Marchers in Madrid Protest Car Bombing

In an emotional call for peace, hundreds of thousands of people marched through downtown Madrid on Sunday to protest a car-bomb attack seen as a resurgence of Basque separatists’ three-decade-long campaign of violence.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and former premiers Felipe Gonzalez, Adolfo Suarez and Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo led the demonstration, carrying a giant banner that read: “For Peace and Liberty. Terrorism No!”

Police estimated the crowd at 1.1 million, an Interior Ministry official said, although some reporters and police at the scene put it at less than half that.

The demonstrators packed a nearly one-mile stretch through this capital of 3.5 million people. Other banners read “Enough” or “ETA No”--the latter a reference to the Basque Homeland and Freedom group believed responsible for Friday’s car-bomb attack in Madrid that killed an army colonel.

Sunday’s demonstration brought back memories of anti-ETA rallies across Spain in 1997 that many believed helped persuade the organization to agree to a cease-fire.

The ETA ended a 14-month truce Dec. 3 and warned of more attacks, though there was no claim of responsibility in the recent bombing. The group said it was scrapping the truce because talks were making no progress toward its goal of independence for the Basque region.