16 March 2004 – Spain's Ambassador to the United Nations has written to the Security Council explaining the Government's insistence on blaming the Basque separatist group ETA for last week's terrorist bombing in Madrid in a resolution adopted shortly after the atrocity.
When the Council passed the measure on Thursday just hours after a series of explosions struck three train stations in Madrid, killing 200 people and injuring more than 1,400 others, "my Government was firmly convinced that the terrorist group ETA [Euskadi ta Askatasuna] was behind the terrible events of 11 March," Ambassador Inocencio F. Arias wrote in a letter yesterday to the President of the Council.
The Spanish Government came to that conclusion "because of the immediate background, because of information then available to it and because of the analysis of such information by the experts," Ambassador Arias added.
He noted that since then, "new elements have been discovered that suggest other lines of investigation and point to the involvement of citizens of other countries in the attacks."
The Spanish representative also said that investigations are continuing and no definitive conclusions can be reached at the moment.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, asked by reporters today if he was concerned by the way the resolution was adopted, said he thought the Council members themselves "have felt uneasy about that."
He also noted the Spanish Government's letter explaining that it acted in good faith, observing that "at the time it informed the Council that ETA was responsible they genuinely thought so."
"I think there is a lesson here for everybody, including the Council members," he added.
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