In some cases, the exhumation is carried out in compliance with court rulings dating from 2016, which recognized the right of families to receive the remains of those shot during the war.
Spain began this Monday the removal of 128 bodies of victims of the civil war of 1936-1939 from the memorial of the Franco dictatorship Vale dos Caídos, the first exhumations of the place carried out at the request of the families.
The start of these works was confirmed by the The Spanish government and the families of the victimswho had been demanding the delivery of mortal remains for years.
In some cases, the exhumation of the bodies is done in compliance with court rulings which dates from 2016 and which recognizes the right of families to receive the remains of those shot during the war, to dispose of them as they see fit.
However, these judgments were object of appeals and judicial challenges by entities such as the Association for the Defense of the Valley of the Fallen or the Francisco Franco Foundation, which bears the name of the general who instituted and led the Spanish dictatorship between 1939 and 1976.
These associations sought to preserve the Valley of the Fallen —currently known as Valle de Cuelgamuros— as the memorial created and ordered built by Francisco Franco.
The name and status of the Valley of the Fallen were changed by virtue of the new law of the Democratic Memory of Spain, in force since last October, which in addition to prohibiting “acts of a political nature or exaltation of the War [Civil]of its protagonists or of the dictatorship”, establishes that “the crypts attached to the Basilica and the tombs existing in it have the character of a civil cemetery”.
By virtue of the same law and other previous legislation, in recent years, Spain they removed the body of Franco del Vale dos Caídos and other generals linked to the dictatorship and Francoism of basilicas and monuments.
Besides Franco, he was removed from the former Vale dos Caídos, last April, by the body of the founder of the Falange Espanhola fascist party, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, who was buried, in late 2019, next to the dictator, on the main altar of the basilica built in the place.
Primo de Rivera exhumed from the Vale dos Caídos under the law that prevents burying Francoist figures in monuments
In the Cuelgamuros Valley, the mortal remains of more than 33,800 people who fought on both sides of the civil war are buried, a third of whom have not yet been identified.
The location is a monumental Francoist memorial which includes a basilica built between 1940 and 1958, about 40 kilometers from Madrid. It was carved into the side of a mountain, and convicts, including political prisoners in the Franco era, were used in its construction.
The mortal remains of thousands of people killed in the civil war were transferred to the crypts of the Valley of the Fallen, in many cases, in the absence of relatives who have claimed the right to recover the corpses.
Vale dos Caídos reopens this Tuesday, after the exhumation of Franco
This is what happened with the families of the 128 victims who will be removed from the site with the work started on Monday and which the Spanish authorities expect to take months to complete, as they require compliance with different international location and identification protocols and procedures. .
The spokesperson for the Spanish government, the socialist Isabel Rodríguez, acknowledged on Monday that the work must continue beyond July 23, the date of the early legislative elections in Spain, with the polls giving victory to the Popular Party (PP, right), who spoke out against the new Democratic Memory law and has already said he will repeal the legislation if he comes to power.
The minister questioned “why it bothers” the PP that “Spanish families want them to bury their dead wherever they want and can bring them flowers whenever they want.”
For Isabel Rodríguez, from the Socialist Party (PSOE), “Finally, and perhaps long overdue, Spanish democracy is responding to these victims”.
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has said that he will revoke the legislation if he becomes president of the Government because he considers that it “reopens resentment” and “does not sow harmony”, in addition to the fact that “does not respect the Constitution and the Spanish transition”in a reference to the transition period from dictatorship to democracy in the 1970s, which resulted from an understanding between the various political protagonists of the time.
Relatives of victims who demand the delivery of bodies this Monday expressed their satisfaction at the start of the exhumation work and asked that it be quick.
According to different sources cited by Spanish media, most of the 128 bodies that will be removed are Republicans and opponents of the Franco dictatorshipbut there are also cases linked to the nationalist and Francoist side.
Spain’s Democratic Memory Law, in force since last year, sought to extend compensation to victims of the civil war (1936-1939) and the Franco dictatorship that followed it (1939-1975).
The new law, which replaces another from 2007, approved during the socialist government of José Rodríguez Zapatero, reinforced Spain’s commitment to the search for people who disappeared during the civil war and the Franco regime and expanded the definition of victim, which now includes LGBTI people (lesbians, homosexualbisexual, transgender, intersex), children adopted without parental consent, and Basque, Catalan and Galician languages and cultures, among other cases.
More than 500,000 people died in the civil war between the rebel nationalist forces led by Franco and the defenders of a Spanish Republic and there are more than 110,000 fatalities of the war and the dictatorship to be identified.
Source: Observadora
