Did the socialists have a relationship with the ETA attack against José María Aznar?

@ElentirENG ES 5·17·2024 · 19:07 0

In the last few hours in Spain we are witnessing a very dangerous drift by the socialist government of Pedro Sánchez.

Bildu splashes Pedro Sánchez again by refusing to condemn tributes to terrorists
The favors to ETA for which Pedro Sánchez does not want anyone to talk about those terrorists

The government links the Spanish right with an attack in Slovakia

This Wednesday, socialist Teresa Ribera, third vice president of Sánchez's government, related the "right" and the "far-right" of Spain with the attack suffered by the president of Slovakia Robert Fico: "right and far-right must be careful" because we may have "a displeasure," said Ribera. It is a clear attempt to criminalize the opposition and try to deactivate their legitimate criticism of the government, linking it with a crime that occurred in another country and with which the Spanish opposition has not the slightest relationship.

The socialist 'crime syndicate' strategy in the 1990s

It is not the first time that the Socialist Party (PSOE) resorts to a perverse strategy like this in Spain. Two years ago I remembered here the strategy of the socialists, begun in 1993, describing the critical media and the opposition as a "crime syndicate" at a time when the PSOE was facing, as now, serious political corruption scandals and even a state terrorism scandal, the GAL case, for which a former socialist minister, José Barrionuevo, was sentenced to prison. This demonization campaign culminated in 1996 with an election advertisement of the PSOE in which it identified the opposition with a Doberman, an advertisement criticized for being low and manipulative. The PSOE ended up losing the 1996 general elections.

The ETA attack against José María Aznar in 1995

In Spain there has not been any attack against a president of the government since the assassination of Admiral Carrero Blanco by ETA on December 20, 1973. However, there was a terrorist attack against the leader of the opposition: was perpetrated by ETA on Wednesday, April 19, 1995 in Madrid against José María Aznar, then president of the Popular Party. The terrorists detonated a car bomb in front of the vehicle in which Aznar was riding, who was unharmed thanks to the fact that his car was armored.

El Mundo pointed out that the government had withdrawn the counter-surveillance device

It is interesting to read what was published then, in case some have forgotten. Fernando Lázaro, a highly prestigious journalist, published the next day in the newspaper El Mundo:

"As police sources confirmed to EL MUNDO, the leader of the PP, in addition to the bodyguard and armored vehicles, had a police counter-surveillance service, made up of at least two police officers. These agents were monitoring Aznar from a distance. However, a few days ago, the Ministry of Justice and Interior withdrew this device."

The Police took almost two hours to close the Madrid exits

Two days later, Lázaro pointed out in El Mundo that it took almost two hours for the Police to close the Madrid exits after the attack, a common device known then as "Operation Cage" to prevent terrorists from fleeing after committing an attack in a city. The order to activate this operation was not given until 1 hour and 10 minutes after the attack, an inexplicable delay, which reduced the possibilities of capturing the perpetrators to a minimum.

The socialist government denied that Aznar was an ETA target

The day after the attack, El Mundo published that the then Minister of the Interior, the socialist Juan Alberto Belloch, had assured two days before that Aznar was not an immediate objective of ETA, during a meeting with two leaders of the PP to study the security of the senior officials of that party after the murder of Gregorio Ordóñez at the hands of ETA on January 23, 1995. On April 20, 1995, El País pointed out that Belloch admitted that the possibility of ETA attacking Aznar was "within ETA logic".

Felipe González did not go to visit Aznar at the hospital

On April 22, 1995, three days after the attack, the newspaper El País, related to the PSOE, indicated that the then president of the government, the socialist Felipe González, did not go to visit Aznar to the clinic. Let's imagine what would have happened if in Spain a member of the government suffered an attack like that and the leader of the opposition acted in this way. The government's official excuse was that González had spent the day working at the Moncloa palace and that in the afternoon he had a meeting with foreign journalists, as if all that could not be postponed for a terrorist attack against the opposition leader.

In case the PSOE has forgotten, after the attack against Aznar there was criticism for the insulting tone of the socialists against the opposition. In addition to the aforementioned expression of "crime syndicate", used by the PSOE against the opposition and media critical of the government, González had compared his political rivals on the right to "boars".

The government hid from the PP that there had been frustrated attacks against Aznar

Three days after the attack, on April 22, it was learned that the socialist government hid from the PP that there had been frustrated attacks against Aznar before the attack perpetrated on April 19, 1995, and that the Police knew of ETA's plans against PP leaders but the leaders of this party were not alerted by the government.

Herri Batasuna justified the attack: today Bildu is an ally of the PSOE

Likewise, on April 21, 1995 Herri Batasuna, the political arm of ETA, openly justified the attack against Aznar: "It has been a blow to the continuity that seeks to maintain a tax structure of the State" . This was said by Karmelo Landa, who in 2013 was appointed representative of EH Bildu to the EiTB Board of Directors. Today, and without having condemned any of the ETA terrorist attacks (not even the one suffered by Aznar), Bildu is an ally of the socialist government of Pedro Sánchez. The same government that tries to link the opposition with the attack committed by a 71-year-old man in Slovakia.

If the socialists consider it legitimate to link the Spanish opposition with a crime in another country with which it has not even the slightest relationship, I think it is legitimate to ask what I indicate in the title of this article: Did the socialists have a relationship with the ETA attack against José María Aznar in 1995? Review the facts and judge for yourself.

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Photo: Efe.