Spaniards silently protest killings
( 2001-07-16 11:43 ) (7 )

Crowds of Spaniards stood silently outside city and town halls on Sunday in protest at the killings of a local politician and a senior police official blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA.

Jose Javier Mugica Astibia, a 58-year-old conservative town councillor, was killed on Saturday by a bomb that had been planted under his van in the northern Spanish region of Navarre.

Hours later, gunmen struck in the neighbouring Basque Country, killing Mikel Uribe, 44, a leading member of the regional police force which is one of the main symbols of the Basques' broad powers of self-rule.

The attacks coincided with the swearing-in ceremony for the Basque region's newly re-elected president, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, whose moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) has governed for the past two decades.

Political analysts said ETA was apparently trying to intimidate the PNV government, which it has accused of reneging on a pledge to join a more radical push for independence.

Many mainstream nationalists share ETA's goal of Basque self-determination but reject its violent methods.

The head of security for the Basque regional government, Javier Balza, vowed to defeat the "barbarity" of ETA and Spain's Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy branded the group "a mafia."

The widow of town councillor Mugica, struggling to speak through her grief, simply thanked friends and supporters who packed a church in the town of Leiza where her husband was killed a day earlier.

"I do not have much strength but I am very, very grateful to those of you who have come," Reyes Zubeldia told the congregation including Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

As part of the grim routine that follows every killing, crowds gathered in silent protest in municipalities across Navarre, including several hundred people who stood in the rain in the central plaza of the regional capital of Pamplona.

Demonstrations were also held in parts of the Basque Country and in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza. Larger protests were scheduled for Monday night.

ATTACKS CONDEMNED

"Basque society must show ETA its condemnation and demand an end to this madness," Basque government spokesman Jon Imaz said.

Mugica's body was cremated in a private ceremony.

ETA, one of the last armed separatist groups still active in Western Europe, has rarely dared to carry out two attacks in a single day as occurred on Saturday. That brought the number of ETA-linked deaths to three in the past week.

ETA has been accused of about 800 killings in its 33-year campaign for a Basque state carved out of northern Spain and southwestern France. It has been blamed for 11 deaths this year.

The radical party considered ETA's political wing saw its support cut nearly in half to 10 percent in a May regional election as voters rejected its renewed campaign of killing.

Mugica, who worked as a photographer and driver, was typical of ordinary Spaniards who have become ETA targets simply for their affiliation with parties opposed to Basque independence.

He was a small-town politician who belonged to a regional party aligned with Spain's ruling Popular Party. ETA claims Navarre as part of a greater Basque homeland.

But Uribe's killing may have been an even stronger message to the Basque government. He belonged to the Ertzaintza police force, one of the central institutions of Basque autonomy granted after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

REUTERS 2018 150701 GMT 2001-07-16 04:19:54 2001-07-16 04:22:03 3882 NNNN