days after the Madrid attacks in march 11. And while media and intelligence services all over the world talked about Al-qaeda as the responsible of the bombs, the PP kept pointing at ETA without any evidence.
Another interesting point, a lot of the people that says that in 2004 ETA was “almost a dead band”, says at the same time that the M-11 attack (the biggest in spanish history) was done by them. Is there any logic here?.
Although the PP has been using the main victim association, and its media, against the Peace Process, the polls showed that the spanish opinion was happy about this process, and in the Basque Country more than 80% of the population.
Quite different from 2003, when the 90% of spaniards opposed Aznar´s support to the Iraq disaster. Would Mr. Bush have supported that war with 90% of the USA against it? I don´t think so. I guess sometimes it´s true SPAIN IS DIFFERENT.
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By the way, there are more than two parties with options to be in Governments all over Spain. The situation here is not like in the USA, only two big parties count. Here only in Catalonia, for example, there are six parties that could have been in the Government of the Generalitat. In different moments of our democracy other parties as PNV, CIU, IU, CC or ER had something to say in the parliament.
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After the attack, the PP, and its media, in a situation never seen before in our democracy, has been using it against the Government. Protests of the so called “victims” have accused Zapatero of being a “murderer”.
For the first time in our democracy the opposition party has called for the presence of the president in the Parliament after a terrorist Attack. And the media close to the PP has attacked Zapatero for not going to the terrorist “ground zero” in the first three days… well is the FIRST time a president of our nation visits the place where a bomb exploded…
and so on…
Comment by Otro Español — 4 January, 2007 @ 6:45 pm
After the 11M bombings in Madrid the government explained all the police investigation in real time. Before the 14M elections, only 2 days after the bombings, 5 islamists where detained by the police and the spanish people was informed by the interior ministry. The same day, Mr Acebes reported abaout the discovery of a stolen van containing seven detonators and an Arabic language tape close to a Madrid station. All before the 14M general elections in Spain.
Who was stealing the truth those days?
Comment by daimon — 4 January, 2007 @ 7:47 pm
Spain is different because we are the only country who stops the police attacks to a terrorist group because this group of terrorists says that they want to stop their military activities… It means that they want to stop killing people for a while… In a normal country, with a normal government, the attitude that all the democratic instruments of the State should take in this case should be to keep working even harder against the murderers with the law and with the constitution…
The pact for the freedom against the terrorism said that the big parties should be together against the terrorism in Spain, never in favour of it… And what the government of Spain has been doing during these months has been not to fight against the persons that now (only a few days ago) killed two persons and more than eight hundred in the last years… U don’t talk with terrorists, you fight against them, cause terrorist are not normal persons, they can not rationalize, ETA has showed us since these long and terrible years full of murders that when they start conversations with any government they just use this dark time for stilling guns and making themselves stronger, much stronger than before… Just one hour ago the police has found a car with explosives ready for been exploted and, therefore, for killing more and more people.
The association for the victims of the terrorism has gone to the streets of Spain so many times because they were just asking about some respect for their dead people, cause they think, like us and the opposition party, that if the democratic government gives something, anything, to the terrorist, it means that they are recognizing, somehow, that they had some right when they were killing so many people… And sorry if someone feels offended, but that’s insane!
ETA was almost dead on the 2004, everybody knows that, I’m not going to talk about what happened the days after March 11 and before the general elections on the 14th of the same month because it makes me to feel sic when I remember the people of the left political side of Spain defending that the responsibility of the 200 people dead was of the government of the PP. What we are asking about NOW is to start with the pact again because the Socialist party broke it, we want to hear in the parliament that never any more, any government is going to negotiate or talk with any terrorist group… And we don’t want to hear the minister of the GAL (a group done by the last socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez for killing illegally “terrorists”, that finally were not criminals) saying that.
We want to hear the president of the government, that was on vacations during these 4 days after the attack (at the same time that the families were suffering and the forces of the state working in barajas), explaining to the public opinion and to the media (I’m tired of hearing the media of the left trying to defend the president with stupid arguments) that the negotiations are NOT POSSIBLE any more. We want him to explain us what does “his energy for finding the peace” mean… We want to hear that from him… And we want to because the “energy of ETA” for finding the peace means that they like to prepare cars full of dinamit for murdering people, like one hour ago…
When I talk about parties with possibilities for governing the country I talk about the state, the nation. Or do you think that IU or Ciu can govern Spain?
