Pamplona: The Bulls Didn't Run

Violence kills a famed fiesta

Ever since Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises popularized its rowdy ritual of the running of the bulls, the Fiesta of San Fermin at Pamplona has attracted as many visitors each July as the Prado Museum. But last week some 135,000 tourists who had jammed into the prosperous provincial capital quickly forgot about the usual pastimes of drinking, dancing and corridas. Thousands fled in fear as the fiesta was canceled for the first time since the civil war by a series of riots that flared through Pamplona and across Spain's long-troubled Basque region. Before it was over, the violence left two dead and ballooned into one of the most serious challenges yet faced by the democratic post-Franco government of Premier Adolfo Suarez.

The trouble started before 20,000 spectators in the Pamplona bullring when a group of youthful Basque nationalists clashed with riot police. The fighting spilled into the nearby Plaza del Castillo, scattering fiesta-happy tourists from the outdoor cafes, then intensified into gunfire that killed a 23-year-old leftist. As the trouble spread to other Basque cities, the police were quick--often too quick--to counter it with bullets. After a youth was shot dead in San Sebastian, tens of thousands of workers staged a general strike throughout the industrial region.

Spain has been plagued for years by a Basque secessionist movement, which seeks total autonomy for the ancient region. But the terrorist ETA (for Basque Homeland and Liberty) seemed to have lost much of its support lately following a promise by Suarez of eventual limited home rule. Because last week's outbreaks were a reminder that opportunities for the violent confrontation sought by extremists still exist, the Suarez government indicated it might start moving faster on home rule. ETA responded by threatening to execute all "mercenaries in the service of the Spanish state."

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