the bombs of July 12th 2005 in Fortress Europe.

international | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday July 13, 2005 17:21 by an t-uasal aye aye foghlaí - "italians are fascists you know"

Yesterday morning (the 12th of july 2005) saw five explosions in the spanish state, four were against irish financial interests and were pre-warned and claimed by ETA and one was against the Italian state and is being attributed to extremist groups under the "italian anti-system anarchist" umbrella.

The electricty plant which saw four bombs but no injuries is the first colaboration between the Spainsh state and a foreign electricity company, the Irish ESB.

very good alibi there.

The electricity complex owned by Bizkaia Energy is a result of close co-operation between the ESB and the Spanish state but has led to much grass-roots protest throughout the Basque region.

Indeed some are seeing the ETA bombing as an attempt to associate itself with a popular cause which had earlier caused a petition and a referendum in teh municipal area.

Others believe the bombing had nothing to do with either the ESB or energy policy ongoing domestic debate in the Basque region, and was a response to the London bombings of July 7th, honed for psychological and propaganda effect. This is the second time that eta have carried out multi-bombing attempts with warnings and without injuries on "12th". Last December ETA played with both a long weekend and the combination 3/12 to attack all motorway exit routes from Madrid. The bombings have needless to say been condemned by all sides except HB on the basque political stage and will be archived after the news that several key members of the ETA command structure in the 1980s have been "expelled" from the current organisation for arguing a cessation of conflict and complete ceasefire to move with the political parties and institutes of the basque and spain to settlement based on dialogue, concensus and normalisation, which is the hope if the recently elected Basque regional government.


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The bombing of the italian cultural institute in Barcelona was the last in a series of attacks which started with letter bombs in 1999 to the Italian consulate and reached for some its most serious point of "escalation" in 2002 with a letter bomb sent to the offices of the editor of the Spanish liberal daily "El Pais".

The bomb, probably less than a kilogram in weight was encased in a coffeepot with visibile wires and sensors and killed a labrador by the name of Pretto, who worked with the bomb squad as a sniffer of explosives. The Police have not confirmed as of yet the explosive used.

Pretto's handler was slightly injured. Pretto is one of the 39% of police dogs used by various security forces in Catalonia including the spanish national police, the guardia civil, and the local mossos d'esqaudra and other municipal police forces for detecting explosives. 37% of the other police dogs are trained for drugs, 24% are trained for rescue operations such as the mountains and cliffs for finding lost tourists and local people and the remaining dogs just growl at people.

Pretto was born on the 1st of February 2003 and whelped and trained in Barcelona. He had served with TEDEX the spanish national police bomb disposal group for six months. He was one of 29 such dogs.

The average working life of a trained bomb disposal dog is ten years, after which they are retired. Their usefulness can not be underestimated and many have saved lives.

The "usual suspects" for such attacks on Italian interests are the so called "CCCCC" group.
Anti-system, anti-police, anti-prison and prison officers the "flag of convenience" found its origin with an Italian who is serving a prison statement in the Spanish state for the murder of a woman police officer in the immediate aftermath of an armed robbery. The woman was the first member of a local "little town" police force to be killed in the course of her duty. Her car blocked the exit route of the bank robbers, and at the time it was reported that she was unaware of the fact.

The recent support however for the "flag of convenience" is not that imprisoned man, whose name is Lavazza, but rather a series of imprisonments under the Berlusconi and Prodi government which saw the very wide movement of anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists increasingly associated in Italy with emergent forms of urban alienation, very unhappy and violent youth, who with comparatively easy access to explosives, and explosive technology increased "anti-system" attacks which for some were associated with the 2001 Genoa G8 death of Carlo Guiliani.

There is therefore a clear generational difference.
The CCCCC "flag of convenience" belies the errant notion that there is a centralised command structure or planning to these anti-social activities, but it appears obvious that in fact "armed action" of the newest generation merely looks for the scantist precedent and symbolic association with the last century.

The italian consulate for their part whose cultural institute's windows are gone are not treating on teh matter as a "terrorist incident" but the Spanish police have confirmed that the anarchist community are under increased surveillance.

Commercial media reporting has linked the attack to a recent demonstration and riot by supporters of Italian anarchists imprisoned in Italy.

The incident has been condemned by all political parties in Barcelona, who have vowed that such extremism will not alter the permissive tolerant and liberal way of life, which is common to most in the city. Nor will it change the cities long historic association with anarchism, anarchists or one iota of the memory that it was Italian fascists who bombarded the city for Franco from the air.

For their part many Barcelonan Anarchists have a very good alibi.
They are currently occupying the Cervantes institute in Athens.
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/191752/index.php
And others love dogs, really really quite fond of them.

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It is customary at such times to see published a short guide to Basques and Anarchists.

What do they believe? Where do they live?
What do they do? Are the rumours true?
Are there any special eating requirements?
My neighbour's son has just started dating a basque or anarchist how can I break the ice at the pub with a joke and make that "jolly good effort at inter-cultural relations"?
are basques or anarchists nasty to their women folk? is there any good anarchist or basque girl on girl action?

stuff like that.