By the way, it is increidible the attitude of the people of the left when they know that they are not right about anything, starting to talk about another topics like Irak or March 11 when the main topic is that this government is dying because of the incompetence and the mistakes of his president…
Comment by Winston — 4 January, 2007 @ 7:53 pm
Zapatero is not a murderer but he began talking with terrorists at the same time he was signing the pact for the freedom against the terrorism.
And it’s false that the pact “did not said a word about “never negotiating with the terrorist anymore”. You can read in the pact:
“Por ello, el PP y el PSOE nos comprometemos a trabajar para que desaparezca cualquier intento de legitimación política directa o indirecta, de la violencia. Por eso, también, afirmamos públicamente que de la violencia terrorista no se extraerá, en ningún caso, ventaja o rédito político alguno.”
As you can read, “no political advantatge or return” it’s the same to “never negotiating” with terrorists.
Comment by daimon — 4 January, 2007 @ 8:07 pm
It was not until the evening of the 13th of march, when the islamist were detained, that the Goverment
accepted it was not ETA.
Until that moment, without ANY EVIDENCE they kept saying that the ETA was the ONLY strong possibility.
It was not so important to give “real time” information as to talk only from the REAL EVIDENCE you had.
If Aznar, and his team, had left open both possibilities since the attack happened, and he had call
the ANTITERRORIST PACT for reunion, the PP could still be in the Government. But those days he maintained
secret reunions, called all the other parties to protest under the title he chose ( “for the constitution” against the Basques nacionalists),
kept the policy of blaming ETA until reality proved other thing…
Yes they gave all the information about the evidence they kept finding (the van, the tape) but the 13th
at 14:30h Acebes kept saying that ETA was the MAIN INVESTIGATION LINE. I insist, NEVER has been found ANY
EVIDENCE that connects ETA to the bombings. Their only reason to beleive it was ETA was not an evidence, was the belief that
ETA had tried to do something similar in the past.
It was like saying, yes it flies like a duck, swims like a duck, walks like a duck, but we believe it´s probably a bull, because someone told
us that normally you see bulls around here.
It was not “stealing the truth”, but they did a great job “redirecting” it.
Comment by Otro Español — 4 January, 2007 @ 8:19 pm
You say:
“As you can read, “no political advantatge or return” it’s the same to “never negotiating” with terrorists.”
I think you are making a convenient interpretation of that… ¡it doesn´t look the same for me!.
If you see it that way I guess I´ll have to spend a lot of time discussing with you (time that unfortunately I don´t have).
I think there are ways of negotiating that are not political concessions (like taking ETA prisoners to the Basque Country, like Aznar himself
did).
The pact talks also about the need of peace, and non violence to solve all the problems in the Basque Country. That means that the violence needs to be prosecuted, but it also means that once people renounces to violence you need to TALK. And to TALK is to Negotiate
Anyway, I just wanted, at least, to show to “your non Spanish speakers”, that in Spain there are different visions of “the political and social situation”. Mine could be wrong, but I´m sure yours its not the ONLY, neither the most popular one.
Comment by Otro Español — 4 January, 2007 @ 8:39 pm
I’m not going to talk about the situation of Spain in March of 2004 because what you are trying to do is tu focus the topic now in this issue, and the post, and the international and national opinion now is much more interested in the ETA at the moment…
What means to talk with a terrorist? Negotiate? About what? What are you supposed to give to a terrorist after a negotiation? Maybe a price for not killing any more? Why? A price because the terrorist won some recognition because of the good job done in the last years? Come on… What the democratic governments have to do, is to fight against the terror and the murders, not to potent this phenomenon…
And, as you say, our opinion is not the only one, but I’m not as sure as you are about that yours is the most popular one. At least, what happened in the last days gives us the right… If you negotiate with a murderer, the only thing that you are going to get is… More murders…
And I’m really glad that you are here expressing us the opinion of the other side of the popular opinion of the spaniards, because now the foreigners know how terrible is our situation with people, like you, saying that it is necessary to negotiate with the terrorists…
Comment by Winston — 5 January, 2007 @ 4:06 am