In Memoriam
This is a continuation of the short biographies of the people killed in the Madrid bombings. Source: La Vanguardia.
Ines Novellon, nurse, 30, Alcala de Henares. Ines was an attractive young woman with long hair and dark eyes; she knew how to belly-dance and was the life of the party. She lived with her boyfriend; they had just bought an apartment. She also leaves a sister. Thursday was supposed to be Ines's day off, but she traded shifts as a favor to a co-worker.
Francisco Moreno Aragones, accountant, 56, Coslada. Francisco was victim number 200 to die, after three days in intensive care at the Doce de Octubre hospital. He was married and had two daughters and a son; he also leaves his mother, who lives next door to his family. Francisco was currently unemployed; he was traveling into Madrid Thursday morning to go job-hunting.
Ionut Popa, 23, and Petrica Geneva, 34, construction workers, Coslada. Ionut and Petrica were cousins and worked together; their boss, with whom they sometimes went to bars after work, has nothing but the kindest words for them. They were Romanian; both had Romanian girlfriends and lived among the 7000-strong Romanian community in Coslada, along with Petrica's sister. They had come to Madrid only a year ago. Petrica was known as "Pedro" and spoke perfect Spanish; he was a very valuable worker because he could fix anything, electricity, plumbing, and the like. He was also the best driver so he drove the truck.
Maria Dolores Duran Santiago, office worker, 34, Entrevias. Everyone called her "Lola". She was married and had a seventeen-month-old son. She was an avid traveler and reader. Lola had worked for the same company since 1995, and had risen from telephone receptionist to a top administrative position. Her company has established a scholarship fund in her name.
Maria Victoria Leon Moyano, bank employee, 30, Torrejon de Ardoz. She was going to marry her Argentinian boyfriend in June. Maria Victoria was from Malaga and was typically malaguena, outgoing and friendly, but with a serious side too. She met her boyfriend while they were both studying Economics at the university. Maria Victoria was an internal auditor for BSCH, Spain's largest bank. She didn't usually take the train; she was waiting for the delivery of the new car she had bought.
Juan Pastor Ferez, telephone technician, 51, El Pozo. Juan was a rather typical-looking middle-aged Spanish man, a little bald and a little chubby with a mustache. His family remembers him very fondly; they were all very close. He was married with a son and a nine-month-old granddaughter about whom he was crazy. Juan was the technical chief of Madrid's convention hall--he'd worked there for 21 years--, and he had been working double shifts to prepare the hall for the night of the election results, which are announced there. He had installed 180 telephone lines. Juan was well-known and liked among many people, including journalists. He enjoyed fishing and was interested in archaeology.
Maria Teresa Mora Valero, computer operator, and Jose Ramon Moreno Isarch, civil servant, Alcala de Henares. Jose Ramon worked in the regional Family and Social Services department and Teresa had a degree in history; she had worked for more than ten years at the Air Force logistical command. They had been dating for ten years and were living together in an apartment they had just bought in Alcala; they were going to get married in November. Their friends describe them as "cultured and sensitive". They both enjoyed classical music and old movies.
Rex Ferrer Reinado, student, 20, Torrejon de Ardoz. Rex was from the Philippines; first his father came to Spain, then brought over Rex's mother, and finally Rex and his sister in 1998. His father is a waiter in a well-known Madrid restaurant and his mother works in a food-processing factory. Rex graduated from high school in Torrejon and was studying computer science at the university; he also waited tables in a small restaurant part-time. Rex and his sister were going to return to the Philippines during their summer vacation, for the first time since they had left for Spain. He was on his way to a rehearsal for his church choir when his train blew up at Atocha.
Gloria Ines Bedoya, cook, 40, Torrejon de Ardoz. Gloria and her husband were "illegal aliens" from Colombia. She worked as a short-order cook and he works construction. They had been here in Spain for two years and things were not going particularly well; the husband wanted to go back to Colombia, where their children of 15 and 18 are living. Gloria Ines wanted to stay in Spain; she was cheerful and fun-loving, and enjoyed disco dancing and window-shopping. It took them more than 24 hours to identify her body.
Emilian Popescu, house painter, 44, Coslada. Emilian was Romanian. He and his family, who were very close, had been in Spain for eight years; he was married and had two sons, 19 and 15, both fine students whose education Emilian saved and scrimped for. Emilian's wife worked hard, too, as a cleaning woman. Emilian enjoyed sports, playing more than watching; he was religiously observant. His family remembers him above all as a good man. They were saving up to buy their own house.
There are some doubts about the exact number of victims. Forensic scientists have performed 194 autopsies. There are still thirteen body bags left to identify. Says La Vanguardia, in a triumph of euphemism, "Forensic sources said that for now they cannot assure how many persons the cited biological remains correspond to." Of course, investigation is continuing. It is believed that the remains belong to seven different people, because that is the number of missing persons who have still not turned up. So 194 + 7 = 201, which is where that particular number comes from.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
I greatly admire the economist Xavier Sala i Martin, who is both a classical liberal and pro-Catalan independence. Mr. Sala i Martin is a well-known economist who spends part of the year at Columbia in New York, part of the year at the Pompeu Fabra University here, and part of the year volunteering his economic expertise to Third World governments. He also occasionally contributes to the Vanguardia, and is by far their best writer. I happen to disagree with him on the question of Catalan independence, and I like the PP rather more than he does, but I agree with him on almost everything else. Here are a couple of paragraphs from his piece in Wednesday's Vangua. He starts his article with a criticism of what he considers the PP's bungling of the release of public information regarding the bombings and also what he considers the PP's unfairness toward regional political parties that are nationalist or separatist but not violent. Then he switches gears.
Of course I am also saddened by those who, from the other side and with the same glibness, call the members of the People's Party murderers and terrorists. Many affirm that the bombings are the Islamic answer to Spain's participation in the Iraq conflict. I do not know whether that is true. What I do know is that Spain was in the sights of Al Qaeda before the beginning of the war. Bin Laden himself pointed at Spain for having expelled the Muslims of Al Andalus--more than five hundred years ago! Besides, if the Al Qaeda bombings are mere answers to participation in the war, somebody please explain to me the attentats against the UN in Baghdad (wasn't that the institution that was opposed to the Great American Satan?) or those in Istanbul (didn't Turkey stop the American army from passing through their territory right before the invasion?). Or, somebody explain to me the 9-11 bombings, a year and a half before the Baghdad conflict began.
Maybe the participation of Spain in the Iraq war has caused other terrorists to put more emphasis on Spain. I'm not saying that's not true. But let nobody be fooled and think that we will be much safer if we retire the troops. And if the new Government of Spain wants to retire them, let it do so because that is the best thing for the country and not because that's what the terrorists demand. Because, whatever they say (and they talk about Iraq, defending the poor and wanting to reduce inequalities among the citizens of the world), the real reason they kill us is because they hate us. They hate us for being "infidels" and they hate all the social advances we have made in the last centuries: liberal democracy, freedom of expression, separation between church and state, equality between men and women, technology, and material well-being. These are achievements that we must not and cannot renounce and which we will not give up under threat of extortion, no matter how bloody it is. The civilized leaders of the world should understand this and stop fighting among themselves and unite against the common threat.
And, finally, I am saddened that on the day of March 11, the fundamentalists succeeded in changing the results of a democratic lection. No. I am not sorry about the defeat of the PP. In fact, I am happy that Aznarism was swallowed up by its own quicksand of arrogance and incompetence, the victim of the hate it had sown during its administration. But I am afraid that, when they see their new capability to change democratic regimes, the terrorists will think that they can influence other countries in the future and they will try to commit terrible chains of attentats every time there is an election in some part of the planet. Call me a catastrophist. But, just in case, on the week of November 2 (the date of the presidential election in the United States), I will not be in New York.
Of course I am also saddened by those who, from the other side and with the same glibness, call the members of the People's Party murderers and terrorists. Many affirm that the bombings are the Islamic answer to Spain's participation in the Iraq conflict. I do not know whether that is true. What I do know is that Spain was in the sights of Al Qaeda before the beginning of the war. Bin Laden himself pointed at Spain for having expelled the Muslims of Al Andalus--more than five hundred years ago! Besides, if the Al Qaeda bombings are mere answers to participation in the war, somebody please explain to me the attentats against the UN in Baghdad (wasn't that the institution that was opposed to the Great American Satan?) or those in Istanbul (didn't Turkey stop the American army from passing through their territory right before the invasion?). Or, somebody explain to me the 9-11 bombings, a year and a half before the Baghdad conflict began.
Maybe the participation of Spain in the Iraq war has caused other terrorists to put more emphasis on Spain. I'm not saying that's not true. But let nobody be fooled and think that we will be much safer if we retire the troops. And if the new Government of Spain wants to retire them, let it do so because that is the best thing for the country and not because that's what the terrorists demand. Because, whatever they say (and they talk about Iraq, defending the poor and wanting to reduce inequalities among the citizens of the world), the real reason they kill us is because they hate us. They hate us for being "infidels" and they hate all the social advances we have made in the last centuries: liberal democracy, freedom of expression, separation between church and state, equality between men and women, technology, and material well-being. These are achievements that we must not and cannot renounce and which we will not give up under threat of extortion, no matter how bloody it is. The civilized leaders of the world should understand this and stop fighting among themselves and unite against the common threat.
And, finally, I am saddened that on the day of March 11, the fundamentalists succeeded in changing the results of a democratic lection. No. I am not sorry about the defeat of the PP. In fact, I am happy that Aznarism was swallowed up by its own quicksand of arrogance and incompetence, the victim of the hate it had sown during its administration. But I am afraid that, when they see their new capability to change democratic regimes, the terrorists will think that they can influence other countries in the future and they will try to commit terrible chains of attentats every time there is an election in some part of the planet. Call me a catastrophist. But, just in case, on the week of November 2 (the date of the presidential election in the United States), I will not be in New York.
The Vangua reports that President Bush's response to the Spanish elections was, "Al Qaeda knows what the stakes are. They want us to leave Iraq because they are trying to use Iraq as an example of how to overthrow freedom and democracy. (Terrorists) will continue trying to murder innocents so that the world will be frightened. They will never break the will of the United States. It is essential that the free world remain strong, resolved, and decided."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "They want us to bug out of there. We should not permit the terrorists to influence an election or influence a policy." Meanwhile, the Pentagon said, basically, too bad if the Spaniards leave Iraq but we can handle it if they do.
The Italians and the Dutch are not going to bail out on the Coalition. The Poles aren't, either, though they feel rather abandoned by Spain. The Polish government is supposedly about to fall, but I'll believe that when it happens. They said that Poland's 2400 troops will remain in Iraq "at least until the end of the year". Polish troops will stay in Iraq until a new Iraqi government has taken over full authority and control of national security.
Prime Minister Leszek Miller, who has a pair of large brass ones, stated that "Pulling out foreign forces now would mean that the terrorists are right and that they are stronger than the whole civilized world".
Poland is also worried that the new Zap government will bow down to the Frogs and Toads in the EU. Now, this is a total MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over), but there are negotiations going on for a new European Union constitution. One of the sticking points is, of course, how much power each state should have in EU decision making. Germany is the largest state with some 80 million people, and then come France, Italy, and Britain with about sixty million each. It is understood that these larger states will have more power than the rest because this is supposed to be at least sort of democratic and they obviously have more people.
