US embassy cable - 04MADRID4627

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, Counterterrorism 
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