The Basque bishops mgr. Ricardo Blázquez and mgr. Carmelo Echenagusia, after yesterday’s terrorist attack in a district of Bilbao which seriously injured Gabriel Gines, the escort policeman of a Socialist municipal councillor, have "condemned the terrorist attack" and expressed "sympathy with and support to the policeman, his family and friends, wishing he may recover soon" and asked for "the disappearance of ETA once and for all". The bishops insisted on "commitment towards peace and encouraged the diocesan community to pray". The archbishopric of Madrid too condemned the terrorist attack: "The terrorist organisation ETA has resumed spreading terror and distress into the hearts of the population, seriously injuring an honest worker while he was doing his duty”. The ETA terrorist attack follows the arrest, 48 hours earlier, of nearly all of the top figures of the Batasuna party, which has been outlawed in Spain and considered ETA’s political wing. Almost one thousand people have died in the 20 years’ Basque conflict.
