Opinion

How fake news about the Madrid bombings continues to divide Spanish politics

The attack and its aftermath ended up driving a toxic wedge into Spanish politics and society which would coarsen public debate and sow a mistrust in the country’s democratic institutions

On March 11th, 2004, 10 bombs were detonated on four commuter trains in Atocha station just outside Madrid. A total of 193 people died and around 2,000 were injured in the largest terrorist atrocity Spain had seen. Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

Guy Hedgecoe
Mon Mar 11 2024 - 06:00

I had been living in Madrid for just a few months when, on the morning of March 11th, 2004, bombs ripped through four commuter trains in and near the city, killing 192 people and injuring around 1,900 more.

It was only the double-glazing on the windows of my flat that prevented me from hearing the sound of the explosions in nearby Atocha station. But the next day, the response to the attack could be heard loud and clear as 11 million people took to the streets of cities across the country, chanting their outrage. It was a bold and united expression of grief for a nation that was no stranger to terrorism. In Madrid, the conservative prime minister, José María Aznar, walked alongside the leader of the Socialist opposition, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and the future King Felipe.

And yet, the attack and its aftermath ended up driving a toxic wedge into Spanish politics and society which would coarsen public debate and sow a mistrust in the country’s democratic institutions whose consequences are still visible today.

The bombing, which became known as “11-M”, was the biggest terrorist attack in Europe after Lockerbie. It was also the first time that Spain, which had suffered more than three decades of Basque group Eta’s separatist violence, had been targeted in such a way by jihadists.

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Passengers waiting for a train on the platform 2 of Atocha railway station read newspapers on March 11th, 2005, with front pages commemorating the victims of the 2004 Madrid train bombing. Photograph: Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images

Although Eta was still active in 2004, it had been severely weakened and to many observers in Spain and abroad the Madrid atrocity immediately looked much more like the work of Islamists.

Interior minister Ángel Acebes told Spaniards that there was “no doubt” that Eta had carried out the attack. Aznar even telephoned the editors of the country’s main newspapers to tell them that the Basque group was responsible

However, with a general election scheduled to take place three days later, jihadist involvement was seen as potentially disastrous for Aznar’s governing Popular Party (PP) as it might be seen as retribution for his government’s support for the invasion of Iraq. Eta’s authorship, by contrast, would work in Aznar’s favour, given his government’s efforts to eliminate the terrorist group.

Interior minister Ángel Acebes told Spaniards that there was “no doubt” that Eta had carried out the attack. Aznar even telephoned the editors of the country’s main newspapers to tell them that the Basque group was responsible.

But, by election day, enough doubt had spread about the government’s claims to mobilise angry voters who turned out en masse and overturned poll predictions by voting in the Socialist Zapatero as prime minister.

As an exercise in democracy, it was a stunning example of voters reacting to the performance of their leaders. But, it turned out, 11-M’s true legacy was yet to be revealed.

A cell inspired by al-Qaeda had carried out the attack. However, a full-scale conspiracy theory, fuelled by right-wing politicians and media, took hold: that Eta was indeed somehow involved and that the bombing was a plot to remove the conservatives from power, with the Socialists applauding – or even plotting – the outcome.

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PP politicians continued to peddle the false theory, but so too did influential media, particularly the Catholic Church-owned COPE radio station and El Mundo newspaper, whose tireless publication of misleading or outright false information about the bombing has forever tainted its reputation.

All of this took a very direct human toll, as police officers, politicians, judges and journalists who spoke out against the lies were targeted.

Rodolfo Ruiz, a senior police officer who was part of the investigation, was one such victim, with one presenter on COPE even accusing him of being complicit in the terrorist attack. The stress caused by this led to his wife’s suicide.

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Pilar Majón, whose son was killed in the attack and who was president of a terrorism victims’ association, has suffered in a similar way because of her rejection of the conspiracy theory. A few years ago, as I watched Majón speak at a memorial event to mark the anniversary of the bombing, a group of passersby shouted abuse at her. In 2017, she said that her mental health problems “get worse every time someone tells me I’m a bad mother or that my son is better off dead”.

According to Víctor Sampedro, an academic who has written a book about the fallout from the attack, one in every three Spaniards still believes Eta had some involvement, even though the ensuing investigation and trial utterly disproved this

But the conspiratorial psychosis that gripped much of the nation had a broader impact too, on the credibility of Spanish institutions.

Mercedes Gallizo, who was the national director of prisons in the Zapatero government, said: “They put in doubt the idea that Spaniards have a democratic society: the knowledge that the police force works, that it doesn’t fabricate evidence, that there is not a permanent conspiracy in which the intelligence services, the civil guard and judges are all caught up.”

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According to Víctor Sampedro, an academic who has written a book about the fallout from the attack, one in every three Spaniards still believes Eta had some involvement, even though the ensuing investigation and trial utterly disproved this.

The shameful performances of the likes of El Mundo and COPE and many – but certainly not all – PP politicians in the years that followed the 2004 attack also corroded trust in the media and the political class. It does not require a huge leap of the imagination to see that much of the grimness of present-day Spanish politics – which is currently polarised almost to the point of dysfunction – has its root in the 2004 attack.

The two main parties – the Socialists and the PP – are so at odds they cannot agree on the most basic judicial appointments. Base insults are exchanged in parliament as a matter of course, and many on the right continue to wield Eta as a political weapon, several years after the group’s disbandment. Meanwhile, democratically questionable proposals are aired for electoral gain, such as the outlawing of pro-independence parties.

Many lives were destroyed on March 11th, 2004. But Spain has lost a great deal more in the 20 years since.

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