Spain mourns latest victims of ETA offensive

Aznar, second from right, leads the mourners

MADRID (Reuters) -- Spain's prime minister has led thousands mourning the two latest victims of violence linked to the Basque separatist group ETA.

The memorial service on Monday was held as police intensified a crackdown on ETA with five arrests.

Coffins draped in the red and yellow Spanish flag carrying the remains of the two Civil Guard police officers were borne shoulder-high into a cathedral in the northern city Huesca.

Mourners inside and in the streets outside broke into a long round of applause as they passed.

The two officers -- a woman and man aged 32 and 22 -- died on Sunday morning when a bomb ripped apart their patrol jeep in the town of Sallent de Gallego, high in the Pyrenees mountains near the French border in Huesca province.

INTERACTIVE Timeline of the ETA campaign     MESSAGE BOARD Terrorism in Spain

"In the name of all that is great, in the name of so many people who suffer, we place God as a witness to stop this madness," the bishop of the mountain city of Jaca, Jose Maria Conget, told the congregation.

As the service was taking place, Basque police continued a crackdown on ETA, or Basque Homeland and Freedom, arresting five people. They had arrested three other suspected members or supporters of the armed group on Saturday, when explosives and grenades were also seized.

Sunday's attack brought to 11 the number of people killed in ETA-linked attacks since the group ended a cease fire in December. Six of those have been killed since mid-July.

ETA has been blamed for around 800 deaths since it began its violent campaign for Basque independence in 1968, during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

Spain's conservative government has said the recent surge in violence appeared an attempt to turn public opinion against its hard line stance towards separatism.

So far, however there is no sign of such a shift. Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who broke off his summer holiday to attend the funeral, was applauded by the crowd.

Madrid's attempts to counter ETA have been hampered by a dispute with the government of the Basque region, which is run by the mainstream Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). But there have been signs that some kind of solution might be in the works.

On Sunday, a senior PNV member had said the Basque government might agree to exclude the radical pro-independence group Euskal Herritarrok (EH) -- widely seen as ETA's political arm -- from proposed multiparty talks on the conflict.

Aznar has insisted that the PNV break away from EH as a precondition for talks.

Spanish Interior Minister Jaime Mayor Oreja gave the proposal a cautious welcome, but said the government's priority was ensuring law and order amid ETA's "desperate" offensive.

"Of course it is good to have a positive political climate," Mayor Oreja said, but added: "I place more importance in times like this on the functioning of the state of law. For me, that is of fundamental importance."

The leader in the Basque region of Spain's opposition Socialist Party said it was vital to get Spain's government and the Basque government back into talks about how to fight ETA.

"We've lost so much time with the split between nationalists and non-nationalists," Nicolas Redondo said. "Yesterday two more people were killed. It is essential we return to the split we had before ... democrats versus fascists, those who love freedom and those who kill it."

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Car bomb kills two Spanish police officers
August 20, 2000
Spain prepared to act against ETA, says minister
August 13, 2000

Basque Autonomous Community
Spanish Government Information

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.