Political
The attacks came three days before the Sunday elections.
A decree declaring three days of official mourning was issued by the government, and five minutes of silence were observed on Friday. Demonstrations were called for Friday evening in cities across the country, under the motto "With the victims, with the constitution and for the defeat of terrorism". The Catalan government led by Pasqual Maragall also declared official mourning in Catalonia. The government's chosen motto was very criticized by all the opposition because the "with the Constitution" inclusion in the motto implied that the bombs were set by the ETA, while many in the opposition believed that it was made by an Islamic group in retaliation for having Spanish troops in Iraq.
The first government official to make an open public statement was Juan José Ibarretxe Markuartu, head of government in the Basque Country, two hours after the attacks, . He unequivocally blamed ETA and said "When ETA attacks, the Basque heart breaks into a thousand pieces".
In another early public appearance, Interior Minister Acebes pointed in unambiguous terms to ETA, although by the end of the day he said that no line of investigation would be ignored.
The head of the Catalan government Maragall said, "We are all Madrileños today", and continued: "if terrorists intended to divide us, they will have achieved the exact opposite, and the best way to reject terror is to vote on Sunday". Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira of the Catalan nationalist party, the ERC, who had recently come under fire for secretly meeting with ETA and advocating dialogue, said he would not communicate with ETA again but someone else should do so to prevent them from committing any more bloodshed. "We thought we had already seen everything, but unfortunately that was not the case", he lamented.
By the time Aznar and the King had made their public statements in the afternoon, doubts over ETA's involvement were substantial enough that both of them avoided naming a culprit, and they referred just to "terrorists". Aznar insisted on the need to stay the course, echoing his Interior Minister's earlier remarks.
Many people suspected that ETA was being blamed in order to hide any al-Qaeda influence, since that could mean the massacre was in response to the Iraq war. According to the Real Instituto Elcano, this could have resulted in the Aznar government losing the Sunday elections.
Read more about this topic: Reactions To The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings
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