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Spanish radio's apology ends row over spoof call

Posted on: Friday, 23 December 2005, 23:52 CST

MADRID (Reuters) - A church-controlled radio station apologized on Friday for a stunt in which a radio comic posing as Spain's prime minister called Bolivia's future president, sparking a row involving Spain, Bolivia and the Vatican.

Spain and Bolivia accepted the apology by Cope radio, whose comic, pretending to be Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, telephoned Evo Morales and implied that Bolivia and Spain would join a left-wing axis involving Cuba and Venezuela.

"We are sincerely happy that you are triumphantly joining the new order that we wish to set up in Spain and Latin America, Evo," the spoof Zapatero said, after congratulating Morales on winning last weekend's Bolivian election.

Cope, owned by the Spanish Bishops' Conference, is strongly critical of the policies of Spain's Socialist government.

During the six-minute conversation, later broadcast on Cope, the fake Zapatero also invited Morales to Spain.

When Morales said he had received many congratulatory phone calls, the fake Zapatero said he imagined he had not been called by U.S. President George W. Bush.

"He hasn't called me yet either, and I've been in office two years," the fake Zapatero added.

Zapatero angered Washington by pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq immediately after taking office in 2004 and, more recently, by selling $2 billion of planes and ships to Venezuela.

The hoax phone call angered the Bolivian and Spanish governments and revived tension between Spain and the Catholic church, which has sharply criticized Madrid for policies such as legalizing gay marriage.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, going over the heads of the Catholic bishops who own the radio station, called in the Vatican's envoy to Spain on Thursday and asking him to prevent anything similar happening again.

Spain formally apologized to the Bolivian government over the incident on Thursday.

Cope, bowing to demands from Spain and Bolivia, issued a second statement on Friday apologizing "to the people and institutions affected."

"The board of this station wishes to clarify that it has never been its intention to lack respect for the president-elect of Bolivia, nor hinder the normal development of the international relations of our country," it said.

"The Bolivian government is satisfied with this apology," Alvaro del Pozo, charge d'affaires at the Bolivian embassy in Madrid, told Reuters.

Cope issued a statement on Thursday regretting the annoyance it had caused, but the Bolivian embassy said this did not go far enough and demanded a clear apology to Bolivia and Morales, according to Spanish press reports.

The Spanish government declared that, following Cope's apology, it considered the incident closed.

Source: REUTERS

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