The Spanish Episcopal Conference has expressed its condemnation at the attack by the Basque separatist group ETA on 30 May which killed two policemen and gravely injured another at Sangüesa, fifty kilometres from Pamplona (Navarre). The Spanish bishops “firmly condemn this new terrorist attack that presupposes, on the part of the perpetrators, scorn for the laws of God, of society and of human life”. Moreover, in a message of the Episcopal commission for the lay apostolate, released to coincide with Pentecost, speaking of the war in Iraq, of forgotten conflicts and of international terrorism, the bishops request the lay faithful to ask God insistently for the gift of peace and to “be operators and architects of peace”. The bishops who on 22 November 2002 published their pastoral guidance against terrorism (cf. SirEuropa 43/2002) recalled that “ideas should not be imposed but propagated”, and that “no demands can be defended by killing”. During the funerals, the archbishop of Pamplona, Fernando Sebastián, asked politicians to “place freedom before party objectives”. ETA again used a limpet bomb placed under the policemen’s car. The attack was condemned by all political forces except Batasuna, the political wing of ETA which is no longer a legitimate party in Spain. There were silent demonstrations in many Spanish cities, in rejection of ETA’s violence. In the meantime, the Irish Redemptorist priest Alec Reid one of the principal mediators in the Northern Ireland conflict returned to the Basque Country over the last few days (prior to the latest attack) to continue negotiations between moderate nationalism and ETA. Fr. Reid met, among others, Basque nationalist groups and the abertzales trade unions. He would like to see a “tactical cease-fire” to allow for “negotiations aimed at obtaining the right of self-determination in the Basque Country”. Fr. Reid intends to create unity among nationalists “so that they have a single position in their dealings with the State” and is making every effort to ensure that ETA “abandons its ideas of independence and brings a halt to violence”.