Then, of course, the smaller states like Holland and Greece and the Czech Republic will have fewer votes and less power. Of course. The problem is Spain and Poland, each of which have about forty million people and who fall right in the middle. Basically, what Spain and Poland are arguing is that as the middle powers they ought to have a larger share of the EU power pie. Zap, however, is thought to be ready to ditch the Poles and sign on with the Frogs and the Toads, thereby accepting a smaller share of power inside the EU than what Aznar and Polish PM Miller were holding out for.
The "office pools" are going around in political circles here, just as they're going around in offices all over the United States for the NCAA basketball tournament. These are literally office pools, though, since they're betting on which party hack is going to get what Cabinet office in the new Zap government. Leading guesses, according to the Vangua, are Jesus Caldera as vice-Prime Minister, Jose Montilla at Interior (May God nos coja confesados) or Public Administration, rather more up his alley since he's a party bureaucrat, Miguel Sebastian at Economics, Miguel Angel moratinos at Foreign Affairs, Magdalena Alvarez at Hacienda, and Carmen Calvo at Culture. Supposedly Jose Bono has some sort of new Homeland Security Cabinet seat locked up if he wants it. Looks like the Zap-Blanco Madrid party faction, which supposedly has the support of former Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, won and they're going to get most of the good jobs, beating out the Bono-Ibarra regional barons faction, the Alfonso Guerra hard-left faction, and the Maragall Catalan faction.
Here's Greenpeace: "(Zap's election) means an approach toward the rest of the European Union nations in order to form a bloc differentiated from the United States and from George Bush's Administration, which is marked by a very aggressive policy". Well, as a general rule, if Greenpeace is for it I'm against it, and this statement doesn't make me change my thinking.
Here's Barry Rubin in the Vanguardia, one of the few non-hysterical articles the Vangua has printed since 3/11.
The goal of the terrorists is to provoke the victims to blame their own governments, Israel, or the United States, and not the terrorists themselves. This strategy often works with some sectors of the media of communication, intellectuals, and public opinion, but it rarely results in political changes.
Other European countries will face the new risks of very localized terrorism. Great Britain and Italy are obvious targets because of the iraq question. Also, France might suffer an attack due to the strengthening of its posture against Islamic terrorism and the prohibition of the veil in schools.
Given the proximity of the American elections, specific terrorist attacks might be planned to defeat President George W. Bush. (The subject is complex, since Bush's opponents might react against any insinuation of that sort by alleging that idea [stand up to the terrorists who are trying to defeat Bush] is a partisan attempt to assure the victory of the president.)
The reaction of the Spanish voters to this attack will be the first test of what looks like Al Qaeda's and its allied groups' new strategy.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "They want us to bug out of there. We should not permit the terrorists to influence an election or influence a policy." Meanwhile, the Pentagon said, basically, too bad if the Spaniards leave Iraq but we can handle it if they do.
The Italians and the Dutch are not going to bail out on the Coalition. The Poles aren't, either, though they feel rather abandoned by Spain. The Polish government is supposedly about to fall, but I'll believe that when it happens. They said that Poland's 2400 troops will remain in Iraq "at least until the end of the year". Polish troops will stay in Iraq until a new Iraqi government has taken over full authority and control of national security.
Prime Minister Leszek Miller, who has a pair of large brass ones, stated that "Pulling out foreign forces now would mean that the terrorists are right and that they are stronger than the whole civilized world".
Poland is also worried that the new Zap government will bow down to the Frogs and Toads in the EU. Now, this is a total MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over), but there are negotiations going on for a new European Union constitution. One of the sticking points is, of course, how much power each state should have in EU decision making. Germany is the largest state with some 80 million people, and then come France, Italy, and Britain with about sixty million each. It is understood that these larger states will have more power than the rest because this is supposed to be at least sort of democratic and they obviously have more people.
Then, of course, the smaller states like Holland and Greece and the Czech Republic will have fewer votes and less power. Of course. The problem is Spain and Poland, each of which have about forty million people and who fall right in the middle. Basically, what Spain and Poland are arguing is that as the middle powers they ought to have a larger share of the EU power pie. Zap, however, is thought to be ready to ditch the Poles and sign on with the Frogs and the Toads, thereby accepting a smaller share of power inside the EU than what Aznar and Polish PM Miller were holding out for.
The "office pools" are going around in political circles here, just as they're going around in offices all over the United States for the NCAA basketball tournament. These are literally office pools, though, since they're betting on which party hack is going to get what Cabinet office in the new Zap government. Leading guesses, according to the Vangua, are Jesus Caldera as vice-Prime Minister, Jose Montilla at Interior (May God nos coja confesados) or Public Administration, rather more up his alley since he's a party bureaucrat, Miguel Sebastian at Economics, Miguel Angel moratinos at Foreign Affairs, Magdalena Alvarez at Hacienda, and Carmen Calvo at Culture. Supposedly Jose Bono has some sort of new Homeland Security Cabinet seat locked up if he wants it. Looks like the Zap-Blanco Madrid party faction, which supposedly has the support of former Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, won and they're going to get most of the good jobs, beating out the Bono-Ibarra regional barons faction, the Alfonso Guerra hard-left faction, and the Maragall Catalan faction.
Here's Greenpeace: "(Zap's election) means an approach toward the rest of the European Union nations in order to form a bloc differentiated from the United States and from George Bush's Administration, which is marked by a very aggressive policy". Well, as a general rule, if Greenpeace is for it I'm against it, and this statement doesn't make me change my thinking.
Here's Barry Rubin in the Vanguardia, one of the few non-hysterical articles the Vangua has printed since 3/11.
The goal of the terrorists is to provoke the victims to blame their own governments, Israel, or the United States, and not the terrorists themselves. This strategy often works with some sectors of the media of communication, intellectuals, and public opinion, but it rarely results in political changes.
Other European countries will face the new risks of very localized terrorism. Great Britain and Italy are obvious targets because of the iraq question. Also, France might suffer an attack due to the strengthening of its posture against Islamic terrorism and the prohibition of the veil in schools.
Given the proximity of the American elections, specific terrorist attacks might be planned to defeat President George W. Bush. (The subject is complex, since Bush's opponents might react against any insinuation of that sort by alleging that idea [stand up to the terrorists who are trying to defeat Bush] is a partisan attempt to assure the victory of the president.)
The reaction of the Spanish voters to this attack will be the first test of what looks like Al Qaeda's and its allied groups' new strategy.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
In Memoriam
We are reproducing the biographies of the victims of the Madrid bombings that La Vanguardia is running, since it's about the only thing we can do for the people who died. We will probably forget them soon, much as we protest now, but there are thousands of people who knew them who never will.
Felix Gonzalez Gago, military officer, 52, Alcala de Henares. Felix was a "subteniente" in the Air Force. He had been on a peacekeeping mission in Namibia and had also been at the Spanish Embassy in Chile during four years. He was married and had two sons of 11 and 9 years.
Marion Cintia Subervielle, receptionist, 30, Alcala de Henares. Marion was from France, from a small town near Pau. She had also lived for a time in the United States and in England. She and her Spanish husband had a ten-month-old daughter. She worked at the National Library, and often attended foreigners because of her perfect French and English as well as Spanish. Marion died at Santa Eugenia.
Maria Luisa Polo Remartinez, library worker, 50, Alcobendas. Maria Luisa worked as an assistant at the National Library. She had worked several different jobs in her life; she was married with a 19-year-old daughter. Maria Luisa had a twin sister. Her family didn't fear for her safety at first because she usually took the bus. Thursday she took the train.
Maria Fernandez del Amo, student, 26, Azuqueca de Henares. Maria was in her last year as a student of industrial engineering at the Polytechnic. She had recently bought an apartment and planned to get married. She sang in a choir and was strongly religious. Maria's friends had to charter a bus to get all of them to her funeral.
Francisco Javier Mancebo, auditor, 38, El Pozo. Francisco was on the train that blew up at El Pozo with his son, who survived but with burns over 12% of his body. Francisco Javier was known for his athletic ability; he still played basketball twice a week despite the fact he had a pacemaker. He was a major fan of the Estudiantes basketball team and of Real Madrid in soccer. Francisco Javier was tall and well-built, as fits a basketball player. He was also a hot amateur guitar player; he once tried out for a place in the well-known pop-rock group Los Enemigos. He had a law degree and worked as an auditor for the courts. He leaves his wife, son, and daughter.
Livia Bogdan, cleaner, 27, Coslada, and Juan Munoz Lara, Coslada. Livia arrived in Spain two years ago from her native Romania along with her twin sister; they were following their father, who had come here several years before. She was a very attractive woman, with long dark hair and a rather exotic appearance. On the evening of Wednesday the 10th, Livia and Juan (her boyfriend of four months) brought home some seafood and wine in order to enjoy a first-class dinner. Juan spent the night and the two caught the 7:10 train together that next morning.
We are reproducing the biographies of the victims of the Madrid bombings that La Vanguardia is running, since it's about the only thing we can do for the people who died. We will probably forget them soon, much as we protest now, but there are thousands of people who knew them who never will.
Felix Gonzalez Gago, military officer, 52, Alcala de Henares. Felix was a "subteniente" in the Air Force. He had been on a peacekeeping mission in Namibia and had also been at the Spanish Embassy in Chile during four years. He was married and had two sons of 11 and 9 years.
Marion Cintia Subervielle, receptionist, 30, Alcala de Henares. Marion was from France, from a small town near Pau. She had also lived for a time in the United States and in England. She and her Spanish husband had a ten-month-old daughter. She worked at the National Library, and often attended foreigners because of her perfect French and English as well as Spanish. Marion died at Santa Eugenia.
Maria Luisa Polo Remartinez, library worker, 50, Alcobendas. Maria Luisa worked as an assistant at the National Library. She had worked several different jobs in her life; she was married with a 19-year-old daughter. Maria Luisa had a twin sister. Her family didn't fear for her safety at first because she usually took the bus. Thursday she took the train.
Maria Fernandez del Amo, student, 26, Azuqueca de Henares. Maria was in her last year as a student of industrial engineering at the Polytechnic. She had recently bought an apartment and planned to get married. She sang in a choir and was strongly religious. Maria's friends had to charter a bus to get all of them to her funeral.
Francisco Javier Mancebo, auditor, 38, El Pozo. Francisco was on the train that blew up at El Pozo with his son, who survived but with burns over 12% of his body. Francisco Javier was known for his athletic ability; he still played basketball twice a week despite the fact he had a pacemaker. He was a major fan of the Estudiantes basketball team and of Real Madrid in soccer. Francisco Javier was tall and well-built, as fits a basketball player. He was also a hot amateur guitar player; he once tried out for a place in the well-known pop-rock group Los Enemigos. He had a law degree and worked as an auditor for the courts. He leaves his wife, son, and daughter.
Livia Bogdan, cleaner, 27, Coslada, and Juan Munoz Lara, Coslada. Livia arrived in Spain two years ago from her native Romania along with her twin sister; they were following their father, who had come here several years before. She was a very attractive woman, with long dark hair and a rather exotic appearance. On the evening of Wednesday the 10th, Livia and Juan (her boyfriend of four months) brought home some seafood and wine in order to enjoy a first-class dinner. Juan spent the night and the two caught the 7:10 train together that next morning.
