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Spaniards protest talks with ETA

Hundreds of white balloons are released in Madrid on Saturday at the end of a rally to try to halt government talks with Basque separatist group ETA. Tens of thousands of survivors of terror attacks, relatives of those affected by terrorism and their supporters demonstrated, aiming at pressuring the government to halt planned peace talks with ETA. PHOTO: AP

Spain's right-wing opposition and other conservative groups marched through Madrid on Saturday evening to protest at the Socialist government's plans for peace talks with armed Basque separatist group ETA.

The march, organized by the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) and backed by the right-wing Popular Party (PP), brought together people opposed to plans by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to start peace talks with ETA, following the latter's declaration of a permanent ceasefire.

The PP claimed 1.1 million people turned out for the march under the banner of "Negotiations, not in my name," but police put the number at 200,000.

They gathered in Madrid's Plaza de Colon (Columbus Square) at 6pm brandishing placards saying "Zapatero, traitor" and "War on ETA."

The "interlocutors that the government considers valid are assassins that have killed nearly a thousand people," said AVT president Francisco Jose Alcaraz, whose brother and two nieces were killed in an ETA attack in 1987.

ETA is blamed for causing more than 800 deaths during a four-decade campaign for an independent Basque homeland -- comprising parts of northern Spain and southwestern France. But the group has not been held responsible for any deaths since May 2003.

On March 22 this year, ETA declared a permanent ceasefire, opening the way to direct dialogue with the government and to negotiations between the political parties in Spain's northern Basque region.

PP leader Mariano Rajoy said he hoped the government "takes good note of presence of hundreds of thousands of Spaniards who say that in no case can we negotiate or pay a political price to a terrorist organization."

But Zapatero said earlier on Saturday that he was convinced he had the support of most Spaniards in opening talks.

"The great majority of Spaniards know what it means to submit to the pain and horrors we have experienced and at what point it is worth making peace," he said.

The PP was ousted by the Socialists in March 2004 after PP leaders blamed ETA for the devastating Madrid bombings of four days earlier, despite increasing evidence that they were the work of Islamic extremists.
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