Bomb blasts throw Madrid into chaos

MADRID, Spain – What a terrible "welcome" Madrid gave this jet-lagged journalist Thursday morning (yesterday)!

Four blocks away from my hotel, the Westin Palace Hotel, the most deadly blast of all devastated the train just pulling into the Estacion Atocha, killing 29 commuters immediately – shredding them, scything through the survivors. For this newsman, just arrived the night before from Manila, it was a rude awakening.

Three powerful bombs in all exploded within five minutes of each other in three districts of the city. The time was about 7:40 a.m. when the trains were packed with executives, employees, workers, students, housewives, children – coming into the heart of the capital for work or study. The second bomb at the Estacio Santa Eugenia blasted 15 passengers instantly. A third at Pozo del Tio Raimundo near the outskirts devastated several coaches.

The police later found a fourth bomb in a backpack laid on the tracks of the Atocha train – and detonated it.

The news is already on your front page, on CNN, BBC, TVE (Spain) and all the international cable channels so I need not elaborate. One hundred thirty-one (131) were dead in the first round of carnage, hundreds seriously wounded.

By now the death toll must be many times that. The avenue outside my hotel is swarming with police in black uniforms and luminous green jackets.

As you already know, the Basque terrorist organization ETA is being blamed for these blasts. Nobody questions that those murderous terrorists from Euskadi are responsible. With national elections scheduled for Sunday, all parties have ceased campaigning. Three days of National Mourning, I hear, are being declared.

Mind you – those ETA thugs are Catholic terrorists, not Muslims. When this writer was in Bilbao, Euskadi’s major industrial city, in truth the Catholic bishops and clergy were being accused of encouraging the ETA "separatists" who want their "homeland" Euskadi to break away from Spain. Those I interviewed in Bilbao three months ago were explicit about it. But they constantly looked over their shoulders.

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I must say that the police, rescue, relief, and hospital services are working efficiently. The police have cordoned off the area around Atocha and near our hotel (which is in the heart of the city, near the Neptuno Fountain and just across the Park from another splendid hostelry, "The Ritz"). If the ETA brutes wanted to make a statement, they could not have chosen a more strategic place to strike. Their message was clearly delivered: "We can deliver a knife straight to your heart!"

On TVE Channel 1 are grisly scenes of wrecked coaches, the dead with limbs blown off. The wounded being carried, blood streaming from faces and bodies, to clinics and aid stations. The survivors, being interviewed in anguish, about their ordeal.

These are scenes from the deepest circles of hall of Dane’s Inferno.

The bombs were planted inside the destroyed coaches, probably by back-packing ETA infiltrators. (Men or women, are recruited into the "war" by the Basque’s irrodentists on the central government and the other Spanish "foreigners".

Since numerous abandoned backpacks are strewn around the tracks and station, the black-capped, black-shirted policemen are permitting nobody into the area – while they skittishly "check" each backpack. (Beware of those backpackers who enter our Metro Manila shopping malls with impunity, I must say in warning. Our security are too lax with them – every bagets and mall-goers seems to tote along a backpack. We must tighten up now against the "copy-cat" would-be bombers – I’m not kidding).

The pity of it was that (GARBLED) like a clear day in early Spring. Madrid is as pretty as a picture. The sky is blue. Last night, it was clear and remarkably comfortable weather-wise, too. Our Ambassador Joseph Delano "Lani" Bernardo and our friend, Don Pepe Rodriguez of EFE (a true Manileño, really) went walking around Wednesday night as soon as we got off our Air France plane (Manila to Paris CDG, then Paris to Madrid in 17 hours). It was a night of stars, and we ended up with Hamburguesa at VIPS. And yesterday morning, the idyll was shattered.

Ambassador Bernardo and our Embassy/Consular staff are scouring the place, checking whether any Filipinos were killed or injured. There are 17,000 Pinoys and Pinays in the Madrid area, out of the 40,000 Filipinos in Spain (many of them already Spanish citizens or residents). Thus far, no casualties for us – but it’s early yet.

The ETA, obviously are trying to disrupt the March 14 elections. On Sunday, the nation votes, whether to return to ruling Conservative "Popular Party" to power, by electing President Jose Ma. Aznar’s chosen successor, Mariano Rajoy, or return to Socialists (who lost eight years ago) to a position in which they could form a coalition to rule with other "small" parties. The Socialist Party bet is personable Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

The cadavers of yesterday’s bombing are being piled into the Convention Center (where international trade fairs are generally held) right in Madrid’s posh outskirts, a residential district. This time the "exhibit" is more gory and shocking.

Campaigning has been suspended. Today (Friday) is traditionally the "Day of Reflection", before the crucial polls. This day, the "reflection" will be somber indeed.

The mood of Madrid is militant and defiant. Thousands are congregating and rallying to donate blood. The Spaniards are showing their phlegm. They will not be cowed.

This is a "dispatch" from the "front". But never fear. The mood is tranquilo.

The Spanish newspapers in Madrid have put out extra editions about the blast. All the front pages had to be revised because they are celebrating the victory of Real Madrid over Bayer Munich of Germany Wednesday night at the stadium here. Instead of a day of rejoicing, he city has awakened to a day of sorrow.