Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is under fire from political opponents over what they say is his government’s lenient approach to Venezuela after allegations of links between Caracas and Spanish terror group ETA.

Last week, a Spanish judge ordered the detention of 12 members of ETA, a Basque separatist group, and Colombia’s main guerrilla group, known as the FARC, for planning to assassinate Colombian political figures, including President Álvaro Uribe, during visits to Spain.

The same day, Mr. Zapatero asked Venezuela to “explain” the allegations of cooperation with the ETA and FARC made by Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who denied any ties to the FARC or ETA, blasted Spain as a nation that still considered itself Venezuela’s colonial master.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro dismissed the court opinion.

On Wednesday, Mariano Rajoy, the head of the Popular Party, Spain’s largest opposition party, said Spain had been craven in the face of insults from Messrs. Chávez and Maduro.

Mr. Rajoy said Spain should issue an official protest against Venezuela’s criticism of the Spanish judiciary. “If not, we will leave the sensation that Spain or its government can be insulted without paying a price,” he said in Spain’s Parliament, to applause from this partisans.

The spat with Venezuela has put Mr. Zapatero—who has worked to keep good relations with the volatile Mr. Chávez—in a difficult position. In Spain, there is scant support for ETA, which in its quest for an independent Basque state, has killed more than 800 people in bombings and assassinations during the past five decades.

But Venezuela is an important trading partner for Madrid. For instance, the Spanish oil firm Repsol SA recently headed a consortium of firms that won one of two projects awarded in the first oil auction during Mr. Chávez’s 11 years in power. Some 300,000 Spaniards, including Venezuelan-born sons of Spanish immigrants who have obtained Spanish passports in recent years, live in Venezuela. After Argentina, the country is home to the second-largest Spanish expatriate commmunity—most opponents of Mr. Chávez.

In an effort to cool the bilateral tension, the two governments issued a joint statement last week reiterating their cooperation in fighting terrorism. Venezuela also denied it helped out the ETA. But few observers say they expect to see any real Venezuelan cooperation in clarifying the murky relations between the FARC and the ETA as outlined in the judge’s order.

As a result, many opposition politicians aren’t satisfied. Pio Garcia Escudero, the senate leader of the conservative Popular Party, the main opposition party, blasted Mr. Zapatero for coddling Mr. Chávez as well as the Castro regime in Cuba, where a Cuban political prisoner died two weeks ago after an 86-day hunger strike.

Editorial writers and opposition politicians from other parties also urged the government to take a tougher line with the Chávez government. “There’s a real deterioration in Venezuela where an authoritarian regime is turning into a totalitarian regime,” said Inaki Anasagasti, a senator with the regional National Basque Party who was born in Venezuela. “We are asking the Spanish government to take a firmer stance.”

The judge’s arrest order was based partly on information gathered from laptop computers belonging to Raul Reyes, the late second-in-command figure of the FARC, as well as on interviews with deserters from the FARC who had dealt with ETA members in Venezuela and Colombia. Mr. Reyes was killed in 2008 in a crossborder raid by the Colombian military on his camp in Ecuador. The files showed that top Venezuelan military and intelligence officials were engaged in efforts to supply the FARC with weapons and money.

Judge Velasco’s order sketched out a conspiracy through which ETA members trained FARC guerrillas in the use of powerful explosives in exchange for guerrilla training by the FARC in Colombian and Venezuelan jungle camps. As part of their alliance, the ETA agreed to provide surveillance on top Colombian politicians targeted for assassination during their stays in Spain, the judge’s order said.

The FARC, which has some 9,000 combatants under arms, and is Latin America’s oldest and largest guerrilla army, has been fighting to overthrow Colombia’s democracy for more than five decades. It funds itself largely through drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping

The judge said Arturo Cubillas Fontan, a member of the ETA who has lived in Venezuela since 1989, played a key role as a liason between elements of the Venezuelan military the FARC and the ETA. The judge’s order said Mr. Cubillas Fontan, who has become a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, has held mid level government positions, including a job at Venezuela’s ministry of agriculture since 2005.

Source: Wall Street Journal