ETA threatens tourists

MADRID, Spain -- ETA is to target tourists to Spain in its bombing campaign that has already claimed six lives this year, the Basque separatist group announced.

The group warned holidaymakers not to travel to Spanish resorts to avoid "undesirable consequences."

It issued a statement in which it said it had included "Spanish touristic-economic interests" among its targets.

Two car bombs exploded in beach resorts earlier this month. On March 17 a car bomb exploded in the coastal town of Rosas, in the Catalonia region, killing a police officer.

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Hours later police in Gandia, near Valencia, deactivated a second car bomb.

Tourism is Spain's biggest industry. It received more than 48 million foreign visitors last year, making it the world's number three tourist destination after France and the United States.

The United Kingdom responded to the ETA threat by issuing a warning to its citizens travelling to Spain.

The Foreign Office posted a warning on its Internet web site.

It said: "Visitors should be alert to sporadic terrorist activity following the end of the ETA ceasefire.

"British nationals, residents and visitors throughout Spain should therefore be alert to the situation and report anything of a suspicious nature, including bags or other objects, to the police."

Britain's largest holiday company, Thomson, also warned customers to be vigilant and said it was monitoring the situation closely.

"We are aware of the situation and will follow Foreign Office advice," a spokesman said. "We take issues of health and safety extremely seriously."

Seventeen Britons were injured when an ETA-planted bomb exploded at Spain's Reus Airport, south of Barcelona in 1996.

Spain's interior minister described ETA's statement as an "ode to murder," but officials and representatives of Spain's huge tourism industry played down the threat as scaremongering.

"They have repeated this kind of thing several times," a government spokesman said. "Their attacks have never had a noticeable impact on tourism."

In its statement, published in the Basque newspaper Gara on Friday, ETA claimed responsibility for six killings in fifteen attacks since January.

Two police officers, two electrical workers, a local politician and a cook were killed in the attacks which authorities had already blamed on the group.

The group apologised to the families of two workers killed by "mistake" in a powerful car bomb attack in February which seriously injured a Socialist town councillor -- the bomb's intended target.

The group has now claimed responsibility for 29 killings since it called off a ceasefire in December 1999. It has been linked to about 800 killings since 1968 when it launched its violent campaign for an independent Basque region in northern Spain and southwestern France.

Police have hit back, and in recent weeks have arrest dozens of suspected ETA members or supporters.

The attacks come despite scheduled early elections for the Basque regional parliament in May.

During most of its campaign for Basque independence, ETA has typically reduced the levels of violence in the months before elections.

The Basque parliament is sharply divided among seven parties, with nationalist parties holding a slight edge over the parties that favour maintaining the Basque region as part of Spain. The last parliamentary election, in October, 1998, occurred during ETA's unilateral ceasefire.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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March 20, 2001
ETA blamed for car bomb killing
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ETA blamed for Basque car blast
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The Basque Country
Spanish Interior Ministry
Association for Peace in the Basque Country
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Thomson Holidays

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