El Pais is reporting that six Moroccan citizens have been identified as the bombers on the Madrid trains. Five of them have apparently fled the country; the sixth is Jamal Zougam, the owner of the mobile phone shop to which the mobile phone and fake phonecard in the bag which didn't explode led investigators. Zougam is the only one of the five arrested so far who seems to be big-time guilty. (Innocent until proven guilty, of course, but let's not let legal procedure stand in the way of what probably happened.)
Apparently the four other people arrested are merely associates of Zougam and some sort of small-time phone scammers.
Two survivors of the bombings identified Zougam as someone they had seen on the trains the day of the bombings.
The direct boss of Zougam's cell is an Algerian named Said Arel, who in turn is under a Jordanian named Abou Mosad al-Fakaui. Al-Fakaui is a leader of Ansar el-Islam, the Al-Qaeda group based in Saddam's Iraq. So it is said.
Paranoid conspiracy-theory question: What if the Corriere della Sera's story we mentioned a couple of days ago about Basque terrorists being trained fighting Americans in Iraq is even semi-true? Is that the connection? Did the ETA provide the information and the infrastructure while the Islamists pulled the actual hit?
Apparently the four other people arrested are merely associates of Zougam and some sort of small-time phone scammers.
Two survivors of the bombings identified Zougam as someone they had seen on the trains the day of the bombings.
The direct boss of Zougam's cell is an Algerian named Said Arel, who in turn is under a Jordanian named Abou Mosad al-Fakaui. Al-Fakaui is a leader of Ansar el-Islam, the Al-Qaeda group based in Saddam's Iraq. So it is said.
Paranoid conspiracy-theory question: What if the Corriere della Sera's story we mentioned a couple of days ago about Basque terrorists being trained fighting Americans in Iraq is even semi-true? Is that the connection? Did the ETA provide the information and the infrastructure while the Islamists pulled the actual hit?
Here's an article by Borja Gracia in Libertad Digital, a conservative Spanish website run by Federico Jimenez Losantos, Spain's most notable (or notorious) media right-winger. I actually think Jimenez Losantos is a bit of a pompous ass on the radio--he's on the COPE, the Catholic radio network, in the morning--, but I like a lot of the stuff that gets on his website. I can't stand the way he talks, though.
"Aznar murderer", "Iraq invaded by murderers and workers die in Madrid", "PP = Terrorism", "Aznar, coward, you're guilty", "You fascists are the terrorists", "Thanks Aznar for the Iraq war, consequence, 200 dead". These and other chants accusing the government of lying and asking for the "truth" could be heard and read at the "peaceful" and "spontaneous" demonstrations in front of various local PP headquarters which occurred on the "day of reflection" and which lead me, without knowing the election results, to these reflections. There are two arguments, one, that the Government is lying when it blames ETA for the bombings with electoral purposes. The other, that the bombings are the consequences of Spanish participation in the war and without that, they could have been avoided.
I will dedicate only one paragraph to the first accusation, since no matter how repeated it is, it doesn't get any less false. It is enough to remember that Interior Minister Acebes was the one who broke the news of a new line of investigation after the discovery of new clues before there was any other communication or leak at all. From there on the possibility of Islamic terrorism began taking shape. It was therefore the Minister himself who announced that possibility on the day of the attentat, and not even sixty hours had passed when the first arrests were made and announced, which did not favor the "manipulative" theses of the government. Those who make accusations of manipulation, many of them who, sinisterly, need for ETA not to be guilty of the bombings, "informed" about the participation in those bombings of, at least, one suicide terrorist. They are the ones who accused the Government of manipulation and of lying for initially centering the investigation on ETA. For these accusers it was not believeable that an attentat in Madrid, essentially identical to one broken up a couple of months ago in Atocha Station, had the same perpetrators as the others committed by those who have been killing for many years, ETA. We will also forget that Ibarretxe [of the PNV] and Carod-Rovira [of ERC] were those who at first believed in the ETA hypothesis most vehemently, and this fact did not make either of them change their political direction. The government did not manipulate us, we all thought initially and logically of ETA. Those who were manipulating at that moment with false news, like the one about the suicide bomber, were those who needed and wanted it not to be ETA.
The second of the accusations is more serious. There is a legitimate debate about the Iraq war, with arguments in favor and against. It is not legitimate to center this debate on false accusations of manipulation, lies, and conspiracy. The permanent delegitimizing of the adversary that some of those who opposed the war in Iraq made is not acceptable (even less so if what they are trying to delegitimize is a Government elected with more than ten million votes.) In England it has been demonstrated by Judge Hutton that the great falsehood was not the arguments used by the British government, but the accusations of lying that were made by several media of communication. The BBC lied in order to be able to accuse the government of lying. This is not part of legitimate debate in democratic countries.
It is part of legitimate debate about the war in Iraq to argue that, above all other reasons, Spain should not have supported the war in order to avoid becoming a target of Islamic terrorism. It does not stop being a legitimate argument because it is cowardly, and miserably cowardly. Some of those who hold this position are those who are now accusing Aznar, and by extension all of those of us who supported the war, of being murderers. When Jaime Mayor and Jose Maria Aznar implemented a policy of democratic intransigence against ETA and its accomplices in all spheres, they were aware that ETA's answer would be, as it always is, murder. Following this frightening reasoning, they are both the murderers of , among others, many local officials of their own party in the Basque Country who died in the ETA offensive [of the late 1990s]. The policemen who liberated Jose Antonio Ortega Lara [an ETA kidnap victim] were murderers too, because that liberation caused an ETA reaction in the shape, again, of the murder of Miguel Angel Blanco. [Blanco was kidnapped and held "for ransom" by ETA; they threatened to kill him if the Aznar government did not change its antiterrorist policy. The Aznar government refused and ETA shot him and dumped his body out of a car.] Those who arrest ETA members during a period of a terrorist "truce" in an obvious provocation are murderers too, and, on the other hand, those who asked for "political quid pro quos" for the terrorists after the arrest of ETA members in France during the next-to-last "truce" are heroes of peace.
If those who make such arguments were coherent, they would have been calling Aznar a murderer for a long time since because of his antiterrorist policies. That is what those who define the Basque problem as a conflict between two parts, both of whom are to blame, which should be solved through dialogue. But when they talk about ETA they cannot be so explicit, because the familiarity of this form of terrorism would reveal their cowardice to us with a bare face. If we have to keep the Islamic terrorists happy so they won't murder us, why should we make ETA terrorists uncomfortable because they kill us too? Coherence should make them explain the implications of their cowardice regarding the anti-terrorist struggle in Spain, referring to ETA. They won't do it, just like they'll never carry a sign saying ETA NO. They are miserable, but above all, very, very cowardly.
"Aznar murderer", "Iraq invaded by murderers and workers die in Madrid", "PP = Terrorism", "Aznar, coward, you're guilty", "You fascists are the terrorists", "Thanks Aznar for the Iraq war, consequence, 200 dead". These and other chants accusing the government of lying and asking for the "truth" could be heard and read at the "peaceful" and "spontaneous" demonstrations in front of various local PP headquarters which occurred on the "day of reflection" and which lead me, without knowing the election results, to these reflections. There are two arguments, one, that the Government is lying when it blames ETA for the bombings with electoral purposes. The other, that the bombings are the consequences of Spanish participation in the war and without that, they could have been avoided.
I will dedicate only one paragraph to the first accusation, since no matter how repeated it is, it doesn't get any less false. It is enough to remember that Interior Minister Acebes was the one who broke the news of a new line of investigation after the discovery of new clues before there was any other communication or leak at all. From there on the possibility of Islamic terrorism began taking shape. It was therefore the Minister himself who announced that possibility on the day of the attentat, and not even sixty hours had passed when the first arrests were made and announced, which did not favor the "manipulative" theses of the government. Those who make accusations of manipulation, many of them who, sinisterly, need for ETA not to be guilty of the bombings, "informed" about the participation in those bombings of, at least, one suicide terrorist. They are the ones who accused the Government of manipulation and of lying for initially centering the investigation on ETA. For these accusers it was not believeable that an attentat in Madrid, essentially identical to one broken up a couple of months ago in Atocha Station, had the same perpetrators as the others committed by those who have been killing for many years, ETA. We will also forget that Ibarretxe [of the PNV] and Carod-Rovira [of ERC] were those who at first believed in the ETA hypothesis most vehemently, and this fact did not make either of them change their political direction. The government did not manipulate us, we all thought initially and logically of ETA. Those who were manipulating at that moment with false news, like the one about the suicide bomber, were those who needed and wanted it not to be ETA.
The second of the accusations is more serious. There is a legitimate debate about the Iraq war, with arguments in favor and against. It is not legitimate to center this debate on false accusations of manipulation, lies, and conspiracy. The permanent delegitimizing of the adversary that some of those who opposed the war in Iraq made is not acceptable (even less so if what they are trying to delegitimize is a Government elected with more than ten million votes.) In England it has been demonstrated by Judge Hutton that the great falsehood was not the arguments used by the British government, but the accusations of lying that were made by several media of communication. The BBC lied in order to be able to accuse the government of lying. This is not part of legitimate debate in democratic countries.
It is part of legitimate debate about the war in Iraq to argue that, above all other reasons, Spain should not have supported the war in order to avoid becoming a target of Islamic terrorism. It does not stop being a legitimate argument because it is cowardly, and miserably cowardly. Some of those who hold this position are those who are now accusing Aznar, and by extension all of those of us who supported the war, of being murderers. When Jaime Mayor and Jose Maria Aznar implemented a policy of democratic intransigence against ETA and its accomplices in all spheres, they were aware that ETA's answer would be, as it always is, murder. Following this frightening reasoning, they are both the murderers of , among others, many local officials of their own party in the Basque Country who died in the ETA offensive [of the late 1990s]. The policemen who liberated Jose Antonio Ortega Lara [an ETA kidnap victim] were murderers too, because that liberation caused an ETA reaction in the shape, again, of the murder of Miguel Angel Blanco. [Blanco was kidnapped and held "for ransom" by ETA; they threatened to kill him if the Aznar government did not change its antiterrorist policy. The Aznar government refused and ETA shot him and dumped his body out of a car.] Those who arrest ETA members during a period of a terrorist "truce" in an obvious provocation are murderers too, and, on the other hand, those who asked for "political quid pro quos" for the terrorists after the arrest of ETA members in France during the next-to-last "truce" are heroes of peace.
If those who make such arguments were coherent, they would have been calling Aznar a murderer for a long time since because of his antiterrorist policies. That is what those who define the Basque problem as a conflict between two parts, both of whom are to blame, which should be solved through dialogue. But when they talk about ETA they cannot be so explicit, because the familiarity of this form of terrorism would reveal their cowardice to us with a bare face. If we have to keep the Islamic terrorists happy so they won't murder us, why should we make ETA terrorists uncomfortable because they kill us too? Coherence should make them explain the implications of their cowardice regarding the anti-terrorist struggle in Spain, referring to ETA. They won't do it, just like they'll never carry a sign saying ETA NO. They are miserable, but above all, very, very cowardly.
Sociological Note That May Interest Only Me:
Both the outrageously partial Barcelona sports dailies, El Mundo Deportivo (owned by the same people who own the Vanguardia, the Counts of Godo) and Sport, ran the same headline on their front pages: "A cule in La Moncloa." Now, a cule (kool-AY) is a FC Barcelona supporter and La Moncloa is the Spanish equivalent of the White House. In case you were wondering, "cul" is Catalan for "ass", and the legend is that back in the early days of the Barca, 1915 or 1920 or so, the team's fans sat on a brick wall along one side of the soccer field. Their culs were hanging over the sidewalk side of the wall, and that's what their nickname became.
