11-M: Aznar denounces the "mendacious manipulation of rigorous criticism"

Marisa Cruz Madrid

Madrid

Updated Monday, March 11, 2024-14:42

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The former president of the Government,

José María Aznar

, through the

Faes Foundation

that he heads, has published a lengthy note coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the 11-M terrorist massacre in Madrid, in which he defends his management of what happened two decades ago and exercises his "right of reply" against those who insist on repeating that he and his Government "deliberately lied" to the Spanish people about the authorship of the attacks for "electoral calculations."

Aznar laments in the text that twenty years after the tragedy "the controversial prevails over the institutional; the spirit of division over harmony and mendacious manipulation over rigorous criticism."

And he claims to have reached this conclusion "after weeks of warming up in certain left-wing media outlets."

In his opinion, "the

intention was not to commemorate a mournful anniversary

, but rather to feed an old ember, stoking the embers and fanning the fire, in case the smoke could cover up strictly current shames."

The last sentence of his statement endorses the expression that

Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba

used before the elections : "The Spanish deserve a Government that does not lie to them."

He, and the foundation he presides, claims to remain "with the Spaniards of any political color" who demonstrated behind a banner that read: "For the victims. With the Constitution. For the defeat of terrorism."

A motto that, he emphasizes, "those who have been stirring up opinion for days have renounced, one by one, each phrase of that statement."

For all these reasons, the former president claims to have decided not to remain silent "so that no one says that he who remains silent grants."

"We neither keep true facts silent," he emphasizes, "nor do we accept repeated lies."

In the text made public by Faes, he regrets that he wants to "impute again" his Government and by extension the PP, "the responsibility of having deliberately lied after the massacre; out of pure electoral calculation (...) insisting on authorship of ETA when he knew that the jihadist hypothesis was correct.

And he denounces the attempt to maintain the theory that the Government "would have wanted to perpetrate a massive deception by disconnecting the attacks from Spanish participation in the intervention in Iraq."

He replies by ensuring that "neither the Government of that time was aware of the evidence that it was accused of hiding, nor in its actions did it fail to pay attention to the indications it had at its disposal at all times, nor to the equation that functions as the premise of the thesis -Iraq= attacks - is not sustained at all.

On the 11th, 12th and 13th

To try to demonstrate this, the note reviews in detail the actions of the Government and the media during December 11, 12 and 13, that is, from the date of the attacks until the day of reflection prior to the elections on December 14

. M.

​

This is how he remembers Iñaki Gabilondo

's pronouncements

in Ser;

of the then leader of the opposition and candidate for the presidency of the PSOE,

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

;

whose lehendakari was

Juan José Ibarretxe

;

from the then general coordinator of IU,

Gaspar Llamazares

or from the ERC itself.

All of them assuming that the responsibility for the attacks corresponded to ETA.

He also specified his phone call to Zapatero to address the call for a demonstration the next day;

a call in which both agree on the motto of the march.

Aznar affirms that in that conversation, Zapatero did not request a meeting of the monitoring commission of the Pact for Freedoms.

On the same day of the attacks, the text adds, officials of the State Security Forces informed the Minister of the Interior,

Ángel Acebes

, that the explosive used in the trains was Titadyn, "which indicated ETA's modus operandi."

And shortly after, the CNI sent a note to the Government analyzing everything known so far and attributing responsibility to the band.

It was then that Aznar contacted several newspaper directors.

And at this point he points out: "Before speaking with the director of the newspaper El País, a special edition had already been published at one in the afternoon."

Minutes later, at one thirty, Acebes, in a press conference, "maintains ETA authorship for the first time."

The former president, in his note, adds: "As you can see, he was not exactly the first to do it."

Everything points to ETA

In his reply, Faes insists: "At that moment, everything: the explosive, the initial analysis by the CNI and the absence of alternative information from other services, points to ETA."

It also mentions the appearance, on the same afternoon of the 11th, of a

van in Alcalá

with detonators and a recording tape in Arabic.

"Without assuming anything conclusive," he says, "a new line of research opens up."

Aznar then calls Zapatero to inform him and he, always according to the former president's version, responds that "he doesn't care if it was ETA or Al Qaeda."

Subsequently, he made a new round of contacts with the media, ensuring that after the discovery of the van, a new line of investigation was opened but the ETA trail was maintained "as a priority."

Minister Acebes appeared publicly to report this.

At the end of the afternoon, remember, Cadena Ser claimed to have in its possession the photographs of the nine alleged "ETA members" who had been able to "intervene in the attack" and El País closed its edition stating on the cover: "Interior investigates the trail of Al Qaeda without ruling out ETA".

"The government concealment thing," Aznar reproaches, "is something that would be fabricated later."

And he adds: "It is known that blaming the Government, simply, for the massacre, for its support for the intervention in Iraq, was too crude. It had to be made more palatable by reproaching it for a lie. What was not necessary was to credit it, so nor after."

The former president mentions how on the 12th Cadena Ser broadcast a description of a victim that corresponded to an Islamic suicide.

"A hoax that has never been rectified," he says, from "the same people who began to accuse the Government of lying."

He also alludes to the appearance of a backpack at the Vallecas police station with Goma-2 Eco, but states that at that time "the director of the CNI still did not give credibility to the jihadist claim."

"Toxic" climate

"In the afternoon," he says, "the atmosphere is frankly toxic."

In this sense, he describes how in the demonstration of rejection "PP candidates are harassed and their headquarters begin to be surrounded" while "crude hoaxes begin to spread" such as that a decree to suspend the elections had been submitted for the king's signature. .

Already on the 13th, a day of reflection prior to the elections, three Hindus, two Moroccans and two Spaniards were arrested in connection with the falsification and sale of cards used in the mobile phones that activated the explosions and the Government reported this development "nothing more." occur."

"Everyone," he says, "went to vote the next day knowing this fact because they had heard it in a public appearance from the minister whom the opposition said was hiding the truth."

Now, twenty years later, the former president of the Government insists that "no police or intelligence report that contradicted his attitude or his communication policy was ignored; that the CNI leadership denied information at the time that attributed him to solid knowledge." of the Islamic trail" and that "never, ever did any official document reach the hands of the Government that definitively ruled out ETA authorship and affirmed jihadist responsibility without hesitation."