Two car bombs explode in Spain, one dead

10:00 AM

MADRID - Two car bombs have exploded in Spain, one killing a prominent businessman and the other injuring 11 people amid escalating violence blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA.

The blasts in the northern Basque region and Madrid followed an explosion on Monday night in the Basque city of Bilbao that killed four suspected ETA members carrying explosives in a car.

In Tuesday's first explosion, Jose Maria Korta, 52, died as he drove to his machine tool factory in Zumaia near San Sebastian. Korta was president of a local business association.

Just as vacationing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was condemning that attack in televised comments at a Mediterranean resort, another car bomb exploded in an upscale area of Madrid.

"It is important that we maintain our resistance and do not bow before terror," Aznar said.

The Madrid bomb ripped through a residential neighbourhood a few blocks from the main Paseo de la Castellana boulevard and close to the busy Chamartin railway station. State radio said several prominent politicians lived in the area.

A police spokeswoman said police had received an anonymous telephone warning about 20 minutes before the explosion.

A security guard suffered serious head injuries in the blast and was breathing with the aid of a respirator. Another person suffered deep cuts from flying glass. Both were out of danger, a paramedics spokesman said.

Two children aged three and five were among nine people slightly hurt.

Blame for both of Tuesday's blasts was immediately pinned on ETA, which has stepped up an already intense summer campaign that has included two political assassinations and a rash of bombings across the country over the last month.

Political commentators see little hope for a quick end to a conflict which has claimed about 800 lives over 32 years.

The death of Korta, who was married with three children, marked the eighth killing blamed on ETA since it ended a 14-month truce late last year. The others were four politicians, a bodyguard, a journalist and an army officer.

Businessmen in the Basque region are regularly threatened if they fail to pay "revolutionary taxes" to the group.

The blast in Madrid was the first in the capital since a pre-dawn car bomb on July 12 injured nine people. That attack was seen as a warning to officials that ETA was capable of striking anywhere in the country.

The government has responded with vows not to negotiate with ETA until it disarms. Aznar has warned ETA it faces the full force of the law.

The death of Korta triggered the mourning and outrage that follows every attack. Protests were scheduled for Tuesday night with silent vigils set for Wednesday.

Meanwhile, police in Bilbao sifted through the wreckage from Monday's explosion. Aznar said the car was carrying 50 kg (110 pounds) of explosives. adding: "They were going to commit a serious attack."

Police said ETA commander Patxi Rementeria, one of Spain's most wanted criminals, was believed to among those who died.

Rementeria was suspected of taking part in the 1997 kidnapping and murder of Basque politician Miguel Angel Blanco, which brought six million Spaniards onto the streets in protest.

One politician in Aznar's Popular Party called Monday's blast "natural justice". But radical Basque nationalists blamed the Spanish and French governments for pushing the guerrillas into violence and hailed the victims as patriots.

Arnaldo Otegi, a leader of the radical separatist party Euskal Herritarrok which is often called ETA's political wing, said the victims were "Basque patriots."

"The death of these four colleagues...means we will build the future of this country by fighting," Otegi said, flanked by ETA supporters outside the morgue containing the four bodies.

ETA, which wants an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southwest France, called a ceasefire in 1998. But a single negotiating session with Spain's government in 1999 failed, and ETA began killing again this year.

The renewed violence has caused a deterioration of relations between Madrid and the Basque regional government. Both condemn ETA but blame one another for the rising toll.

"We've been in this situation for 40 years and no government has been able to put an end to it with police alone," said Gorka Knorr, a moderate Basque nationalist leader. "The trick is to convince people capable of killing to change their minds."

- REUTERS