From S-11 to M-11 : Effects of conservative political management of terrorism

There exists evidence from Israel that terrorist acts are usually favourable towards policies of the most conservative right, specifically when the pacification initiated at Camp David (11-24/7/2000) by W.J. Clinton, E. Barak and Y. Arafat, was frustrated after the intifada caused by the visit of A. Sharon to the esplanade of Mosques [1]. The peace process was frustrated for a long time but the incident allowed Sharon a loose victory in the Israeli elections (6/2/2000) [2].

The zero tolerance policy adopted by Likud’s government continued to have a solid ally in the United States, especially after the take over at the White House, where the republicans now governed, with George Bush junior at the helm. It was this new government that experienced the tragedy of S-11 and did not hesitated to use it to organise a crusade against international terrorism. Bush did not waste any time in talking about the «Axis of Evil»; initially made up of Korea, Iran and Iraq, the last of which was destined to suffer the same fate previously experienced by Afghanistan. The «preventive attack» became one of the cornerstones of Bush’s international policy, and this strategy was enthusiastically embraced by President Aznar, especially after receiving an absolute majority in the general elections (March 2000).

As we understand it, the attacks of S-11 coincided with, not by chance, the increase of power of conservative governements in Israel and USA, which meant more than a change, but an accentuation of their traditional policy. As a consequence of the attacks, the new Bush administration took advantage of and channelled the emotional effecs onto the American Society, [3] this allowed him to put into effect an internal policy cutting down on liberties, [4] answered by the liberal sectors [5] and even some conservatives, [6] or legal professionals. [7] The Spanish president J.M. Aznar soon jumped on the bandwagon and also took advantage of the new international juncture, and national (absolute majority), in order to carry out a hardening of the laws, attempting to penalise political conflict, as we are about to see. But let us place these latests events with those that we referred to in the recent history of the Spanish society and its struggle to outlaw the terrorist phenomenon.

Madrid, March, 11th

In January 1988, was subscribed a pact by nearly all the political forces at Ajuria Enea, seat of the Basque government, where a consensus against terrorism was search between the political forces. That pact urged the terrorist band ETA to leave arms and to defend its ideas by peaceful means (point 7), and to the radical nationalist coalition Herri Batasuna to occupy their seats at the Spanish Parliament (point 8). The pact gave its support to the social rehabilitation of those who left violence (point 9) and, when social conditions could allow it, the start of a dialogue process between the State and those who decided to leave arms (point 10). The pact asked for the derogation of the special anti-terrorist law (point 11) and finished asking lehendakari (Basque president) [8] to leader the process to political normalization in Basque country (point 17).

Ten years later (January 1998), after realising there was no improvement in that matter, lehendakari Ardanza offered to Mesa of Ajuria Enea [9] a proposal (Plan Ardanza) to make some advance to the "dialogue End" referred at point 10 of the Pact, between the State and an intermediary who had parliamentary representation, with the condition that ETA declared an indefinite truce. For Ardanza, that intermediary could be the nationalist coalition Herri Batasuna, and the diologue would deal with the named "national question" without previous conditions, that is, there would be no imposition of the right to self-determination at the start, but neither the exclusion of that possibility.

Both, the governing Partido Popular and Partido Socialista treated harshly that proposal and rejected any kind of dialogue with terrorists. However, Partido Nacionalista Vasco took another step in that direction and summoned all the Basque political forces (exept Partido Socialista and Partido Popular) to meet in Lizarra (Estella) where they signed an agreement (declaration of Lizarra) with some of the proposals by Ardanza.

A few days later, ETA announced the start of an indefinite truce (that would last fourteen months). However, that agreement was rejected by both Partido Popular and Partido Socialista who also fiercely criticised PNV for meeting with radical nationalists, whom for them were not different from ETA. In December 2000, both political parties (PP and PSOE) signed an Agreement for Freedom and against Terrorism (known as Pact against Terrorism) that attacked PNV for "having reached an agreement with ETA" and for "paying a political price" (the right to self-determination) for the end of violence. Both parties agreed not to use terrorism electorally.

