Threats from the same crazies who blasted off their hatred in Madrid

VALENCIA, Spain – Here we are in Valencia, next to Barcelona, Spain’s most important ports. The rivalry between the Valencianos and the Catalans of Barcelona is traditional, intense and bitter. Barcelona – thanks to Gaudi, Las Ramblas, and international hype – gets all the publicity. This time, Valencia has scored a coup. The fabled "America’s Cup" race – with the Cup now held by land-locked Switzerland – will be held in Valencia’s splendid and wave-tossed Bay in the year 2007.

We toured the Real Club Nautico de Valencia where the regatta of contenders will be berthing.

However, the America’s Cup, not even the splendid Fallas festival where today multimillion euro figures (this year’s theme is "Hollywood in Valencia") will go up in smoke, as hundreds of thousands of visitors and residents gape, their ears deafened by the fireworks.

Friday in Spain, aside from the burning of those marvelously-sculptured effigies (to torch all sins, and pray for a new day), is Father’s Day. This date is unique to the Spaniards and is annually observed on the feast of San Jose (St. Joseph’s) which, in honor of Jesus’ step-daddy is declared a national holiday.

We came to Valencia though, on another mission. To pray to our family’s favorite virgin, the miraculous La Virgen de los Desemparados, the Virgin of those without shelter – of the Forsaken. Thirty years ago, my wife and I came here to this very city to seek the intercession of Our Lady of Desemparados. And everything, I mean everything we had begged for, was given to us.

The Virgin is unique in posture, if you’ll see her in the Basilica which houses her in the Plaza de la Virgen, in the heart of old Valencia. She bows her head and stoops to listen to your pleas. Right now, in commemoration of the Friday Fallas festival, a beautiful replica of La Virgen stands in the square fronting her basilica. People come to kneel and bring floral offerings. Her entire gown is composed of colorful flowers, too. What an enchanting sight. What a consolation to see her so respondent in this week of crespones negros – black mourning wreaths condoling with the 201 dead in Madrid’s train "massacre".

Virgen de los Desemparados, pray to your Son on St. Joseph’s Day to save Spain, console the Spanish nation – and save us from our sins and the threats of men of hatred who murder in the name of religion!

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I’m sorry we can’t stay for the magnificent Fallas celebrations tonight in this city of enchantment, rich traditions, where paella and arroz à la Valenciana had been invented.

We’re off for Paris to another meeting.

What’s disquieting is that when one journeys to the French capital from train-shocked Madrid, you head towards another city under threats, probably from the same demented Islamic fanatics who triggered off the merciless Atocha, El Pozo, and Santa Eugenia explosions.

A few days ago, a weird letter was addressed to French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin by a so-called Mosvac Barayev Commando containing that mysterious terror group’s rantings. The letter was actually post-dated after the Madrid bombings and posted in the main branch of the Le Louvre post office (open 24 hours a day) and addressed to Raffarin c/o Le Parisien, a Paris daily.

The letter, published in Le Figaro, was in French; so here’s my somewhat crude translation:

"Nous frapperons les descendants de Charles Martel violemment . . ." (We will strike the descendants of Charlemagne violently . . . In the Name of Allah, the all-merciful, the miserecordious, on behalf of the Servants of Allah the Almighty and the Wise we send this warning to the Servants of the French Republic."

After some other lines, the gist of the message: "On the 10th of February, a step was taken in the war led by the Coalition against Islam with the passage of the law by the National Assembly that would exclude hijab (the wearing of Muslim head-scarves for women) from schools, colleges, high schools and public places. This decision is the climax of a long period of the unleashing of passion by the enemies of Islam in your country! Many of your countrymen continue to question the Holy Word of the Koran to the point of insulting it. We have exempted some of your class from this planned attack, owing to the fact that these few were opposed to the unjust aggression of those Crusaders (the US, Britain, Spain?) in Iraq. Right now, with this hideous, discriminatory and anti-Muslim law, you have proven that you are, after all in the Devil’s camp and we will deal with you – unrelenting until the Final Day, unless you reverse your evil decision. We want you to know that we can penetrate everywhere, here in the same land in which Charles Martel fought us, this country of haughtiness and arrogance, you people of wine and pork, of libertines and nudity, you who reject modesty and The Faith!

"We will now hit back, following the success of our brothers last September 11, 2001, and last 11th of March 2004. We pray Allah to sow terror in the hearts of the French.

"We will plunge France into terror and remorse."

The letter outlined three signals for attack which I hope to analyze and discuss in a later column.

"Mr. Raffarin," the missive ends, "let it be known that what we have promised you is inevitable – and this includes the leaders of the non-believers as well as the evildoers among your population."

Chilling, isn’t it, in the wake of Madrid?

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Another group dubbing itself the AZF is also threatening to blow up trains on the French railway network. The National Anti-Terrorist Brigade is not taking this threat lightly either. The French have found "test bombs" planted in the places indicated by the terrorists – as examples of their prowess. More letters have been received by the President’s Elysée Palace and the Place Beauveau (the Interior Ministry). Detailed instructions, this time, were given as to how the French can pay "blackmail" by delivering US$4 million plus one million euros. In the letter, the police were instructed to land a helicopter containing the ransom money, on the Montparnasse Tower, then receive directions to fly the chopper to a designated spot within a radius of 120 km. from Paris.

The "operation" was aborted, but messages have come promising to deliver further "instructions".

Should we laugh, or should we cry? Madrid’s tragedy has shown that those who take such threats lightly may weep copiously later. The French authorities are not laughing.

Abangan.