Bells Toll for the Victims of March 11 Moslem Bomb Attack in Madrid

[Menydh]

Bells mark anniversary of Madrid attack

Deutsche Welle
March 11, 2005

7am the minute the first bomb went off on March 11, 2004. Silent tributes were held at midday. Spanish King Juan Carlos and other world leaders including UN Secretary General Kofi Annan laid wreaths and attended a ceremony in central Madrid. 192 cypress and olive trees have been planted at a special memorial site for each of the bombing victims as well as a policeman who died in a later raid on a suspect's flat. 75 people were arrested in the criminal investigation, 25 are still in prison, 17 are under court supervision and 33 have been released.


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[Menydh]

Pain Still Raw as Spain Remembers Victims

Deutsche Welle
March 11, 2005

In schools, workplaces and on the streets, Spain fell silent for five minutes on Friday in memory of the 191 people who died in Madrid a year ago in the worst terrorist attack in the country's history.
The mood was solemn in the Spanish capital on Friday. Traffic stopped and people emerged from their cars and offices and stood together silently on street corners at midday.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero laid a white wreath at a park of remembrance in central Madrid where 192 olive and cypress trees mark a lasting tribute to the victims, and to a policeman who was killed in early April during a raid on a suspect's flat.

The day of mourning had begun at sunrise, when church bells tolled at 7:37 a.m. -- the exact moment of the blasts. At the railway stations struck by the bombers a year ago, thousands of commuters went about their daily routine, but they were joined by others who were there to remember, and to grieve.


"We have come here because there are so many people who cannot," a woman said as she wept at El Pozo station while clinging tightly to the arm of her husband Enrique. He was among the 1,900 injured in attacks. He still bears the scars, his head bandaged from yet another operation carried out this week.

Juana Leal, who was widowed by the attacks, placed flowers and lit two candles on the platform of the station in the working class area, one of three that was struck by the bombers.

"I heard the explosion, I phoned his mobile phone and he no longer answered," Leal said, recalling the day her husband died.

"A sense of indignation"

Zapatero's government, which came to power three days after the blasts, had asked workplaces to fall silent and for employees to remember the attacks, blamed on Moroccan extremists linked to the al Qaeda network.


Many Spaniards believe the bombs were laid in retaliation for the previous government's support of the US-led war in Iraq. Just before midday a commuter at the packed Atocha station, near where bombs exploded on two trains, said he believed the country had become safer since Zapatero last year made good on an electoral promise to pull Spain's troops out of Iraq.

"I still feel a sense of indignation," Ricardo Oliva told AFP. "It was a surprise when it happened, I just did not think that terrorists could do this in my city ... since we withdrew our troops from Iraq, I think the Islamic threat has receded."

Earlier, as sunrise bathed the Madrid skyline in golden light, the capital's church bells rang out for five minutes. The slow, solemn gongs echoed along streets and were broadcast by all television and radio stations.

On public transport, many commuters sat bowed over newspapers bearing the message that Spain would never forget the victims of the attacks, which have become known everywhere in Spanish as "11-M" and which clearly still haunt the country a year later.

"Silence and pain"


"The Open Wound" was how daily El Pais summed up the emotion in a caption alongside a photograph of a railway line glinting in the sun, while on the back page the daily listed the "191 lives broken."

"Silence and Pain," was financial daily Expansion's stark headline, while Cinco Dias opted for "The Memory of Pain." For some the poignancy of the moment was hard to bear. "The same train, the same day. It is not a good feeling," a middle-aged woman commuter told Spanish television reporters.

At midday, trains across Spain pulled into the nearest station for five minutes as flashing signs in stations explained the interruption to passengers.

A middle-aged man named Manuel said he believed it was time for Spaniards to move on.

"I am trying not to think about it too much, I think the best thing is to put it out of our minds," he said.

Amid the lasting emotional trauma, many of the relatives eschewed the official celebrations to mourn the loss of their loved ones in private.


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[Quintos]

It took Spain a total of 700 years to kick the muslims out of the entire peninsula. It took 700 years of sweat, blood and pain. A lake of Iberian blood was spilled to remove the invading North African hordes and restore Spain as a Christian occidental nation. Now what took almost 700 years of continous history to undo and what our nation prides our self on is being destroyed by massive immigration from all over the world espcially latin America and North Africa with the media clearly under alien control Spanish culture,heritage and language is clearly slowly but surely disapearing. Globalization really does suck.

[Quintos]

This forum is very inactive.

[Menydh]

What are you talking about? The forums or this particular thread?

If this particular thread, it is just about news and people may comment or not on the given news.

If the forums in general, the march of them is fairly good in that discussions do take place instead of 'active' monosyllabic posts empty of content as it happens on other boards.

[Theobald]

RIP to the victims.
We did a demonstration in front of the Spanish embassy in Paris in homage to the victims of the attacks.

[Quintos]

Brownpride.com is alot more active but yea the people are completely idiotic.

My condolences for the victims and their relatives.

[Dr. Solar Wolff]

So, how do you feel about first helping the Americans in Iraq and then being told by Americans that Spain is a land of quitters or worse after the bombing and the election? I want to make it clear that this is not the way I feel but it has been said many times in the USA on all levels. My understanding is that there are many levels to the decision to support the Americans inspite of popular resistance and that the Spanish troops might have left without the bombing and that one offensive part of the affair was the old Spanish government's attempt to blame it on the Basque seperatists but I hope I can get a straight answer on the smaller, simpler issue regarding feelings of the Spanish toward Americans and what Americans say.