Seems Zap is a Barca fan. Yippee-skippee.
Aznar, of course, is a merengue, a Real Madrid supporter. Felipe Gonzalez is a fan of Betis, the traditional Seville working-class team. (Interestingly, Betis and Sevilla, the traditional Seville rich snobby team, have traded places. Sevilla's fans are now the most violent radical leftist group of any team in the league, and the youngest.) Rumor has it that the King is a colchonero, a supporter of Atletico de Madrid. My impression is that it would be impolitic of him to announce this publicly. Espanyol's fans--Espanyol is Barcelona's other team, with a following that includes residents of the Sarria neighborhood, migrants to Barcelona from northern Spain, and some evil scum skinheads called the Brigadas Blanquiazules--are called pericos or periquitos, apparently because a popular sort of pet parakeets are blue and white, the colors of the Espanyol. They had a really cool TV ad a few years ago that showed some of these cute little blue and white birds playing soccer, computer-graphics-assisted, of course. Anyway, I thought it was cool.
In case you were wondering, these sports dailies run about 100,000 copies or so. Each. In addition, some people here and a lot of people elsewhere buy one of the Madrid sports dailies, As or Marca. Marca sells big all over Spain and is generally considered the most neutral and most national of the various sports papers, the one that pays most attention to the smaller clubs.
The interesting thing is that FC Barcelona (along with Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, and Osasuna of Pamplona) is still a real club, run by an elected board of directors. Every dues-paying member of the club, who gets a season ticket, gets a vote for the board, and they have elections every so often. There are something like 100,000 club members, and that makes a strong lobby. FC Barcelona is a force in Catalonia, more socially than politically, of course. And it even has a good bit of economic importance.
Over the last twenty or so years, first Jose Luis Nunez--until about 2001, I think--and then Joan Gaspart for a disastrous couple of years in which he signed Petit, Overmars, Rochemback, Geovanni, and that lot, for like twenty million dollars each, ran the Barca as president of the board. They were both noted PP supporters, and Enrique Lacalle, once mayoral candidate for the PP, was important in the club. Gaspart had to resign last year, though, because the team stank and was getting worse by the day, and everybody hates him and thinks he's a prick anyway--he was often caricaturized as Mr. Burns from the Simpsons--and was replaced, in new elections, by Joan Laporta, who has Catalan nationalist ties and who is linked to both Convergence and Union and the Republican Left.
Good God. Zap. Montilla. Maragall. Clos. Carod-Rovira. Laporta. There's a bunch of rabid cules running this country now. If they run Spain the way the Barca has generally been run, start praying right now.
Cules like to say "El Barca es mes que un club"--"The Barca is more than just a club". Merengues and pericos respond, "Es mes que un club, es un puticlub"--"It's more than just a club, it's a nightclub of ill repute."
Both the outrageously partial Barcelona sports dailies, El Mundo Deportivo (owned by the same people who own the Vanguardia, the Counts of Godo) and Sport, ran the same headline on their front pages: "A cule in La Moncloa." Now, a cule (kool-AY) is a FC Barcelona supporter and La Moncloa is the Spanish equivalent of the White House. In case you were wondering, "cul" is Catalan for "ass", and the legend is that back in the early days of the Barca, 1915 or 1920 or so, the team's fans sat on a brick wall along one side of the soccer field. Their culs were hanging over the sidewalk side of the wall, and that's what their nickname became.
Seems Zap is a Barca fan. Yippee-skippee.
Aznar, of course, is a merengue, a Real Madrid supporter. Felipe Gonzalez is a fan of Betis, the traditional Seville working-class team. (Interestingly, Betis and Sevilla, the traditional Seville rich snobby team, have traded places. Sevilla's fans are now the most violent radical leftist group of any team in the league, and the youngest.) Rumor has it that the King is a colchonero, a supporter of Atletico de Madrid. My impression is that it would be impolitic of him to announce this publicly. Espanyol's fans--Espanyol is Barcelona's other team, with a following that includes residents of the Sarria neighborhood, migrants to Barcelona from northern Spain, and some evil scum skinheads called the Brigadas Blanquiazules--are called pericos or periquitos, apparently because a popular sort of pet parakeets are blue and white, the colors of the Espanyol. They had a really cool TV ad a few years ago that showed some of these cute little blue and white birds playing soccer, computer-graphics-assisted, of course. Anyway, I thought it was cool.
In case you were wondering, these sports dailies run about 100,000 copies or so. Each. In addition, some people here and a lot of people elsewhere buy one of the Madrid sports dailies, As or Marca. Marca sells big all over Spain and is generally considered the most neutral and most national of the various sports papers, the one that pays most attention to the smaller clubs.
The interesting thing is that FC Barcelona (along with Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, and Osasuna of Pamplona) is still a real club, run by an elected board of directors. Every dues-paying member of the club, who gets a season ticket, gets a vote for the board, and they have elections every so often. There are something like 100,000 club members, and that makes a strong lobby. FC Barcelona is a force in Catalonia, more socially than politically, of course. And it even has a good bit of economic importance.
Over the last twenty or so years, first Jose Luis Nunez--until about 2001, I think--and then Joan Gaspart for a disastrous couple of years in which he signed Petit, Overmars, Rochemback, Geovanni, and that lot, for like twenty million dollars each, ran the Barca as president of the board. They were both noted PP supporters, and Enrique Lacalle, once mayoral candidate for the PP, was important in the club. Gaspart had to resign last year, though, because the team stank and was getting worse by the day, and everybody hates him and thinks he's a prick anyway--he was often caricaturized as Mr. Burns from the Simpsons--and was replaced, in new elections, by Joan Laporta, who has Catalan nationalist ties and who is linked to both Convergence and Union and the Republican Left.
Good God. Zap. Montilla. Maragall. Clos. Carod-Rovira. Laporta. There's a bunch of rabid cules running this country now. If they run Spain the way the Barca has generally been run, start praying right now.
Cules like to say "El Barca es mes que un club"--"The Barca is more than just a club". Merengues and pericos respond, "Es mes que un club, es un puticlub"--"It's more than just a club, it's a nightclub of ill repute."
The Spanish media is speculating that Spain may be only the first European country to bail out of the Coalition. Holland, Denmark, and Portugal are signaled as most likely to chicken out too. I doubt any of those countries will follow Spain's lead.
Tikrit Tommy Alcoverro, in La Vangua, claims to have talked to the Spanish diplomatic corps and reports that "there is a feeling of relief and satisfaction among many diplomats. Many believe that Spain must act quickly so that the Iraqis never feel again that we are the occupiers of their land. Spain was already in the crosshairs of the Islamic fundamentalists before the defiant military mission in Iraq."
So if I get this right, the Spanish diplomatic corps and Tikrit Tommy believe that Spain's position even before Spain's joining the Coalition in Iraq was too extreme, and Spain's Coalition membership was "defiant"; I assume they would have preferred a more anti-American and anti-Israeli posture. I'm for defiance, myself. Against the ETA and against Islamic terrorists and against every other kind of murderous thug. As Tony Blair said, we can't solve all the problems of the world, but we should at least try to fix those we can. Right now ETA and Islamic terrorism are among those we can fix.
Or of course, we could just surrender.
We don't have to worry about an immediate Spanish pullout from Iraq. Jose Maria Aznar will remain as Prime Minister for approximately the next month and a half, until the end of April or so, while the new Parliament is being constituted. Within that time Colin Powell and Jack Straw (I wouldn't send Rummy on this particular mission) will have time to fill Zap full of some facts and twist his arm a bit. Zap promised he wouldn't bail out if the Coalition forces were put under UN control before June 30. I imagine that some genius may figure out how to do this so Zap can feel comfortable, with his conscience clear, and the Yanks and the Brits can keep running things militarily.
This is, of course, a highly optimistic analysis.
Note, by the way, that the fervor of "Tell us the truth" and "We want all the information" and "The Government's covering up" and "Aznar lied" is all gone today. There are no "spontaneous" demonstrations in the streets and no hysterical leftist politicians on TV screaming denunciations of the Government. They seem content for the investigation to continue normally now. That's because the election is over and the demonstrators and politicians got what they wanted: a PP defeat. That's the last you'll hear about their concern for the victims and their demands for justice.
Zap is going to govern from the minority: that means his cabinet will be made up only of Socialists and he will make temporary alliances with other parties in Parliament in order to get legislation passed. That means smaller parties will be able to hold him up to swap favors to their special interests for the votes he needs to get major things, like say the budget, through. This will be a weak central government, which may not be all that bad a thing. Zap won't have enough power to, say, renationalize the phone company or anything goofy like that.
To put a good face on it, maybe Convergence and Union will have enough weight with its 10 seats in order to significantly moderate Socialist policy on every issue but moderate Catalooniness.
According to Jordi Barbeta in the Vanguardia, the Europeans are just thrilled, at least the Frogs and the Toads. They see the Spanish vote as a rejection of Spain's alliance with America and a signal of its desire for a closer relationship with the Continental powers, which is exactly what it was. If Zap actually lines up Spain behind the Germans and French on EU and international issues, as shows every sign of doing, we'll have to find another amphibian for the Spaniards' nickname: I propose the Newts. Sounds like "neutral". Or "neutered".
Here's Eusebio Val in the Vangua:
In the US the defeat of the PP is interpreted as the electorate's punishment for a government too closely aligned with the Bush administration and as a protest for its support of the war in Iraq.
Spanish internal politics are too complex and unknown to them in order to take into account other reasons that may explain what happened. Therefore, the analysis of the result has been made from the point of view of its international repercussions and security policy.
Mr. Val, may I be blunt? My ass. Your own newspaper, on page 21, publishes the results of the major newspapers' electoral surveys taken the weekend before the bombings and made public on Sunday, March 7, four days before the bombing. Those results were, giving the best possible vote for the PSOE and the worst possible vote for the PP out of the 350 seats in Spain's Congress of Deputies:
La Vanguardia: PP 162, PSOE 147.
El Pais: PP 168, PSOE 141.
El Periodico: PP 169, PSOE 140.
La Razon: PP 171, PSOE 141.
These were the worst-case scenario results for the PP and the best-case scenario results for the Socialists. The question that all you newspaper geniuses were debating was how much the PP was going to win by and if there would be another absolute majority of 176 PP seats or not. All the leftists in El Pais were getting ready to crow victory should the PP score 175 seats or less and lose its absolute majority.
Actual results: PSOE 164, PP 148.
Now, you tell me what happened between Sunday, March 7, and Election Day, Sunday March 14, that might have affected those results.
On page 14, the Vanguardia points out four domestic issues that will be affected by the victory of the Socialists: the water plan that would have sent Ebro River water south is dead; the teachers' unions will take over the educational system again, throw out the PP's LOCE (Law for Quality of Education), and bring back the old, failed Reforma system; more money will be spent on health care, as much as an extra percent of GDP, and research on embryonic cells will be permitted; and, wishful thinking, more pork-barrel cash will flow to Catalonia.
It does not seem to me that any of those issues decided more than about seventeen votes.
Tikrit Tommy Alcoverro, in La Vangua, claims to have talked to the Spanish diplomatic corps and reports that "there is a feeling of relief and satisfaction among many diplomats. Many believe that Spain must act quickly so that the Iraqis never feel again that we are the occupiers of their land. Spain was already in the crosshairs of the Islamic fundamentalists before the defiant military mission in Iraq."
