MADRID, 25 March 2004 — World leaders dressed in black joined Spanish royalty and families of the 190 victims of Madrid’s train bombings at a state funeral yesterday, honoring those killed in the nation’s worst terrorist attack.
On a cold, overcast day, King Juan Carlos and the rest of the royal family joined Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prince Charles, French President Jacques Chirac and more than a dozen other heads of state or government in the packed, 19th-century Almudena Cathedral for the mass. Secretary of State Colin Powell represented the United States.
“We have cried, and we have cried together,” Spanish Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela told the congregation.
The royal family sat up front, with the Spanish government and other politicians immediately behind, including Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and his successor, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Foreign dignitaries sat on the left side of the aisle among the 1,500-strong congregation.
The organist played the Spanish national anthem as the king and his family entered the cathedral. Incense filled the air.
“Great pain has filled your lives and those of your families since that black day in which brutal terrorist violence, planned and executed with unspeakable cruelty, ended the lives of your most beloved,” Rouco Varela said.
“From the very first moment — that of the anguished search and the inevitable identification of your loved ones — your pain became the pain of our dear city of Madrid, of Spain, and very quickly, of the whole world,” he added.
Before the mass began, one unidentified man in the congregation shouted, “Mr. Aznar, I hold you responsible for the death of my son!”
Many Spaniards have accused Aznar of provoking the bombings by supporting the US-led war in Iraq, and his party lost the national election three days after the attacks to Zapatero’s Socialists.
Zapatero has pledged to withdraw the estimated 1,300 Spanish troops now serving alongside other international forces in Iraq unless the United Nations takes control of the operations.
The daily El Pais reported that he intends to add to Spain’s 125 troops in Afghanistan to offset criticism of his decision to withdraw from Iraq.