As was said, PP governed from March 2000 with absolute majority and was able to attract Partido Socialista to their thesis on terrorism. In regional elections of 2000 at Basque country, both parties were confident of victory, and their capability, combining efforts, to throw PNV from power. Many analysts predicted that result (victory of PS plus PP) if the turnout were higher than that of 1998 (68 %). Mass media contributed enthusiastically to that enterprise, attacking PNV and showing pre-election polls which gave absolute majority to the alliance PP and PS. In order to assure their victory, both parties demanded PNV to reject votes from radical nationalist Euskal Herritarrok in the presidential investiture, condition that would make presumably impossible for PNV to get the Presidency.

In any case, reality was far from predictions and, with a turnout of 80 %, PNV got a historical victory, winning 33 regional seats (17 more than in 1998), meanwhile PP got 19 and PS 13, the latter paying electoraly punished its approach to PP.

Although the new lehendakari, J.J. Ibarretxe, honoured his electoral promises and avoid any pact with Euskal Herritarrok, excluding that group from the peace table until they condemned the terrorist actions by ETA, the absolute majority of PP in Madrid allowed its president, J.M. Aznar, to refuse point blank to meet the new lehendakari during the whole term of his office (2000-2004).

It is here where we have to set the effects of S-11, because after that event PP found its president converted suddenly in a torchbearer against terrorism in an international scale, what gave a kind of legitimisation to its policy. In the Spanish field, not satisfied with the institutional isolation of Basque Government, PP even blamed PSOE for meeting with lehendakari Ibarretxe, and accused them for breaching the Pact against Terrorism.

The radicalization of political life allowed PP (June 2002), with the unnecessary help of PSOE, to approve the Law for Political Parties, designed to make illegal Herri Batasuna and Euskal Herritarrok, the proposed mediators by the plan Ardanza.

The president of the Basque parliament, J.M. Atutxa, refused the dissolution of the coalition Sozialista Abertzaleak, with the 7 members of the now illegal Batasuna, as ordained by the High Court, with the argument that dissolution of parliamentary groups was competence of the Basque parliament, and was not the jurisdiction of the High Court. General Attorney announced immediately a legal action against Atutxa.

Partido Popular followed its strategy of toughening political life and set on a Law of Reform for Full Compliance of Custodial Sentences (BOE 1/7/2003), with the argument that "the system of progression of grades, permissions, open regimes, and the concession of conditional release" allowed the no compliance with custodial sentences according to penal code. That law, in addition to the measures difficulting the concession of the conditional, established the maximum sentence in 40 years of custody, instead of 30. A couple of months later, a new reform of the penal code in 170 of its articles, established in 3 months, instead of 6, the minimum sentence to jail.

That same month of September, Aznar assisted to an international conference on terrorism, in New York, where he affirmed that "instead of the causes, it is the effects of terrorism what should take our attention», despite that the meeting was convened under the title "A Conference on the roots of evil".

In the meanwhile, the Basque government, in a leap in the dark, [10] went forward and offered (October 2003) a proposal of a new statute of autonomy under the name Political Statute for the Community of Euskadi (known as Plan Ibarretxe), designed to increase the level of autonomy and to convert the region in a "Basque community freely associated to the Spanish State", although with Spanish as a co-official language and with guaranties of no discrimination for reasons of nationality, religion, etc. The new statute should be approved in a referendum called by the lehendakari.

The reaction of the Spanish Government arrived without delay and the following month a new reform of the penal code (art. 506bis and 576bis), approved with the character of urgency and avoiding parliamentary debate, prohibited the regional presidents the calling of referendums and to subsidize dissolved parliamentary groups. That reform aimed at sending both, Ibarretxe and Atutxa, to jail for 5 years.

In December 2003, more than 300 jurists declared that reform as a "mockery of the parliamentary normality" and criticized "the re-introduction in our legislation of the political crime", what is characteristic of "Governments with totalitarian vocation", because of its will to criminalize political conflicts. [11] Despite the critics, the following month (January 2004), the Government announced a new Law for Minors that increased the punishment for crimes related to terrorism.

