AS SPAIN prepares to take over the EU presidency for the next six months, the government has warned of the threat of a “spectacular” Eta attack to attract attention during the presidency and show the world it is still dangerous and far from defeated.
Speaking in unusually blunt terms, interior minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba gave a clear warning of a possible kidnap of one or more “significant” personalities whom Eta planned to seize in order to attract publicity at a time when international media was focused on Spain.
He admitted it was unusual to give such a warning but he had done so “in order that no one lowers their guard”. He said he had tipped off potential targets – whom he did not name – to allow them to step up security measures.
Mr Rubalcaba issued his warnings during a visit to the Basque Country where he held talks with Rodolfo Ares, the Basque government’s head of the interior, on co-operation between the central and regional police forces in their fight against Eta.
Mr Rubalcaba said in a radio interview that Eta was going through a very difficult period.
“It is being persecuted relentlessly by the police and the courts, isolated socially and under international pressure, particularly from France, also suffering internal divisions within its own ranks,” he said.
It was not hard to predict that Eta would plan something spectacular to show it was still alive and a kidnapping seemed the most likely action since it would put it in the spotlight without spilling blood, he added.
Mr Rubalcaba’s decision to speak so openly about the kidnap threat has met with harsh criticism from both the police and paramilitary Civil Guard unions who complain they only learned of the threat through the media.
The Civil Guard union accused the minister of harming the anti-terrorist movement by “polishing his crystal ball” in public, and the police union said Mr Rubalcaba was “giving Eta the publicity it was lacking by putting them into the limelight when the only time they were being talked about was in reports of an arrest”.
The last time Eta kidnapped an official was in July 1997 when it seized Miguel Angel Blanco, a young Popular Party town councillor from Ermua, near San Sebastian, and threatened to kill him unless Eta prisoners were released. When its demands were ignored, Mr Blanco was shot and killed.
His murder provoked a massive anti-Eta movement, one which still reverberates today and has probably deterred Eta from further kidnappings.
Intense anti-Eta pressure through arrests and seizure of arms and explosives has had its effects within the movement. Three people, all members of the security forces, have died in Eta violence this year. In June, a policeman was killed when a limpet bomb was detonated under his car near Bilbao, and two weeks later, two young Civil Guards died in a car bomb explosion in the tourist resort of Palmanova.
Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who ended his visits to the 28 European capitals last weekend with a brief stopover in Cyprus, has made it clear that, in addition to other priorities, defence and terrorism will all play an important role in the Spanish presidency.