4th anniversary of Madrid terror bombings
MADRID, Spain (AP) - March 11, 2008 "Look. Look at my son, look how handsome he was," she said,
holding the paper as if it were something sacred, then broke down
sobbing.
Baeza Ramirez pointed proudly to a small pendant around her
neck, also with a photo of her son Jose Maria - an earnest-looking
man with dark, closely cropped hair, his life cut short at age 39.
"My other children made it for me to wear," she said.
Her outpouring of grief came after a memorial ceremony at which
King Juan Carlos laid a laurel wreath at a towering glass memorial
to the victims of the terror attack.
He and Queen Sofia, other dignitaries and a crowd of several
thousand observed two minutes of silence at the stroke of noon to
remember those killed and the more than 1,800 wounded four years
ago.
A choir dressed in black sang a Gregorian chant-like piece meant
as a tribute to peace. There were no speeches.
The ceremony took place outside Atocha station, the destination
of each of four commuter trains that were ripped apart by backpack
bombs on March 11, 2004.
Like many commuters that day, Baeza Ramirez's son was on his way
to work - in his case as a doorman in Madrid.
"They took away my son," she said. "He never bothered
anybody."
The king and queen were flanked by guards with 18th-century
uniforms and plumed helmets as they stepped up to the monument: a
three-story tower of opaque bricks. Inside, a transparent roof
bears messages of condolence that Spaniards and others wrote on
computers set up at Atocha after the bombings.
"Tomorrow I will leave home just like you did, in order to
continue your journey," one inscription reads.
Other memorials were held elsewhere in and around Madrid on
Tuesday. The ceremonies seem to draw less attention as the years go
by, paling in comparison to how Spain came to a standstill on the
first anniversary. Then, traffic stopped, workers put down their
tools and people poured out of office buildings to observe five
minutes of silence.
This time the run-up to the anniversary was overshadowed by an
election that produced a win for Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the
Socialist first elected three days after the train bombings.
In 2004, many voters turned against the ruling conservatives
after they blamed the attacks on the armed Basque group ETA,
despite mounting evidence that Islamic militants carried them out
in retaliation for Spain's support of the war in Iraq.
Pilar Manjon, who lost her 20-year-old son Daniel in the attacks
and serves as president of an association of March 11 victims, said
this anniversary was harder than others: the new election brought
back old memories, and a suspected ETA gunman killed a politician
last week.
"It was hard to make it to today in one piece," Manjon told
Cadena Ser radio.
Later, at a ceremony outside town, she spoke of the process of
healing. "What we need to do is not forget, but rather to remember
in peace," Manjon said.
A court in October convicted 21 defendants who stood trial in
connection with the bombings. They were found guilty on charges
ranging from weapons possession to mass murder.
The verdict said the cell acted to wage holy war. It did not
mention the previous government's support for the Iraq war as a
reason for the attack - an assertion militants claiming to act on
behalf of al-Qaida had made in a video found just after the
bombings.