So if I get this right, the Spanish diplomatic corps and Tikrit Tommy believe that Spain's position even before Spain's joining the Coalition in Iraq was too extreme, and Spain's Coalition membership was "defiant"; I assume they would have preferred a more anti-American and anti-Israeli posture. I'm for defiance, myself. Against the ETA and against Islamic terrorists and against every other kind of murderous thug. As Tony Blair said, we can't solve all the problems of the world, but we should at least try to fix those we can. Right now ETA and Islamic terrorism are among those we can fix.
Or of course, we could just surrender.
We don't have to worry about an immediate Spanish pullout from Iraq. Jose Maria Aznar will remain as Prime Minister for approximately the next month and a half, until the end of April or so, while the new Parliament is being constituted. Within that time Colin Powell and Jack Straw (I wouldn't send Rummy on this particular mission) will have time to fill Zap full of some facts and twist his arm a bit. Zap promised he wouldn't bail out if the Coalition forces were put under UN control before June 30. I imagine that some genius may figure out how to do this so Zap can feel comfortable, with his conscience clear, and the Yanks and the Brits can keep running things militarily.
This is, of course, a highly optimistic analysis.
Note, by the way, that the fervor of "Tell us the truth" and "We want all the information" and "The Government's covering up" and "Aznar lied" is all gone today. There are no "spontaneous" demonstrations in the streets and no hysterical leftist politicians on TV screaming denunciations of the Government. They seem content for the investigation to continue normally now. That's because the election is over and the demonstrators and politicians got what they wanted: a PP defeat. That's the last you'll hear about their concern for the victims and their demands for justice.
Zap is going to govern from the minority: that means his cabinet will be made up only of Socialists and he will make temporary alliances with other parties in Parliament in order to get legislation passed. That means smaller parties will be able to hold him up to swap favors to their special interests for the votes he needs to get major things, like say the budget, through. This will be a weak central government, which may not be all that bad a thing. Zap won't have enough power to, say, renationalize the phone company or anything goofy like that.
To put a good face on it, maybe Convergence and Union will have enough weight with its 10 seats in order to significantly moderate Socialist policy on every issue but moderate Catalooniness.
According to Jordi Barbeta in the Vanguardia, the Europeans are just thrilled, at least the Frogs and the Toads. They see the Spanish vote as a rejection of Spain's alliance with America and a signal of its desire for a closer relationship with the Continental powers, which is exactly what it was. If Zap actually lines up Spain behind the Germans and French on EU and international issues, as shows every sign of doing, we'll have to find another amphibian for the Spaniards' nickname: I propose the Newts. Sounds like "neutral". Or "neutered".
Here's Eusebio Val in the Vangua:
In the US the defeat of the PP is interpreted as the electorate's punishment for a government too closely aligned with the Bush administration and as a protest for its support of the war in Iraq.
Spanish internal politics are too complex and unknown to them in order to take into account other reasons that may explain what happened. Therefore, the analysis of the result has been made from the point of view of its international repercussions and security policy.
Mr. Val, may I be blunt? My ass. Your own newspaper, on page 21, publishes the results of the major newspapers' electoral surveys taken the weekend before the bombings and made public on Sunday, March 7, four days before the bombing. Those results were, giving the best possible vote for the PSOE and the worst possible vote for the PP out of the 350 seats in Spain's Congress of Deputies:
La Vanguardia: PP 162, PSOE 147.
El Pais: PP 168, PSOE 141.
El Periodico: PP 169, PSOE 140.
La Razon: PP 171, PSOE 141.
These were the worst-case scenario results for the PP and the best-case scenario results for the Socialists. The question that all you newspaper geniuses were debating was how much the PP was going to win by and if there would be another absolute majority of 176 PP seats or not. All the leftists in El Pais were getting ready to crow victory should the PP score 175 seats or less and lose its absolute majority.
Actual results: PSOE 164, PP 148.
Now, you tell me what happened between Sunday, March 7, and Election Day, Sunday March 14, that might have affected those results.
On page 14, the Vanguardia points out four domestic issues that will be affected by the victory of the Socialists: the water plan that would have sent Ebro River water south is dead; the teachers' unions will take over the educational system again, throw out the PP's LOCE (Law for Quality of Education), and bring back the old, failed Reforma system; more money will be spent on health care, as much as an extra percent of GDP, and research on embryonic cells will be permitted; and, wishful thinking, more pork-barrel cash will flow to Catalonia.
It does not seem to me that any of those issues decided more than about seventeen votes.
Monday, March 15, 2004
Here's a piece from the New Republic that is entirely over-optimistic. The author seems to think that Zap can be persuaded to go back on his promise to pull troops out of Iraq. Absolutely not. Zap is a weak leader: his victory shocked everybody, including himself. He does not have the Socialist Party united behind him; he's a member of the Madrid party apparatus faction and he beat out Jose Bono, the leader of the "regional barons" faction, by one vote in the most recent contest for prime ministerial nominee. Another group he'll have to appease is the hard-left Alfonso Guerra faction, not to mention the Catalan faction. He is not going to take any chances on offending anybody, so he is going to complete his promise on troop withdrawal to the letter. That's what he got elected on, and that's what he's going to have to do. This is THE issue and Zap can't go back on that. If he does he'll betray his voters and weaken his position both as party leader and prime minister.
Christopher Hitchens agrees with me. One comment: Hitch makes the common error of assigning too much credit to King Juanca for Spain's transition to democracy.
In Memoriam
As you most likely know, the Vanguardia has been running short biographies of the victims of the Madrid bombings. About all we can do in their memory is get the information down in English in order to remember the 200 dead people.
Nicoleta Diac, house cleaner, 27, Coslada. Nicoleta was from a farm family in Romania and had been in Spain for four and a half years; she lived with a Romanian couple in Coslada. She was very pretty, with short fair hair. Nicoleta was religious, a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist church. She was very close to the family she worked for and was excited because on March 11 the wife was going to give birth (which she did on schedule). They still haven't told the wife that Nicoleta is dead.
Juan Sanchez Quispe, window cleaner, 45, Vallecas. Juan was from Peru and came to Spain seven years ago. He had been a soccer referee there and was a major fan of the sport; he was a FC Barcelona supporter. Juan was married and had two sons, 14 and 16 years old; he also leaves his brother. The family bought their own apartment four years ago; Juan worked a variety of jobs to bring in some money. He was going to become a citizen of Spain.
Mohammed Itaiben, teacher, 27, Azuqueca de Henares. Mohammed was from Alhucemas in northern Morocco; he was one of five brothers from a farming family. He studed languages and literature at Fez University and worked as a teacher of Arabic and French. He was a handsome young man with large, clear eyes, and the Moroccan community was very proud of him as someone who had "made it".
Sanea Bensaleh, student, 13, Alcala de Henares. Sanea was born in Madrid, the daughter of Moroccan immigrants. Sanea, of course, was perfectly integrated into the community; her parents were careful that she should speak both Spanish and Arabic. She was a high school student and an only child, and was popular among her classmates.
Miriam Pedraza Rivero, office worker, 25, Entrevias. Miriam had been married for three years; she and her husband were saving for an apartment. They had planned to go on a trip to London the weekend after the bombings. She enjoyed sports and fitness and did aerobics and yoga; she was looking forward to attending the upcoming Formula One race. Her family and friends say she was cheerful and lively and very mature for her age.
Guillermo Senent Pallarola, technician, 23, Cabanillas. Guillermo and his friend David Santamaria were going to take their physical exams; they had been working as intern technicians on the high-speed train. Both were killed in the blasts. He leaves his parents and a brother.
Eduardo Sanz Perez, maintenance man, 31, Azuqueca de Henares. Eduardo was married and had a son of two years; his wife is currently eight months pregnant. He worked for the Army as a civilian employee.
Javier Menjibar Jimenez, teacher, 43, Alcala de Henares. Javier was from Lima, Peru, and came to Spain as a child. He was married and had two young daughters. Javier had worked as a high-school teacher, but was currently employed in the foreign-aid department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had lived in California for a time as a visiting teacher. He loved cats and was an avid cyclist.
Sergio de las Heras Correa, aeronautical engineer, 28, Alcala de Henares. Sergio normally drove to work, but his car was in the shop so he took the train on Thursday. He had a girlfriend and is remembered by his friends as very generous and a card-playing shark.
Domino Simon Gonzalez, insurance worker, and Maria Cristina Lopez Ramos, secretary, Santa Eugenia. Domi, as everyone called him, and Cristina were married and had two children, ages 11 and 3. They dropped their kids off at school and went off to work by train on Thursday morning. Family members are going to take charge of the children.
As you most likely know, the Vanguardia has been running short biographies of the victims of the Madrid bombings. About all we can do in their memory is get the information down in English in order to remember the 200 dead people.
Nicoleta Diac, house cleaner, 27, Coslada. Nicoleta was from a farm family in Romania and had been in Spain for four and a half years; she lived with a Romanian couple in Coslada. She was very pretty, with short fair hair. Nicoleta was religious, a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist church. She was very close to the family she worked for and was excited because on March 11 the wife was going to give birth (which she did on schedule). They still haven't told the wife that Nicoleta is dead.
Juan Sanchez Quispe, window cleaner, 45, Vallecas. Juan was from Peru and came to Spain seven years ago. He had been a soccer referee there and was a major fan of the sport; he was a FC Barcelona supporter. Juan was married and had two sons, 14 and 16 years old; he also leaves his brother. The family bought their own apartment four years ago; Juan worked a variety of jobs to bring in some money. He was going to become a citizen of Spain.
Mohammed Itaiben, teacher, 27, Azuqueca de Henares. Mohammed was from Alhucemas in northern Morocco; he was one of five brothers from a farming family. He studed languages and literature at Fez University and worked as a teacher of Arabic and French. He was a handsome young man with large, clear eyes, and the Moroccan community was very proud of him as someone who had "made it".
Sanea Bensaleh, student, 13, Alcala de Henares. Sanea was born in Madrid, the daughter of Moroccan immigrants. Sanea, of course, was perfectly integrated into the community; her parents were careful that she should speak both Spanish and Arabic. She was a high school student and an only child, and was popular among her classmates.
Miriam Pedraza Rivero, office worker, 25, Entrevias. Miriam had been married for three years; she and her husband were saving for an apartment. They had planned to go on a trip to London the weekend after the bombings. She enjoyed sports and fitness and did aerobics and yoga; she was looking forward to attending the upcoming Formula One race. Her family and friends say she was cheerful and lively and very mature for her age.
Guillermo Senent Pallarola, technician, 23, Cabanillas. Guillermo and his friend David Santamaria were going to take their physical exams; they had been working as intern technicians on the high-speed train. Both were killed in the blasts. He leaves his parents and a brother.
Eduardo Sanz Perez, maintenance man, 31, Azuqueca de Henares. Eduardo was married and had a son of two years; his wife is currently eight months pregnant. He worked for the Army as a civilian employee.
Javier Menjibar Jimenez, teacher, 43, Alcala de Henares. Javier was from Lima, Peru, and came to Spain as a child. He was married and had two young daughters. Javier had worked as a high-school teacher, but was currently employed in the foreign-aid department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had lived in California for a time as a visiting teacher. He loved cats and was an avid cyclist.
