Spain's Basque separatists say surprised by ETA bomb

MADRID, Jan 3 (Reuters) A political party seen by Spain's government as the political wing of Basque guerrillas ETA said today it was caught by surprise by Saturday's car bomb, which led the government to end the country's peace process.

''I don't think anyone expected an attack like the one in Madrid,'' Joseba Alvarez, a leading member of Batasuna, told Basque radio in a remark which some might interpret as signalling divisions within the region's independence movement.

The government broke off attempts at dialogue with ETA after a car bomb wrecked a multi-storey car park at Madrid's international airport on Saturday, apparently ending a nine-month guerrilla ceasefire.

Rescue workers are still searching for the bodies of two Ecuadorean immigrants believed to have been sleeping in their cars at the time of the blast, which injured another 19 people. The Spanish government sees Batasuna as ETA's political wing. The banned party refuses either to admit to links with the guerrillas or to condemn its attacks, in which more than 800 people have been killed in four decades of separatist struggle.

A split between Batasuna and ETA could further complicate attempts to negotiate a solution to the Basque conflict, which began in the final phase of the Franco dictatorship when the region's distinctive language and culture were suppressed.

ETA has not claimed responsibility for the attack, although the government said that one of three warning calls received in the hour before the blast claimed to be from the guerrillas.

Batasuna had warned for months of a crisis in the peace process Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero began in June.

Batasuna wants to be legalised again, as well as demanding police ease pressure on Basque nationalists and that ETA prisoners be transferred to jails closer to the Basque Country.

About one in seven Basques support Batasuna, polls show.

Reuters BDP VV1800