United By Anger Spain Enraged After Separatist Slaying

Punching the air and shouting “Murderers,” tens of thousands of Spaniards rallied in the streets Sunday to vent their anger over the killing of a young councilman by Basque separatist kidnappers.

Many of the demonstrators were among half a million people who marched Saturday along the same boulevards to plead for the life of Miguel Angel Blanco, who was abducted Thursday. That procession was led by Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, whose appeal for Blanco’s release was televised nationwide.

The 29-year-old accountant was found handcuffed and shot Saturday near the Basque city of San Sebastian. He died Sunday.

When the demonstrators flocked again to the streets of this Basque capital Sunday evening, they voiced their rage and grief, raising their fists and shouting “Murderers!” and “Miguel! Miguel!” They also called for an end to ETA, the group that kidnapped Blanco.

“We must stop being afraid of ETA and join together so that this terrorism ends once and for all,” said Felix Maccoaga, a schoolteacher in Bilbao, 200 miles north of Spain’s capital, Madrid.

In Eruma, Blanco’s hometown, black ribbons and white sheets of mourning adorned balconies and thousands of mourners shouted his name and clapped as his body was driven up to the town hall to lie in state until his funeral.

King Juan Carlos eulogized Blanco, the son of a construction worker, as an “innocent victim of fanatic terrorism.”

Blanco’s funeral, scheduled for noon today, is to coincide with an hourlong work stoppage across the Basque region.

Basque regional president Jose Antonio Ardanza urged Spaniards to attend one of the many candlelight vigils planned in memory of Blanco and in opposition to ETA.

“ETA is more lonely than yesterday, weaker than yesterday and more cornered than yesterday,” said Ardanza.

“Yesterday’s rallies have proved that the people in the street will win the battle against ETA.”

Pope John Paul II and Amnesty International were among those imploring ETA to release Blanco.

After Blanco was seized Thursday, ETA said he would be killed unless some 450 ETA prisoners were transferred from jails around Spain to ones in the Basque region. The government refused.

ETA, an acronym for Basque Homeland and Freedom, has killed almost 800 people, mostly Spanish security force members, since it began fighting in 1968 for the creation of an independence Basque country in northern Spain.

ETA’s political arm, Herri Batasuna, rejected calls to condemn Blanco’s murder. In the group’s first statement since Blanco’s murder, it said they were a victim of the “criminalization of Basque independence.”