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In Spain, many question terror attack explanation

Three years since the train bombings, conspiracy theories abound.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 11, 2007

MADRID - On the third anniversary of the train bombings that killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800, Spain's political and social wounds are still aching, and the country is torn by a host of conspiracy theories.

Those who refuse to believe the official version of events, that Islamic militants were behind the attack, point their fingers in several directions - at Spain's own security forces, an attempted left-wing coup d'etat, and, most commonly, the Basque separatist group ETA.

Anger still smolders over the government's initial blaming of ETA for the March 11, 2004, attack. It is seen as the main reason the conservative Popular Party was voted out of office in national elections three days after the attack.

Despite overwhelming evidence against Muslim radicals, polls show that about a third of Spaniards - many of them conservative voters - don't believe the official version of events. The conspiracy theories are kept alive by Popular Party leaders and the country's most influential right-wing newspaper, El Mundo.

The claim of Basque involvement is based on three main theories: that the explosives used in the attack may have contained a substance known as DNT, which is common in ETA blasts; that one of the bombers, Jamal Ahmidan, allegedly was an acquaintance of two or three ETA members; and that similarities exist between the bombers' method and a failed ETA attempt to transport explosives into the capital.

"One has to remember that the March 11 attacks were the first time a Spanish government has been brought down as a result of a terror attack ... and that has proved extremely disconcerting, particularly to conservative voters," said Charles Powell, a political scientist at San Pablo-CEU University in Madrid

The Popular Party still hammers away almost obsessively at the possibility of an ETA link. Were it established, it would absolve the party of the claim that it lied in the three grief-stricken days between the bombing and the election.

In such a charged atmosphere, even victimhood itself has been politicized.

One group representing survivors and relatives - the March 11 Association of Those Affected By Terrorism - supports the government investigation and is close to the Socialist administration of Prime Minister Jose Rodriguez Zapatero.

Another, the Association to Help Victims of March 11, rejects the official version and accuses the government of a cover-up.

Eloy Moran de la Fuente, who survived the bombings, belongs to the doubters' group. "The official version of what happened on March 11 is not true. The (Socialist) government ruled out ETA from the start and I can't understand it. I don't point the finger at anyone, but I don't rule anyone out either," he said.

PROTEST OVER PRISONER: Hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Madrid Saturday to demand a tougher government policy toward Basque separatists. The protests were called after the government granted house arrest to Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos, a convicted ETA killer who is near death on a hunger strike over a new conviction stemming from newspaper articles deemed to be terrorist threats.

[Last modified March 11, 2007, 00:50:28]