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A8 WORLD NEWS
Monday 6 august 2018

Digging up Franco: Spain divided over dictator's legacy

By ARITZ PARRA fundamental step toward
MADRID (AP) — Even in his the realization of the right to
grave, the 20th-century truth for all victims of serious
dictator who ruled Spain human rights violations,"
with an iron fist keeps divid- the rapporteurs wrote.
ing the country. The government wants
Spain's new center-left gov- to adopt the changes by
ernment says removing the amending the 2007 Histor-
embalmed body of Gen. ic Memory Law, which fell
Francisco Franco from a short of addressing the de-
glorifying mausoleum will mands of survivors and vic-
be the first among many tims' relatives when Rajoy's
symbolic moves aimed at conservative government
coming to terms with the eliminated its budgets for
country's troubled history. exhumations and repara-
Critics of the government tions.
and Franco's descendants Emilio Silva, president of the
are pushing back, vowing Association for the Recov-
to preserve the memory of ery of Historic Memory, or
a regime they claim should ARMH, says the new gov-
be credited for "moderniz- ernment should use its ex-
ing Spain." In this photo taken on Friday, July 13, 2018, people stand around the tomb of former Spanish dic- ecutive powers to remove
Banning the foundation tator Francisco Franco inside the basilica at the Valley of the Fallen monument near El Escorial, Franco from the Valley of
that preserves the legacy outside Madrid. the Fallen — a macabre
of Franco is precisely what Associated Press mausoleum 50 kilometers
should be done instead, (31 miles) northwest of Ma-
says Fernando Martinez, in this country has been re-opening an office to joy with a no-confidence drid. He also wants the gov-
the official appointed to opened," Martinez told The help victims' relatives — an vote in June. ernment to dig up all the
oversee the government's Associated Press, speaking office closed under Spain's Three U.N-sponsored mis- graves of Franco's victims,
efforts to unearth and iden- at the Ministry of Justice previous conservative gov- sions to Spain since 2013 rather than kicking off a
tify the 114,000-or-so victims in Madrid, where his new ernment — setting up a new had criticized authorities grand political showdown
of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil Directorate General for system for reparation pay- for lacking a national plan between conservative and
War and the four decades Historic Memory is being ments and turning Franco's to search for missing peo- progressive voices in par-
of dictatorship that fol- formed. current burial place into a ple, for poor coordination liament. "They fear a legal
lowed under Franco, who Martinez says creating an museum against fascism. on exhumations and for backlash," Silva said of the
died in 1975. up-to-date census of anon- "We are going to acceler- outdated maps of graves. government. But he called
"Exhuming the body of the ymous burials in ditches ate and make up for lost They also raised concerns digging up unmarked
dictator will begin healing across the country will be time, it's a question of dem- about the inaction of Span- graves and compensating
the wounds of this country. among the most pressing ocratic dignity," says Marti- ish courts in prosecuting the relatives of identified
But that task will only be tasks for Prime Minister Pe- nez, who was appointed in some of the period's dark- victims "very basic, human
completed when the last dro Sanchez's new govern- July after Sanchez ousted est crimes. things. There shouldn't be
ditch with a mass grave ment. Other moves include conservative Mariano Ra- But a panel of U.N. rights any need to discuss them."
experts just recently praised With a towering 150-me-
the authorities' move for ter (500-foot) tall cross that
"placing the right to truth can be seen from miles
at the top of the political away, the somber neoclas-
agenda" by leading the sic-style mausoleum and
efforts to search for those basilica of the Valley of the
disappeared as well as for Fallen were built by Franco
vowing to create a Truth as a tribute to the dead
Commission to investigate during his so-called "glori-
crimes that occurred under ous crusade" in overthrow-
Franco up until his death. ing Spain's democratic
"This decision represents a government.q