If you’re looking for an eminently sensible warning againt misinterpreting the PSOE’s electoral upset of the PP, see Edward’s post below. This here is just my own ?0.02 cast in about the margins.
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Monthly Archives: March 2004
How Not To Pick The IMF’s Chief
Trying to get away from the emotionally traumatising, this article caught my eye. Clearly it relates to my earlier post, and does have a Spanish connection, if only a rather tangential one.
I thoroughly endorse what the Financial Times has to say. We need multilateralism now more than ever. We should not simply think ‘Europe First’, and:
The IMF needs considerable reform: its voting structure is out of date; its resources are too small; and its ability to lead the global debate on macroeconomic adjustment and exchange rates is too weak.
Here, here. Especially the point about leading the debate on macroeconomic adjustment and exchange rates. If you want to fight terrorism more effectively, perhaps here might be a good place to start.
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Great minds etc
Steve Bell’s If… cartoon in the Guardian today (and presumably for the rest of the week) is a little tale called For A Fistful Of Euros. However, it’s about the arguments over policy towards the Euro between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, rather than an expose of us.
While the Guardian does make Bell’s editorial cartoons available over the web, If… doesn’t seem to be available. If anyone does know where it may be available online, then please let us know!
Interpreting Spain’s Election Results
By now virtually everyone must know the results of the Spanish elections. I suppose the real questions people are asking involve how to interpret them. I would advise against jumping to hasty conclusions here. I picked up one comment on Crooked Timber to the effect that:
“anybody who decided to vote Socialist after the bombings presumably expected that the Socialists would reverse the government?s Iraq policy and do less in the war on terror than the government was likely to do.?
I think this view is a mistake, and doesn’t reveal much understanding about the dynamic of Spainsh politics over the last decade.
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Who did it? – Maria Farrell on the questions raised by Madrid
Elections
A Small Part of a Smart Column
from Fareed Zakaria:
“Some in Spain have argued that if an Islamic group proves to be the culprit, Spaniards will blame Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. It was his support for America and the war in Iraq that invited the wrath of the fundamentalists. But other recent targets of Islamic militants have been Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, not one of which supported the war or sent troops into Iraq in the after-war. Al Qaeda’s declaration of jihad had, as its first demand, the withdrawal of American troops from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden does not seem to have noticed, but the troops are gone — yet the jihad continues. The reasons come and go, the violence endures.”
The rest is here.
A Videotape and A Recantation
At one o’clock in the morning Spanish time Angel Acebes appeared on TV here to inform Spanish citizens that the authorities were in possesion of a video showing a man who purports to represent Al Qaeda. In the words of the New York Times:
The man in the video, who was speaking Arabic with a Moroccan accent and wearing Arab garb, identified himself as Abu Dujan al-Afghani, evidently a nom de guerre, and claimed to be the military spokesman for Al Qaeda in Europe.
Since nothing here is ever clear, and it is impossible to know at this stage with any reasonable degree of certainty either who this man is, or who he really represents, caution would seem to be warranted.
What is clear, however, is that the whole course of events has turned from Thursday (and remember this is still only Sunday). It now appears reasonable to assume that this is the work of an Islamic fundamentalist group, probably one with links to Al Qaeda. Even if it seems strange to use this expression in the context of a terrorist organisation, a presumption of innocence in this atrocity must now hang over ETA and all its splinters until such time as evidence to the contrary appears on the table.
This being the case you all deserve an apology from me. I read it wrong. Whether this was a reasonable reading given the events and the background or not I leave to you.
I would also like to indicate that commentors Factory and Talos have both had their initial instincts confirmed. Does this suggest that being closer to the events is not always an advantage?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of what we all thought two things seem clear. Firstly the dimension of the problem just changed: this is no longer a ‘local’ Spanish affair, but is now something which concerns the whole of Europe and our relations with the Unites States. Secondly the problem of Eta is still there. Maybe Eta is ‘innocent’ this time: but how long will it be before we are burying the next victim of an Eta inspired assasination or bombing?
I therefore ask you to truly have sympathy for the Spanish citizens today. Especially for the most humble and least sophistocated of them. Their world has just been shattered in a way which must seem to many of them irreperable. Many have have found themselves in recent years hovering between fear and indignation in the face of Eta terror. They now find themselves parachuted without warning into the front line of a battle with the most important terrorist menace on the planet. They have just lost 200 innocent fellow citizens. Think of them this day, and let your hearts go out to them.
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Another search for Radovan Karadzic has ended in failure
Five Detentions in Madrid
Ok, it’s 8:20 on Saturday afternoon. I’d promised no more posts, but now there is some real news. Interior Minister Angel Acebes has just informed a press conference that 5 people have been detained in Madrid.
They have been detained in connection with a mobile phone and phone card which accompanied a pack of explosives that failed to explode.
This information needs to be treated with the utmost caution, since they have been detained for the fraudulent fabrication and sale of the phone card. We thus do not know the extent of the implication. It is better to await more details before jumping to too many conclusions.
What can be said is that three of the detainees are Morrocan and two have Indian nationality. This tends to suggest there may well be an Islamic fundamentalist connection, but until we know more about the extent of their involvement it would be better to remain prudent.
Of course the implications of this detention on election eve are quite important. There is already a significant demonstration of young people (convened by mobile phone nets) outside the PP headquarters in Calle Genova. The atmosphere generally is very tense. I will report and update as and when there is something worthwhile to say.
Update 1: 8:50 Saturday afternoon. Demonstrations of young people outside PP offices around Spain are increasing. In the Basque Country tensions are also rising: news has just arrived that a policeman has shot dead a 60 year old unarmed baker for refusing to hang a ‘crespon’ of mourning outside his shop. TV here has just shown images of police truncheon charging radical nationalists waving Basque flags at the doors of the mortuary where the dead bakers body was taken. More updates as necessary: it may be a long night.