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Hey All,
For those of you who don't know, I´m studying
in Spain for the semester, and I wanted to tell you, yes I'm
alright. There were four bombings in Spain on March 11th in
Madrid.
I donated blood Thrusday as did thousands of
other people, and there was a peace demonstration on Friday.
This was the largest terrorist attack in Spain´s history.
The news here compared the attack to Septmeber 11th, granted
the number of deaths (200 hundred) are no comparison, but
the effects are the same. The day after the attack there was
a country wide march for peace and to show support for Madrid.
Millions of people met in the centers of their towns to march,
200,000 people in Cordoba marched, including me. The population
here is only 270,000 or a little more, if you subtract all
the elderly, and sick, that is practically everyone who lives
in Cordoba who was at this march. I´m sure you´ve
all seen pictures in the papers. I have pictures and video
and I´ll send it when I can. I have never experienced
anything so moving, nor seen that many people in one location
in my life. Throughout the country millions of people marched,
this demonstration was larger than anything I saw done in
America for September 11th. The support here is amazing, there
is no way to describe it.
Speaking of the newspapers, the news here is
very interesting to watch and read because very little is
censored. There were pictures of dead bodies, people with
limbs missing, and all sorts of grotesque sights. Besides
the pictures, there was an interesting turn of events as to
who the government blamed for the attacks. The government
was initally saying that ETA, a national terrorist group was
responsible, but there is a reason for that. The bombings
happened three days before the presidential election. The
government did not want to relate the bombings to Al Queda
because of the negative effects it would have on the party
in power and the reelection. My Spanish family and I were
watching TV when the President spoke to say the government
thinks there are ETA connections, at which point my señora
yelled "minteroso, minteroso" (lier, lier). She
explained that everyone in Spain knew it wasn´t ETA
because that´s not their pattern. In the past when ETA
has struck, it has been in the form of assissinations, or
explosions of buildings, but never have they killed students,
children, pregnant women, or other innocent people. Not to
mention the obvious connection of the date of March 11th.
The government tried to say that the type of explosives used
are typical of ETA, but the people here knew these were lies.
It didn´t help the current president in
the elections. The usual turn out for elections in Spain is
68%, really high compared to America, but this past Sunday
the turn out was 78%. The POSE party, (not the party currently
in power) who won the election, recieved the most votes any
canidate has recieved in Spain´s history of elections.
It is really amazing to be in Spain right now
to watch history being made, espically because 20th century
European history is my major!
Thank you for all who sent emails checking to
see if I was ok, that really means a lot, sorry I didn´t
send this earlier, but my email wasn´t working...what
a coinsidence, right when you need to send an email saying
you´re still alive. Hope you found this long email as
interesting as I did.
Love, Sarah
[Posted: 3-17-04]
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