Main focus of Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Terror on Majorca

Presumed terrorists of the Basque underground organisation Eta set off a total of four bombs in the Spanish holiday resort of Palma on Majorca on Sunday. Only ten days ago Eta carried out an attack on the island in which two police officers were killed.

La Vanguardia - Spain

The liberal daily La Vanguardia calls on tourists on the holiday island of Majorca to continue their holidays there: "Spanish and foreign tourists should spend their holidays on Majorca as if nothing had happened. This is the best response to the four explosives Eta let off on Sunday in Palma - ten days after it … killed two Guardia Civil policemen [on the same island] with a car bomb. The terrorists should not be allowed to achieve their goal of disrupting public life and intimidating the population. This is the message the [Spanish] royal family wanted to convey to the whole world in continuing its holiday on the island as normal." (11/08/2009)

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Financial Times Deutschland - Germany

"The best way for the population to react to terrorism is to ignore it", writes the liberal business paper Financial Times Deutschland. "That goes just as much for a national terrorist group with narrowly defined interests like the Spanish Eta as for a fundamentalist network with religious and revolutionary pretensions like al-Qaida. What all terrorist organisations have in common is that the psychological impact of their actions is more far-reaching than the real impact. ... Of course states must react to terrorist acts of violence and do their best to prevent subsequent attacks. Anything else would be grossly negligent. But they do well to concentrate on criminal investigations and, like the Spanish king, view  terrorists as what they are: common criminals." (11/08/2009)

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Lidové noviny - Czech Republic

"At a time when all Europe lives in fear of Islamist violence Eta is like an open-air museum of European terrorism – the last of its kind," the conservative daily Lidové Noviny comments. "The [Spanish] government of [Prime Minister] José [Luis Rodríguez] Zapatero is also in a way the last of its kind. Right after it took power five years ago it relied on a 'peace dialogue with Eta'. Without stipulating any conditions it waited for the results. Zapatero simply isn't [former British prime minister] Tony Blair, who was able to champion the cause of IRA disarmament. The Spanish prime minister withdrew his soldiers from Iraq after terrorists attacked suburban trains in Madrid in 2004. A couple of hours after he praised the dialogue with terrorists in 2006 as his government's greatest success Eta carried out an attack on Madrid airport. And now it is spreading the terror to the tourist stronghold on the Balearics." (11/08/2009)

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Népszabadság - Hungary

The left-liberal daily Népszabadság writes that the Basque terrorist organisation Eta will never achieve its goal of an independent Basque state: "Eta - or rather what remains of it - comes across as a total anachronism. It is taking the same path as the Northern Irish IRA once did - the IRA went on exploding bombs until it lost all vestiges of political support. Today only one percent of Basques believe an independent Basque state can be achieved through violence. … We can safely describe Eta as the last of the Mohicans of European terrorism. … Eta has zero chance of achieving its goal. Why? Because the state unity of the country is enshrined in the Spanish constitution. Consequently there will never be a Spanish government with whom the Basques can negotiate their independence." (11/08/2009)

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