Two months earlier, the regional elections in Catalonia gave the victory to Partido Socialista, who formed government with Iniciativa per Catalunya (excommunists) and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (independentists). Immediately, Partido Popular try to apply the same strategy used in Basque country. The occasion was presented when it was transcended to the public opinion the meeting between the leader of ERC, Carod Rovira (second authority in Catalonia after the president Maragall), and two important members of ETA in Perpignan. Rovira had to offer his resignation (accepted by Maragall), and the Association of Victims of Terrorism took legal action against him.

A few days later was known that the report on the meeting of Rovira with ETA made by the Center of National Intelligence was leak to ABC, the newspaper who spread the new, whose director is brother of the general secretary for the Presidency and member of the Governmental Commission for Intelligence Affairs, J. Zarzalejos. Crisis grew on when ETA announced a few days later a truce in Catalonia (18/2/2004), although Rovira denied several times that he negotiated that with the band. Immediately after the announcement of the truce, the Spokesman of the Government, E. Zaplana, demanded the dissolution of the Catalan government. The Government was accused by socialists of doing electioneering on terrorism, and some members of the Centre of National Inteligence showed themselves unease because of the leak would burnt its information sources.

In an escalation of tension, the police made the detention of two members of ETA with more than 500 kilo of explosives, just in the start of the electoral campaign. When the Secretary of Interior, A. Acebes, informed to the press about the detentions, exclaimed: "Carod Rovira will be happy today and we should congratulate him because ETA did not pretend to act in Catalonia but in Madrid". And, in the electoral campaign, the Spokesman of the Government, Zaplana, said: "the socialists should explain why they go for the Senate with members of a party who pact with terrorists".

All what we have described till now can explain why, when 3 days before the general elections took place in Madrid the tragic terrorist attack that left nearly 200 people dead, the Spanish Government accused immediately ETA of being responsible of the attack. Despite the declarations of A. Otegui (leader of the dissolved Batasuna) saying that ETA was not responsible and condemning for the first time the attack; despite the finding the same afternoon of a van with the kind of explosives used in the trains (and different from that used by ETA) together with an audio cassette with Islamic canticles; despite the letter of Al Qaeda to a British newspaper that evening claiming the responsibility for the attack, nothing could change Government opinion: ETA was the principal suspect.

It is easy to understand why. If it were ETA, the socialists would probably lose elections because of their pact with ERC who, according to Government, made a pact with ETA to no attack in Catalonia but in the rest of Spain. But if it were Al Qaeda, the responsibility would fall on the head of president Aznar, because he joined Bush and Blair in their war against Iraq. The Government was so committed in the hiding of Islamic track, that the information about the detentions of five Muslims on Saturday (the day before general elections) was retained for hours. That strategy, which was helped by several newspapers (ABC, La Razón), public channels of TV (TVE1, TVE2) and private ones (Antena 3), and some of the main radio companies (COPE), was destined to fail in the Internet age, because people got information from channels different from the officials. The tragic events remained people of past experiences of manipulation, as when the accident of Prestige or when the campaign against Iraq. In the end, as we know, PSOE won easily that elections.

Our thesis is that despite terrorism is for the conservative government the main problem of society, the way they manage go in an opposite way. While the govern of USA was able to channel the passions arose after the attacks of S-11 to the exterior, in defence of its geo-strategic interests, Spain, without that possibility [12], addressed its efforts to inside. [13] PP made electoral use of the Pact against Terrorism, using it against its unique partner at anytime the latter tried to tend bridges to nationalists. The Government also isolated institutionally the Basque government, what gave arguments to more radical nationalists who saw how was criminalized the regional president and the head of the regional parliament for defending political positions much milder than theirs. And also tried to apply the same strategy to the Catalan government. In addition, the Government criminalized political conflicts resorting to penal code increasingly. And finally, regarding to security, the leak of the information about the meeting of Rovira with ETA was something that damaged the sources of CNI in the same way that the hiding of the real responsibility of 11-M menaced the security of its allies in Europe and USA.