[Marxism] Re: Bombs in Madrid

[Ed George <edgeorge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some developments. ETA has now openly stated that they didn't do it, via
a communiqué issued yesterday through the journal Gara
(<http://www.gara.net/>), as close to an official mouthpiece for the
group as exists. Gara is totally reliable with respect to this, and
given that ETA always, always, always claim responsibility for their
actions this news, along with the other evidence, both concrete and
circumstantial, has me now 100 per cent convinced that it was not ETA.
Nevertheless, Mariano Rajoy, the Partido Popular's prime ministerial
candidate for tomorrow's general elections has declared today in an
interview in the Spanish state daily El Mundo (<http://www.elmundo.es/>)
that he has the 'moral conviction' that ETA is responsible for
Thursday's attacks. Who needs evidence when you can have moral
convictions? What is happening is that the Spanish state right need
people to believe that ETA did it up until tomorrow (the elections), and
that after that they won't give a damn.

meanwhile, last night saw the biggest popular mobilisation in the
Spanish state since the days of the Second republic. Government and
Police figures (and yesterday I suspect they did not carry out their
customary massaging down of the numbers) put the number of people on the
streets in the mobilisations throughout the Spanish state at between 11
and 12 million. The population of Spain is a shade under 40 million, so
go figure. In León, where I live, we saw a demonstration of around 80 -
100,000 (I didn't go) - in a city whose population is around 150,000.
Huge; but ugly. Very nationalistic, very anti-ETA ('España, unida, jamás
será vencida' - 'Spain, united, will never be defeated' - was a popular
chant), very right wing. Clearly, many people on these marches went out
of a genuine sense of solidarity with the victims, but the political
basis of them ('With the Victims, With the Constitution, For the Defeat
of Terrorism') and the fact that this genuine popular sense of
solidarity was channelled through the lens of Spanish chauvinism made
them a very ugly spectacle indeed. And the fact that the integrity of
the Spanish nation, cloaked under the flag of the Constitution, has been
the channel for these popular sentiments is the responsibility of the
left, who once again failed to see through the deception. the same
nationalistic drum that was beaten in 1914, and which destroyed the
Second International in an afternoon, was the same one that was beating
last night on the streets of the Spanish state.

Below is an assessment from one of the Spanish state Usec people, with a
good analysis (but a dodgy translation - not mine!), posted in full
since it is not available online in English.

And tomorrow the elections. More to come when I know it.

Agur.


******



The internal politics of Madrid  11-M terrorist attacks

Madrid, capital of glory, Madrid capital of infamy

G. Buster*

As homage to its resistance to fascism the poet Rafael Alberti once
called Madrid ³the capital of glory². The 11 of March, Madrid has been
again a martyr city. A cruel terrorist attack has caused 198 dead and
some 1.500 wounded. Most of the victims are workers, women and youth of
the southern working class districts of the city. Against this wave of
indiscriminate terror, the people of Madrid have built again a barricade
of solidarity and courage.

The terrorist attacks -12 backpacks with 8 or 10 kilograms of explosives
placed in three local trains- took place around 7:30 am. Most of the
victims were commuting to their works and schools. The aim of the
terrorist according to the police- was to blow up the trains inside
Atocha¹s Station and bring down the whole building.

Against this background of the pain of the victims and their families,
of the solidarity and courage of the people of Madrid, the conservative
Government of the Popular Party, three days before the general
elections, launched a massive campaign to manipulate the popular
feelings. Madrid has been also during the last 48 hours ³the capital of
political infamy².

In its first press conference, few hours after the attacks, the Minister
of the Interior Acebes assured that ETA has been the author of the
bombings. When the journalists present at the conference asked him what
probes he could show, -taking into account that minutes before Otegui,
the spoke person of Batasuna, the illegalized political wing of ETA,
have denied categorically any responsibility of the independentist
Basque movement- he brush aside any doubts. For the conservative
Government it has to be ETA.

It has to be ETA because the PP has built all its electoral campaign on
a program of fear. Fear to any change of the constitutional status that
denies full self government to the Basque Country, to Catalonia and
Galicia. Fear to the new regional governments that question its
neoliberal and centralist policies. Fear to the anti-war movement that
has massively taken the streets against Aznar support for Bush¹s war in
Iraq. Fear to the ecologist campaign against the misuse of water
resources by the new hydrological Plan. Fear to the students¹ protest
against the reactionary university reforms. Fear to workers¹ industrial
actions against the transfer of whole industries to the new found lands
of cheap labour. And ETA represents, more than anything else, fear.