Sergio de las Heras Correa, aeronautical engineer, 28, Alcala de Henares. Sergio normally drove to work, but his car was in the shop so he took the train on Thursday. He had a girlfriend and is remembered by his friends as very generous and a card-playing shark.
Domino Simon Gonzalez, insurance worker, and Maria Cristina Lopez Ramos, secretary, Santa Eugenia. Domi, as everyone called him, and Cristina were married and had two children, ages 11 and 3. They dropped their kids off at school and went off to work by train on Thursday morning. Family members are going to take charge of the children.
Well, I hate to write this but it's about time I did it. The Vanguardia's headline says it all: "Historic reversal". The Socialists won 164 seats, up 39 from the 2000 elections, and the PP won 148 seats, down 35 from the last elections. A Parliamentary majority is 176 seats. Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will be the next Prime Minister of Spain.
Here's the rundown of who won what. "Centralist" means that the party is generally against more powers for autonomous governments and sees Spain fundamentally as one nation. "Nationalist" means that the party favors more powers for autonomous regions, if not outright independence for its particular region, and sees Spain fundamentally as several nations or as something that simply should not exist.
PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party): 164 seats. The PSOE is a rather leftist and generally centralist social democratic party. It is strongly anti-American and pacifist, and is not too far distant ideologically from a standard Continental European socialist party.
PP (People's Party): 148 seats. The PP is socially conservative and rather paternalistic; it wouldn't like to dismantle the welfare state, for example, though it might like to trim it back. It's the closest thing there is to a free-market party in Spain. Considered pro-business and pro-American. It is considered the most centralist party. It had governed Spain for the last 8 years.
CiU (Convergence and Union): 10 seats. Moderate Catalan nationalists, if a bit Cataloony at times. A rather paternalistic party, it represents the Catalan petty bourgeoisie. Socially conservative; more Christian Democratic than the PP. Not separatist.
ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia): 8 seats. Radical Catalan nationalists; pro-independence but officially anti-violence. Otherwise generally supports what's policically correct at the moment; has no real ideology outside Catalan nationalism.
PNV (Basque Nationalist Party): 7 seats. Supposedly moderate Basque nationalists, though too friendly with extremists for the taste of many. Basically a Basque nationalist Christian Democratic party. Officially anti-violence; does not openly call for separation from Spain.
IU (United Left): 5 seats. The Spanish Communists. Drew two seats in Barcelona, two in Madrid, one in Valencia, and nothing anywhere else. A fairly standard European Communist party. Virulently anti-American, of course.
CC (Canary Coalition): 3 seats. A rather conservative party that tries to be the voice for the islands, which sometimes feel a little neglected. Not separatist. Has supported the PP in the past.
BNG (Galician National Bloc): 2 seats. Leftist Galician nationalists.
ChA (Aragonese Committees): 1 seat. Somewhat wacky leftist regionalists. Not separatists.
EA (Eusko Alkartasuna): 1 seat. Fairly moderate Basque separatists. Officially non-violent.
NB (Nafarroa Bai): 1 seat. A coalition of Basque nationalist and leftist minor parties in Navarra. First representation in Parliament.
Just about the only good news here for the future of Spain is that the Socialists will have to make a coalition in order to run the country. They need twelve votes for the parliamentary majority of 176; they could get that from CiU's 10 and CC's 3 to make 177. If that happens, then the worst lefty excesses of Zap and the PSOE will be somewhat under control.
There is no news about the bombings in Madrid. The police are still investigating all leads. Perhaps the worst possible nightmare would be if this were an Al Qaeda-ETA combined hit. I still think there's no conclusive evidence pointing to Islamic terrorists, but I have to admit the evidence pointing to ETA is not conclusive, either.
I meant what I said about appeasement and cowardice and I have no plans to take it back. 37.6% of Spaniards, those who voted for the PP, agree with me.
I also don't need any lessons on democracy. Of course we accept that the winners won and we leave them to get on with running the country. That's what democracy is. The people speak. I have no obligation to agree with them, but I do have the obligation to accept them as the legitimate next government of Spain.
But I don't have to like it. And the fact that the democratic process went on as scheduled does not mean that democracy "won". The terrorists won. The people (except for that courageous 37.6 percent) decided they agreed with the terrorists. They voted for the parties that promised "dialogue" with ETA and a pullout from the Coalition. Those are the two things that the domestic and international terrorists wanted.
Here are three fragments from articles appearing in the Vanguardia today. The first is by Fernando Onega.
Rajoy's victory was taken so much for granted that it seems incredible that he lost. What happened? The analysis trips over its first difficulty: the repercussions of the Madrid massacre. Was it Al Qaeda that threw the PP out of the government? As a conclusion, that would be terrible: a terrorist organization causes a party to lose an election...
...The only shadow is that one so difficult to say out loud: that this is a victory facilitated by a terrorist group. I swear to you that my hands are trembling as I write this.
This is by Albert Rexach:
...(At Rajoy's concession) Aznar was thoughtful enough to raise the right hand of the loser that he himself selected without knowing that Bin Laden was voting in these elections too.
Here is Florencio Dominguez:
...The upcoming days for Basque PP members will not be easy: isolated in the Basque country, without the support of the (central) Government, without leadership, and with the eternal terrorist threat hanging over their heads.
Here's the rundown of who won what. "Centralist" means that the party is generally against more powers for autonomous governments and sees Spain fundamentally as one nation. "Nationalist" means that the party favors more powers for autonomous regions, if not outright independence for its particular region, and sees Spain fundamentally as several nations or as something that simply should not exist.
PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party): 164 seats. The PSOE is a rather leftist and generally centralist social democratic party. It is strongly anti-American and pacifist, and is not too far distant ideologically from a standard Continental European socialist party.
PP (People's Party): 148 seats. The PP is socially conservative and rather paternalistic; it wouldn't like to dismantle the welfare state, for example, though it might like to trim it back. It's the closest thing there is to a free-market party in Spain. Considered pro-business and pro-American. It is considered the most centralist party. It had governed Spain for the last 8 years.
CiU (Convergence and Union): 10 seats. Moderate Catalan nationalists, if a bit Cataloony at times. A rather paternalistic party, it represents the Catalan petty bourgeoisie. Socially conservative; more Christian Democratic than the PP. Not separatist.
ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia): 8 seats. Radical Catalan nationalists; pro-independence but officially anti-violence. Otherwise generally supports what's policically correct at the moment; has no real ideology outside Catalan nationalism.
PNV (Basque Nationalist Party): 7 seats. Supposedly moderate Basque nationalists, though too friendly with extremists for the taste of many. Basically a Basque nationalist Christian Democratic party. Officially anti-violence; does not openly call for separation from Spain.
IU (United Left): 5 seats. The Spanish Communists. Drew two seats in Barcelona, two in Madrid, one in Valencia, and nothing anywhere else. A fairly standard European Communist party. Virulently anti-American, of course.
CC (Canary Coalition): 3 seats. A rather conservative party that tries to be the voice for the islands, which sometimes feel a little neglected. Not separatist. Has supported the PP in the past.
BNG (Galician National Bloc): 2 seats. Leftist Galician nationalists.
ChA (Aragonese Committees): 1 seat. Somewhat wacky leftist regionalists. Not separatists.
EA (Eusko Alkartasuna): 1 seat. Fairly moderate Basque separatists. Officially non-violent.
NB (Nafarroa Bai): 1 seat. A coalition of Basque nationalist and leftist minor parties in Navarra. First representation in Parliament.
Just about the only good news here for the future of Spain is that the Socialists will have to make a coalition in order to run the country. They need twelve votes for the parliamentary majority of 176; they could get that from CiU's 10 and CC's 3 to make 177. If that happens, then the worst lefty excesses of Zap and the PSOE will be somewhat under control.
There is no news about the bombings in Madrid. The police are still investigating all leads. Perhaps the worst possible nightmare would be if this were an Al Qaeda-ETA combined hit. I still think there's no conclusive evidence pointing to Islamic terrorists, but I have to admit the evidence pointing to ETA is not conclusive, either.
I meant what I said about appeasement and cowardice and I have no plans to take it back. 37.6% of Spaniards, those who voted for the PP, agree with me.
I also don't need any lessons on democracy. Of course we accept that the winners won and we leave them to get on with running the country. That's what democracy is. The people speak. I have no obligation to agree with them, but I do have the obligation to accept them as the legitimate next government of Spain.
But I don't have to like it. And the fact that the democratic process went on as scheduled does not mean that democracy "won". The terrorists won. The people (except for that courageous 37.6 percent) decided they agreed with the terrorists. They voted for the parties that promised "dialogue" with ETA and a pullout from the Coalition. Those are the two things that the domestic and international terrorists wanted.
Here are three fragments from articles appearing in the Vanguardia today. The first is by Fernando Onega.
Rajoy's victory was taken so much for granted that it seems incredible that he lost. What happened? The analysis trips over its first difficulty: the repercussions of the Madrid massacre. Was it Al Qaeda that threw the PP out of the government? As a conclusion, that would be terrible: a terrorist organization causes a party to lose an election...
...The only shadow is that one so difficult to say out loud: that this is a victory facilitated by a terrorist group. I swear to you that my hands are trembling as I write this.
This is by Albert Rexach:
...(At Rajoy's concession) Aznar was thoughtful enough to raise the right hand of the loser that he himself selected without knowing that Bin Laden was voting in these elections too.
Here is Florencio Dominguez:
...The upcoming days for Basque PP members will not be easy: isolated in the Basque country, without the support of the (central) Government, without leadership, and with the eternal terrorist threat hanging over their heads.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Well, the people have spoken and I do not like what they said at all. With half the votes counted, the Socialist Party will score over 160 seats, while the PP will drop to around 140. The other big gainer was Esquerra Republicana, who are now a major force in Madrid with about eight deputies. CiU will drop to 10 or so.
What happened? It's clear: the people of Spain are not willing to risk standing up to domestic or international terrorism and would prefer to appease the terrorists in hopes that they will be left alone in the future. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will be the next Prime Minister, and one of the first things he will do is pull Spain out of the Coalition. Spain will join the Paris-Berlin axis. I assume Spanish troops will soon be leaving Iraq.
The especially bad news is that Zap doesn't have an absolute majority and will have to form a coalition with the Communists and just maybe Esquerra Republicana, just like here in Barcelona and Catalonia. Prepare yourselves for four years of that. Carod-Rovira as Interior Minister. Good God.
The Madrid bombings changed everything. The people have decided that Islamic terrorists are responsible, though that is in no way determined yet, and they have decided that it is the fault of Jose Maria Aznar and the PP government. Congratulations to the terrorists, whether ETA or Islamic: you've done your job. You disrupted the election. You beat Aznar and Rajoy and the PP, who were way ahead in all the polls before the bombings. And congratulations to the leftist parties, too. They won this election--well, not quite fair and square, more like pretty dirty, what with exploiting the bombing to accuse the government of lying with no evidence. But they won. They won, democratically, a clear victory.
A victory for appeasement. A victory for cowardice. The Spanish people demonstrated today that they have no courage.
What happened? It's clear: the people of Spain are not willing to risk standing up to domestic or international terrorism and would prefer to appease the terrorists in hopes that they will be left alone in the future. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will be the next Prime Minister, and one of the first things he will do is pull Spain out of the Coalition. Spain will join the Paris-Berlin axis. I assume Spanish troops will soon be leaving Iraq.
The especially bad news is that Zap doesn't have an absolute majority and will have to form a coalition with the Communists and just maybe Esquerra Republicana, just like here in Barcelona and Catalonia. Prepare yourselves for four years of that. Carod-Rovira as Interior Minister. Good God.
The Madrid bombings changed everything. The people have decided that Islamic terrorists are responsible, though that is in no way determined yet, and they have decided that it is the fault of Jose Maria Aznar and the PP government. Congratulations to the terrorists, whether ETA or Islamic: you've done your job. You disrupted the election. You beat Aznar and Rajoy and the PP, who were way ahead in all the polls before the bombings. And congratulations to the leftist parties, too. They won this election--well, not quite fair and square, more like pretty dirty, what with exploiting the bombing to accuse the government of lying with no evidence. But they won. They won, democratically, a clear victory.
A victory for appeasement. A victory for cowardice. The Spanish people demonstrated today that they have no courage.
The first exit polls are being reported by the various TV networks. TV 1, TV 3, and Antena 3 all have the Socialist Party as the winner of tonight's elections, while Tele 5 has the PP in front. TV 3's percentages are PSOE 41.4%--PP 36.9%, which the other networks except Tele 5 are also showing. Most of the polls have the PSOE with 154-158 seats and the PP with 150-154. Tele 5 has the PP in the 160s and the PSOE in the 140s. Turnout is extremely high and much of that extra turnout is clearly a protest vote against the government. It looks to me like the PP is going to lose a couple or three percentage points across the board to the Socialists compared to the 2000 elections, and Esquerra Republicana is apparently going to poll big and pull down 7 or so seats here in Catalonia. However, these are just exit polls and we'll see how things look when real results start coming in.
Quick Election Day update: The Spanish secret service still has not been able to authenticate the alleged Al Qaeda video. Voter participation is very high, which is not necessarily a good thing; when extra votes are brought out by a disaster like the Madrid bombing, most of them tend to be emotional and cast by ill-informed people. I'm just going to guess here that what we're going to see tonight will be an even sharper division of Spain into conservative and leftist forces. My bet is that in central Spain the PP will be strengthened and in Catalonia the left will win by a large margin. TV 3 is openly campaigning against the PP. We should have some kind of numbers reasonably soon, and I should be able to tell you who won long before midnight.
Here's the latest at 1:30 on Sunday, election day. Very early this morning, at about 1 AM (after I'd gone to bed), Acebes went on TV again and said more or less the following: The cops got a call saying they should go pick up a videotape deposited in a public wastebasket. On that tape a man dressed Arab-style and speaking Arabic with a Moroccan accent said he was named Abu Dujan Al Afgani and was the "military spokesman" for Al Qaeda in Europe. The man, who showed his face, stated that these attacks were retaliation for "the crimes committed in the world and concretely in Iraq and in Afghanistan". This man had never spoken before in any capacity and was unknown to both Spanish and foreign intelligence.
The five arrested men are apparently the suppliers of the mobile phones and fake phone cards to the bombers. The two men being interrogated, Spanish citizens of Indian origin, have been released.
La Vanguardia's headline, "Al Qaeda confirms on video authorship of massacre", seems to me to be as much of a hasty jump to conclusions as the one that the Government and I both committed.
The five arrested men are apparently the suppliers of the mobile phones and fake phone cards to the bombers. The two men being interrogated, Spanish citizens of Indian origin, have been released.
La Vanguardia's headline, "Al Qaeda confirms on video authorship of massacre", seems to me to be as much of a hasty jump to conclusions as the one that the Government and I both committed.
The death toll in the Madrid bombings has reached 200, and the wounded count is at 1511. 266 people are still hospitalized, with 17 in critical condition, 41 in very serious condition, 138 in serious condition, 42 in good condition, and 28 in an undisclosed condition.
La Vanguardia is running a series of short biographies of the victims, which we are summarizing here as a tribute to the dead.
Carlos Tortosa Garcia, chemical engineer, 26, San Fernando de Henares. Carlos got up at 6:30 every day, drove to the train station, took the train to Atocha, and there picked up the high-speed train to the Repsol plant in Puertollano, south of Madrid. He commuted 400 kilometers a day. Ironically, Carlos had survived last year's accidental explosion at the Puertollano plant that killed nine of his co-workers. He was a pacifist activist; he'd gone to all the demonstrations against the Iraq war. He had just bought a car and was saving up to buy an apartment and marry his girlfriend. Carlos's father is a well-known CC.OO. union leader.
Carlos Fernandez, construction worker, 39, Alcala de Henares. Carlos arrived in Spain from Peru only 24 days before his death. He was a native of Lima. He had been a government bureaucrat there, but could not live on his salary, so he emigrated and found a job working construction in Madrid. His three brothers in Madrid encouraged him to move there; he lived in an apartment with them in Alcala. Carlos leaves his widow, a son, and a daughter in Peru.
Jose Miguel Valderrama Lopez, bank employee, 25, San Fernando de Henares. Jose Miguel lived with his parents and his brother, but soon he was going to move with his girlfriend of five years into an apartment he had bought. He enjoyed traveling and was famous among his friends for his attention to neatness and order. He was politically active and a union member. His 26th birthday would have been today.
Hector Manuel Figueroa Prado, plasterer, 33, Madrid. Hector was a native of Santiago, Chile. He, his wife, and their seven-year-old son arrived in Madrid a year ago. Hector and his father-in-law worked together as plasterers and hoped to open their own business someday. His father-in-law happened to catch an earlier train than Hector on the morning of the 11th and was not hurt. Hector was an evangelical Protestant and his religion was very important to him. He died at El Pozo.
Maria Jose Alvares Ordonez, civil servant, 48, Alcala de Henares. Maria Jose worked in the Education department of the Madrid regional government. Her parents were farmers in Asturias; Maria Jose moved to Alcala for work and married and then separated. She leaves a 23-year-old son, her parents, and a sister.
David Santamaria Garcia, technician, 22, Guadalajara. David was on the train because he was going to have his medical checkup; he was finishing his internship at Alstom, the train manufacturing company. He was going to be a maintenance technician on the high-speed train line. David was traveling along with a friend and co-worker, Guillermo Senent, who was also killed. He was known as a fine soccer player; he had played on the Guadalajara B team. He leaves his parents, sister, and girlfriend. His body was "very much damaged by the shock wave".
Neil Hebe Astocondor Masgo, mover, 34, Coslada. Neil was a native of Lima, Peru. He had been in Spain for two years and had just received his legalization papers; he worked for a moving company. Neil's wife lived with him in Coslada, but their children of 12 and 10 years had stayed behind in Lima. He died in the field hospital at El Pozo.
La Vanguardia is running a series of short biographies of the victims, which we are summarizing here as a tribute to the dead.
Carlos Tortosa Garcia, chemical engineer, 26, San Fernando de Henares. Carlos got up at 6:30 every day, drove to the train station, took the train to Atocha, and there picked up the high-speed train to the Repsol plant in Puertollano, south of Madrid. He commuted 400 kilometers a day. Ironically, Carlos had survived last year's accidental explosion at the Puertollano plant that killed nine of his co-workers. He was a pacifist activist; he'd gone to all the demonstrations against the Iraq war. He had just bought a car and was saving up to buy an apartment and marry his girlfriend. Carlos's father is a well-known CC.OO. union leader.
Carlos Fernandez, construction worker, 39, Alcala de Henares. Carlos arrived in Spain from Peru only 24 days before his death. He was a native of Lima. He had been a government bureaucrat there, but could not live on his salary, so he emigrated and found a job working construction in Madrid. His three brothers in Madrid encouraged him to move there; he lived in an apartment with them in Alcala. Carlos leaves his widow, a son, and a daughter in Peru.
Jose Miguel Valderrama Lopez, bank employee, 25, San Fernando de Henares. Jose Miguel lived with his parents and his brother, but soon he was going to move with his girlfriend of five years into an apartment he had bought. He enjoyed traveling and was famous among his friends for his attention to neatness and order. He was politically active and a union member. His 26th birthday would have been today.
Hector Manuel Figueroa Prado, plasterer, 33, Madrid. Hector was a native of Santiago, Chile. He, his wife, and their seven-year-old son arrived in Madrid a year ago. Hector and his father-in-law worked together as plasterers and hoped to open their own business someday. His father-in-law happened to catch an earlier train than Hector on the morning of the 11th and was not hurt. Hector was an evangelical Protestant and his religion was very important to him. He died at El Pozo.
Maria Jose Alvares Ordonez, civil servant, 48, Alcala de Henares. Maria Jose worked in the Education department of the Madrid regional government. Her parents were farmers in Asturias; Maria Jose moved to Alcala for work and married and then separated. She leaves a 23-year-old son, her parents, and a sister.
David Santamaria Garcia, technician, 22, Guadalajara. David was on the train because he was going to have his medical checkup; he was finishing his internship at Alstom, the train manufacturing company. He was going to be a maintenance technician on the high-speed train line. David was traveling along with a friend and co-worker, Guillermo Senent, who was also killed. He was known as a fine soccer player; he had played on the Guadalajara B team. He leaves his parents, sister, and girlfriend. His body was "very much damaged by the shock wave".
Neil Hebe Astocondor Masgo, mover, 34, Coslada. Neil was a native of Lima, Peru. He had been in Spain for two years and had just received his legalization papers; he worked for a moving company. Neil's wife lived with him in Coslada, but their children of 12 and 10 years had stayed behind in Lima. He died in the field hospital at El Pozo.
Saturday, March 13, 2004
I should point out that the people detained in Madrid are linked to having sold the mobile phone and fake phone card used as a timer in the backpack bomb that didn't go off, so this isn't precisely ironclad proof of an Al Qaeda job.
The left is trying to take full advantage of the situation; there was a "spontaneous" demonstration--some of the signs looked surprisingly professional, but then again they may be left over from some other demo--in front of the PP headquarters in Madrid, that drew at least 500 and maybe 3000 people accusing the Government of lying and of failing to appease Islamic terrorists. Supposedly this demo was organized by mobile phone, which just isn't the good old committee-and-bureaucracy let's-sing-the-Internationale Old Left we all know and love. TV 3 is making a big deal out of this. The other stations aren't paying it nearly as much attention.
Well, we'll see how this affects tomorrow's elections. I personally am going to wager that nearly everyone who is going to vote has his mind pretty much made up, and that this terrorist mass murder isn't going to greatly affect how people vote. It will just make both sides more partisan.
Alfredo Perez Rubalcalba from the Socialist Party just stated at a televised press conference that Spaniards "deserve a government that doesn't lie to them". This is politicizing the massacre, of course, not to mention illegally campaigning on the last day before the election, not to mention calling the Prime Minister and his Cabinet liars with no evidence. (In Spain it's not legal for political parties to campaign on the day before election day, dubbed the "day of reflection".)
The left is trying to take full advantage of the situation; there was a "spontaneous" demonstration--some of the signs looked surprisingly professional, but then again they may be left over from some other demo--in front of the PP headquarters in Madrid, that drew at least 500 and maybe 3000 people accusing the Government of lying and of failing to appease Islamic terrorists. Supposedly this demo was organized by mobile phone, which just isn't the good old committee-and-bureaucracy let's-sing-the-Internationale Old Left we all know and love. TV 3 is making a big deal out of this. The other stations aren't paying it nearly as much attention.
Well, we'll see how this affects tomorrow's elections. I personally am going to wager that nearly everyone who is going to vote has his mind pretty much made up, and that this terrorist mass murder isn't going to greatly affect how people vote. It will just make both sides more partisan.
