Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-31-Speech-3-024"
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"en.20040331.1.3-024"2
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"Mr President, on 11 March, all we Members of the European Parliament came to this House horrified by the news of the terrorist massacre in Madrid at 7.30 in the morning.
Please allow me, firstly, to express my condolences and solidarity with the victims and their families, and also to reject all forms of terrorism.
That morning I had felt particular anguish, added to so much blood and so much anguish, at the realisation that the attack could have been the work of the ultra-radical Basque fanatics of ETA. At midmorning, I heard a Belgian television station point out the possibility that it may have been carried out by Islamic terrorists. At midday, when an oral amendment was presented to the House declaring 11 March the European day against terrorism, the Member presenting that amendment blamed ETA. By then there had already been the early call to the police by the witness who saw three hooded men in Alcalá de Henares and the van containing detonators and verses from the Koran had been found. And there had also been statements denying the attack and the involvement of ETA from the spokesman of Batasuna. It was already known that the attack had not been by ETA and, despite that, pressure was applied and the involvement of ETA was artificially maintained in the Resolution of the European Parliament and in that of the United Nations Security Council.
For all of these reasons, I believe that the Spanish Government of Mr Aznar’s Popular Party was trying to evade its responsibility for having participated in the invasion of Iraq, against the wishes of the Spanish citizens, of the United Nations and international law, and once again took the opportunity to blame ETA and nationalists for the problems which authoritarianism and intolerance such as theirs has created in Europe and in the world.
Neither did the discovery of a rucksack with detonators and a mobile phone used by Islamists do anything for their argument; nor the repeated communications claiming that the Al Qaeda organisation was responsible for the attacks. The Popular Party continued to blame ETA, by means of personal calls by Mr Aznar to the main daily newspapers and by the Foreign Minister to Ambassadors, and also by means of the ineffable public appearances by Minister Acebes.
To make matters worse, millions of European citizens and governments of other States were shamelessly deceived by the Popular Party Government, who did not care a jot about the risk of further attacks and deaths in other cities, provided that the Spanish people did not know until after the elections of Sunday 14 that the horrors suffered in Madrid were a response to the unjust and illegal war in Iraq.
Fortunately, the Spanish citizens were able to demand the truth and get rid of the government which tried to deceive them. And let us hope that we can convince ourselves soon that the best recipe for combating terrorism is to put an end to injustice and poverty, of which there is so much around the world, and in that way we will be able to live in peace."@en1
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