Powder Keg

Worrying times here in Spain. Dogged, diminutive moustachioed Jose Maria Aznar ("El Presidente") thinks he has the Basques on the run and has tag-teamed with "Crusading" Judge Balthazar Garzon (he of Pinochet fame) to put the boot into the Basque separatist party Herra Batasuna (which won over 100,000 votes at the last elections, its lowest total for 20 years). The Caped Crusader (acting as prosecutor and, conveniently, judge) went in first, finding the party liable for damage caused by ETA over the years and attempting to seize all the parties assets and, for good measure, close them down. Then El Presidente and his fearless government passed the "Law of Political Parties", a frighteningly wide piece of legislation used to make HB illegal as "enemies of the constitution".

All good repressive fun, but now bombings are going through the roof (so to speak). Two yesterday accounted only for two terrorists and one policeman, last week 25kg of dynamite was found wandering alone in the basque streets, and there have been running battles and marches on all sides.

This is exactly the kind of thing that Franco used to do, and exactly the kind of thing that lead to the forming of ETA. But no-one wants to say it - there's a kind of anti-basque fervour, with Aznar describing ETA as "new nazis" and anyone questioning the motives of the publicity-hungry Crusader being roundly attacked. 800 people have died so far in the fifty odd years of ETA's terrorism, but as anyone who lived through Thatcher's "we don't talk to terrorists" can tell you, the body count goes up, not down, when you stop talking.