Alfredo Perez Rubalcalba from the Socialist Party just stated at a televised press conference that Spaniards "deserve a government that doesn't lie to them". This is politicizing the massacre, of course, not to mention illegally campaigning on the last day before the election, not to mention calling the Prime Minister and his Cabinet liars with no evidence. (In Spain it's not legal for political parties to campaign on the day before election day, dubbed the "day of reflection".)
BREAKING NEWS
It is 8:25 PM. Interior Minister Angel Acebes has just given a press conference live on national television in order to announce that five arrests have been made and two more interrogations are taking place. Three of the arrested are Moroccan and two are Indian. The two people being interrogated are Spanish citizens of Indian origin. All the arrests and detentions were made in Madrid by Spanish national police. The clue that lead investigators to these people was the mobile phone used as a timer in the backpack bomb that didn't go off.
The reports floating around, I do not know with what validity, are that at least one of the Moroccans has connections with a Moroccan radical Islamic group, that they are all males under age 30, that at least some of the arrests were made in the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapies, that these men were infrastructure operatives (safe houses, transport, and the like) rather than the material authors of the bombing, and that the police are looking for three men seen wearing ski masks and getting on and off trains at Alcala de Henares.
Looks to me like I am at the very least partially wrong in my insistence on ETA as the terrorist group responsible for the bombings. The arrested people certainly aren't Basques, though we don't know who put the bombs on the trains yet. The operation might have been done in collaboration with ETA or with one of many radical Islamic groups, including Al Qaeda.
This is wonderful news. We are now seven suspected conspirators closer to finding the killers. May they all be caught, tried, convicted, and punished soon.
I maintain that those on the left who accuse the government of covering up the truth are wrong. They, and I, jumped to the conclusion that it must have been ETA, but they continued investigating down various paths and threads and informed us promptly when this latest break in the case happened. Obviously, they are keeping some basic details under wraps, but we have been told the essential news as it has been happening, whether it pointed toward the ETA hypothesis or not.
It is 8:25 PM. Interior Minister Angel Acebes has just given a press conference live on national television in order to announce that five arrests have been made and two more interrogations are taking place. Three of the arrested are Moroccan and two are Indian. The two people being interrogated are Spanish citizens of Indian origin. All the arrests and detentions were made in Madrid by Spanish national police. The clue that lead investigators to these people was the mobile phone used as a timer in the backpack bomb that didn't go off.
The reports floating around, I do not know with what validity, are that at least one of the Moroccans has connections with a Moroccan radical Islamic group, that they are all males under age 30, that at least some of the arrests were made in the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapies, that these men were infrastructure operatives (safe houses, transport, and the like) rather than the material authors of the bombing, and that the police are looking for three men seen wearing ski masks and getting on and off trains at Alcala de Henares.
Looks to me like I am at the very least partially wrong in my insistence on ETA as the terrorist group responsible for the bombings. The arrested people certainly aren't Basques, though we don't know who put the bombs on the trains yet. The operation might have been done in collaboration with ETA or with one of many radical Islamic groups, including Al Qaeda.
This is wonderful news. We are now seven suspected conspirators closer to finding the killers. May they all be caught, tried, convicted, and punished soon.
I maintain that those on the left who accuse the government of covering up the truth are wrong. They, and I, jumped to the conclusion that it must have been ETA, but they continued investigating down various paths and threads and informed us promptly when this latest break in the case happened. Obviously, they are keeping some basic details under wraps, but we have been told the essential news as it has been happening, whether it pointed toward the ETA hypothesis or not.
In order to show the reaction of the Spanish press to the Madrid bombings, we're going to excerpt several articles from today's La Vanguardia. This first one is on page 5 and is by Jaume V. Aroca. It is about the demonstration held yesterday evening here in Barcelona, which may have been attended by as many as 1.5 million people.
Along the march there were moments of silence, but also some shouted slogans could be heard. Of all of them, the most repeated was "No to the war" (in reference to Iraq), which could be read on many banners and signs that the demonstrators carried and which did not form a part of the unitary slogan agreed to...
During the march, Vice-President Rodrigo Rato was insulted, along with the PP members who accompanied him, among them the president of the party in Catalonia, Josep Pique, who verbally confronted some of the demonstrators who were shouting at him and claiming that the Government "was lying" about the authentic authors of the bloodiest attentat in history...
That's why I didn't go to the demonstration. I will not march alongside such people.
Here is a fairly reasonable list of points of evidence pointing to either Al Qaeda or ETA as the murderers, from page 8, which I've summarized:
Pointing toward ETA:
1. They've been trying to pull off a big hit in Madrid for years.
2. They know the Henares area and the etarras arrested in Cuenca on Feb. 29 with 536 kilos of dynamite had a map of the area.
3. They tried to pull off a big hit with a bomb on a train last Christmas Eve.
4. They wanted to disrupt the first elections without their illegalized political arm, Batasuna, at all costs.
5. They often use the types of explosives used in Madrid.
6. They don't always warn before an attentat.
7. The internal debate within the organization may have radicalized them even more.
8. They left booby traps for the bomb squad, a habitual ETA tactic.
9. So far there is no evidence of any suicide terrorist.
Pointing toward Al Qaeda:
1. The van used had a tape with Koranic verses in it.
2. The explosives (do they mean detonators?) found in that van are not habitual with ETA.
3. ETA has never committed such a large mass bombing before.
4. ETA has never used so many people on a hit.
5. This massacre will offend at least some of ETA's base support, who don't mind killing cops but draw the line at civilians.
6. There are parallelisms with 9-11 and this attack is 2 1/2 years later.
7. The police have been watching out for an ETA attack but not an Al Qaeda one.
8. The titadyne is better quality than typical ETA titadyne.
9. Islamic terrorist gangs do not always use suicide bombers.
10. Islamic terrorists already hit Spanish interests in Casablanca "because of our support for Bush".
It seems to me that all these points are fairly reasonable, but I still say those indicating ETA are much stronger than those indicating Al Qaeda or some other Islamic group.
Here's Jordi Barbeta's analysis masquerading as a news story from page 24; I actually generally like Barbeta and I think this analysis is pretty good.
In the end it was impossible to prevent the dead and wounded from the Madrid massacre from being converted into ammunition for the political struggle over the repercussions of the tragedy on the election results on Sunday. The extended belief that the electorate's reaction would be very different in the case that the killers were ETA terrorists or Al Qaeda terrorists caused the Government to make official statements and also caused insinuations from the opposition parties that made the unity of the democratic forces wobble both before and after the mass demonstrations of yesterday.
The Government insisted all day that the suspicion that ETA is behind the attentat is still the most viable, while several opposition parties and also the Basque regional government insinuated that the government was hiding information that would support the hypothesis of an Al Qaeda attack as a reprisal for Spain's support for the war in Iraq.
ETA, which has always had as its primary strategic objective the division of the democratic forces and does not miss any opportunity to exercise a maximum of protagonism, hurried to inform the daily Gara that it "had no responsibility" for the Madrid bombings one hour before the demonstrations in the provincial capitals, and just a few moments after Interior Minister Angel Acebes reiterated that ETA was the principal suspect.
Nevertheless, the controversy had begun early in the morning, since the subject protagonized the radio and TV talk shows and leaders of opposition parties had already denounced the Government's alleged biased attitude regarding the administration of information. With this argument, leftist party militants and members of the pacifist groups that led the movement against the war in Iraq appeared at the demonstrations incorporating their "No to the war" to the antiterrorist slogans. At the Barcelona demonstration, the emblem that the pacifists used against the Iraq war was carried by hundreds of persons.
Along the march there were moments of silence, but also some shouted slogans could be heard. Of all of them, the most repeated was "No to the war" (in reference to Iraq), which could be read on many banners and signs that the demonstrators carried and which did not form a part of the unitary slogan agreed to...
During the march, Vice-President Rodrigo Rato was insulted, along with the PP members who accompanied him, among them the president of the party in Catalonia, Josep Pique, who verbally confronted some of the demonstrators who were shouting at him and claiming that the Government "was lying" about the authentic authors of the bloodiest attentat in history...
That's why I didn't go to the demonstration. I will not march alongside such people.
Here is a fairly reasonable list of points of evidence pointing to either Al Qaeda or ETA as the murderers, from page 8, which I've summarized:
Pointing toward ETA:
1. They've been trying to pull off a big hit in Madrid for years.
2. They know the Henares area and the etarras arrested in Cuenca on Feb. 29 with 536 kilos of dynamite had a map of the area.
3. They tried to pull off a big hit with a bomb on a train last Christmas Eve.
4. They wanted to disrupt the first elections without their illegalized political arm, Batasuna, at all costs.
5. They often use the types of explosives used in Madrid.
6. They don't always warn before an attentat.
7. The internal debate within the organization may have radicalized them even more.
8. They left booby traps for the bomb squad, a habitual ETA tactic.
9. So far there is no evidence of any suicide terrorist.
Pointing toward Al Qaeda:
1. The van used had a tape with Koranic verses in it.
2. The explosives (do they mean detonators?) found in that van are not habitual with ETA.
3. ETA has never committed such a large mass bombing before.
4. ETA has never used so many people on a hit.
5. This massacre will offend at least some of ETA's base support, who don't mind killing cops but draw the line at civilians.
6. There are parallelisms with 9-11 and this attack is 2 1/2 years later.
7. The police have been watching out for an ETA attack but not an Al Qaeda one.
8. The titadyne is better quality than typical ETA titadyne.
9. Islamic terrorist gangs do not always use suicide bombers.
10. Islamic terrorists already hit Spanish interests in Casablanca "because of our support for Bush".
It seems to me that all these points are fairly reasonable, but I still say those indicating ETA are much stronger than those indicating Al Qaeda or some other Islamic group.
Here's Jordi Barbeta's analysis masquerading as a news story from page 24; I actually generally like Barbeta and I think this analysis is pretty good.
In the end it was impossible to prevent the dead and wounded from the Madrid massacre from being converted into ammunition for the political struggle over the repercussions of the tragedy on the election results on Sunday. The extended belief that the electorate's reaction would be very different in the case that the killers were ETA terrorists or Al Qaeda terrorists caused the Government to make official statements and also caused insinuations from the opposition parties that made the unity of the democratic forces wobble both before and after the mass demonstrations of yesterday.
The Government insisted all day that the suspicion that ETA is behind the attentat is still the most viable, while several opposition parties and also the Basque regional government insinuated that the government was hiding information that would support the hypothesis of an Al Qaeda attack as a reprisal for Spain's support for the war in Iraq.
ETA, which has always had as its primary strategic objective the division of the democratic forces and does not miss any opportunity to exercise a maximum of protagonism, hurried to inform the daily Gara that it "had no responsibility" for the Madrid bombings one hour before the demonstrations in the provincial capitals, and just a few moments after Interior Minister Angel Acebes reiterated that ETA was the principal suspect.
Nevertheless, the controversy had begun early in the morning, since the subject protagonized the radio and TV talk shows and leaders of opposition parties had already denounced the Government's alleged biased attitude regarding the administration of information. With this argument, leftist party militants and members of the pacifist groups that led the movement against the war in Iraq appeared at the demonstrations incorporating their "No to the war" to the antiterrorist slogans. At the Barcelona demonstration, the emblem that the pacifists used against the Iraq war was carried by hundreds of persons.
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