A fear that allows the conservative Government to keep the socio-liberal
opposition, the PSOE, completely tied and depended to its hegemony
through the ³antiterrorist pact². A pact that can only be interpreted by
the Government. A pact that excludes any solution to the national
question in the Spanish State that is not based on repression and the
defence of Spanish nationalism.

When the new prime minister of the left Catalan Government, Carod
Rovira, travel to France to meet with the leadership of ETA to try to
explore the possibilities of a terrorist cease fire, the central
Government of the Popular Party declared him a ³traitor², accused him of
negotiating ³peace² only for Catalonia directing the terrorist attacks
against the rest of the Spanish people- and challenged the PSOE to
immediately brake any alliance with Carod¹s party, the independentist
Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC).

The Catalan left Government survived. But the crisis and the accusations
were to be the basis for the electoral campaign of fear of the PP. The
objective was clear: mobilise its conservative electoral base, paralyse
the left, or at least stop its social campaigning.

This electoral tactics have been very useful to the Popular Party until
now. But if they could use the terrorist attacks to transform in a
radical way popular feelings as the Bush Administration was able to do
after September 11, it will become not only an electoral tactic but a
strategic change that will consolidate its hold of Spanish politics in a
decisive new way, braking and smashing the momentum of the biggest wave
of popular protests in the Spanish State after the end of Franco¹s
Dictatorship.

On the other hand, after having witness millions of people marching in
the streets against the participation of Spanish troops in the illegal
occupation of Iraq, the Popular Party could be sure of its electoral
defeat if the terrorist attacks have been the responsibility of Al Qaeda
or any of its allies. Its was very clear for the Spanish people that the
participation of Spanish troops in the occupation of Iraq could only
make Spain an objective of terrorist attacks. It¹s Bush¹s New World
Order worth it? It¹s Aznar and his Government something to die for? The
answer is clearly no!

Let¹s us think that Aznar, Acebes and all the spoke persons of the
Popular Party that have conducted this campaign of political
manipulation really believed what they said during the morning of the 11
of March. Why were them to give any credit to Otegui¹s declarations
condemning the attacks? Why were them to believe Otegui¹s assurances
that ETA was not behind the terrorist attacks against the people of
Madrid? It¹s true that ETA has sometimes manipulated itself its
political wing declarations.

But a moment came in the evening of the 11 of March when it was more and
more clear that ETA has not been the author of the attacks. At least it
was becoming enough clear for the international stocks markets always
the vanguard of the capitalist system- to fall to new lows on the basis
that this was not an ³internal² Spanish matter but an act of
international fundamentalist terrorism. That the attack showed that Al
Qaeda was not only alive but able to strike at the heart of Bush¹s
allies. The communicate send to the London newspaper Al Quods by a
branch of Al Qaeda didn¹t help either.

The PP Government deliberately maintained the confusion about who was
responsible for the terrorist attacks for its owns political gain after
knowing all the new evidences. It instructed its diplomatic
representations all around the world to insist that ETA was responsible
for the attacks and requested the United Nations and the European Union
to maintain this line of explanation. Kofi Annan and the French
Government refused. They refused to support the lies of Aznar.

By  8 pm the Minister of the Interior had to reappear in TV to announce
in full sincerity that he have ordered a secondary line of investigation
in relation with Al Qaeda. A car used to transport the explosives have
been found with and Islamic tape. Only one hour latter the Spanish TV
informed of Al Qaeda¹s letter claiming responsibility. But the
Government continued to insist that ETA was behind the attacks. If truth
and the political line of the PP Government were in contradiction, so
bad for truth.

Meanwhile, the enormous political pressure of the PP Government has
stopped the political campaign. Actually, only the PP was campaigning
through the Government. The rest of the political parties were shut down
on the name of the ³antiterrorist pact² and the defence of the
constitutional status quo. A new September 11, in this case a Spanish
March 11, was in the making to restrict democratic liberties in the name
of imperial security.

When I write these lines, the Government is still holding to its own
interested version of the events. They are trying to win time, to profit
from the pain and desperation of the working class, to maintain the
confusion as long as possible until the elections on March 14. They know
that a terrible backslash can happen. That if the people have time to
reconsider what has happen after this terrible terrorist attacks the
political manipulation, the infamy behind these 24 hours of lies will be
crystal clear.

The first reactions in that direction are starting. You can listen to
the doubts and the rage mounting in the popular radio programs. And it
could explode during the burial ceremonies. There is a lot of political
explanation to be done by the left if it is able to rise to its own
responsibilities and start talking again at least showing the same
courage that the people of Madrid. Now the question that the people will
have to decide the 14 of March is if they believe the lies of the PP.

12/3/04

*G. Buster is a member of the editorial board of the review ³Viento
Sur², publish in Madrid, and a supporter of the Fourth International.

_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism