International terrorist incidents in Spain decreased to 10 in 1991 from 28 in 1990. Domestic terrorism in Spain, however, increased last year, in terms of the number of incidents and casualties. The Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) separatist terrorist organization accounted for the vast majority of these, resulting in 45 fatalities, as opposed to 25 the previous year. As in the past, most victims were members of the Civil Guard, National Police, military, and their families. The group appeared particularly intent on demonstrating its continued capabilities as Spain prepared to host the Barcelona Olympics, a World's Fair, and several other major international events in 1992.
One of Spain's smaller terrorist organizations, the Catalonian separatist group Terra Lliure (Free Land), renounced the use of violence. The First of October Anti-Fascist Group (GRAPO), a Marxist and anti-US organization, mounted only one confirmed attack and had two of its members arrested in 1991. More than 20 GRAPO prisoners officially ended an ineffective hunger strike in February. Iraultza, an anti-US Marxist Basque group, attempted three small bombings in March and April, but three of its members were killed in a premature explosion. A Galician separatist group was responsible for the destruction of about 10 high-tension towers; about 10 of its members, however, including the EGPGC leader, were arrested. A suspected EGPGC safehouse was discovered in Sao Martinho do Porto, Portugal.
The government directed most of its counterterrorism efforts against ETA with considerable effectiveness. Raids in Catalonia and the Basque provinces resulted in more than 40 arrests and six ETA members killed. Approximately 40 ETA members, both Spanish and French, were arrested in France in 1991, the result of increased cooperation between French and Spanish authorities. The autonomous Basque police, Ertzaintza, accounted for one ETA member killed and one arrested. The government's success may have obliged ETA to strike less professionally at softer targets, accounting for the increase in civilian casualties. Seven children of police officials were killed by ETA bombs during the year, five in one explosion in May at a Civil Guard apartment building near Barcelona, which killed a total of nine and wounded more than 50.
ETA chose many material targets associated with Spain's tourist industry in 1991. As in previous years, ETA mounted a summer campaign designed to disrupt railroad travel in Spain. ETA issued an exceptional warning to travel agencies in Europe to alert tourists to the hazards of travel to Spain. Spanish consulates, beach resorts, banks, travel agencies, airline ticket offices, tour buses, and educational institutes were targeted more than a dozen times in Italy and three times in Germany from May to August. These were ETA's first attacks in Italy and Germany.
During 1991 Spain had very limited success in winning extradition of ETA suspects from abroad. Only a few low-level members were extradited from France, with Mexico and the Dominican Republic demurring.
Henri Parot, a prominent French Basque member of ETA's Itinerant Command who was arrested in Seville in 1990, was given an additional extended sentence in 1991 for six murders.
Two members of a Spanish rightwing terrorist organization known as GAL were tried and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in 1991 for attempted murder. GAL killed more than a score of suspected ETA members and supporters in France during the 1980s.
Source: United States Department of State, April 1992.