Eta bombs bring Madrid to a halt as ceasefire is shattered

Eta Basque separatists planted five bombs beside motorways surrounding Madrid yesterday, causing traffic chaos on Spain's Constitution Day holiday.

No injuries were caused by the small devices detonated almost simultaneously following warnings transmitted via the sympathetic Basque daily Gara. But police closed the roads as a precaution, causing miles of traffic jams. Earlier, Santander airport in the northern region of Cantabria was closed, and planes diverted following an Eta warning that a grenade would go off. No device was found. Bombs exploded in a post office in Alsasua in Navarra and in Zumarraga in the Basque country, causing damage but no injuries.

The incidents were "another demonstration of senseless violence and only confirm that we have to continue fighting Eta with all the might of the democratic state," the Interior Minister, Jose Antonio Alonso, said.

Eta mounted similar propaganda explosions last year on Spain's annual celebration of its post-Franco democratic constitution - which declares the Basque country an autonomous region. Eta has killed no one for more than two years, and has been weakened by detentions and internal splits. The organisation is widely seen as angling for a face-saving route in from the cold. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's socialist government said in May it would open talks only when separatists renounced violence and abandoned arms.

Yesterday's spectacular gestures came hours after Eta demanded in its latest internal bulletin that Spain and France make concessions as a condition for a ceasefire. Eta said it was "fed up" with demands for a ceasefire, and said the governments of Spain and France should move first, and recognise Basques' right to self-determination.

"Steps from just one side or a ceasefire do not bring the solution," yesterday's Bilbao daily El Correo quoted Eta's internal bulletin as saying. Eta called instead for a "ceasefire" from the French and Spanish security forces, and for Paris and Madrid to "deactivate their armed forces, to stop actions against the Basque Country, as a first step." Mr Zapatero, speaking in Parliament during the Constitution Day celebrations moments before the explosions, predicted "substantial advances" towards ending Basque terrorism. The situation was "better than for years ... which encourages the prudent hope for an end to the violence."

The banned Batasuna party, considered Eta's political wing, is to hold a rally next month to insist on its commitment to peaceful and democratic methods. It wants the ban lifted so it can present candidates for regional elections in 2007, and to persuade Spaniards that Eta is backing away from violence. "The substitution of armed action by political action is irreversible and accepted by everyone," a Batasuna leader said this week.

Government sources note the similarity of such language with that of Sinn Fein ahead of the Irish peace process. Eta's latest bulletin refers for the first time to the Irish peace process, in acknowledgement of government demands that it follow the IRA's example.

Eta observes disparagingly that such demands "empty the content of the long Irish process ... and make a biased evaluation of the situation to avoid responsibility and their lack of will to take steps." Nonetheless, Eta's unprecedented nod to the Irish process is considered a significant gesture towards a negotiated solution.