The grave, which the late dictator Francisco Franco had built in 1940 after the end of the Civil War, has been “a place of democratic memory” since October 19, 2022, when Spain approved the law that replaced the Historical Memory law. of 2007, and which ordered that the former Valley of the Fallen be renamed Valle de Cuelgamuros.
The first exhumation request that was processed through the courts is that of the brothers Manuel and Antonio Ramiro Lapeña, and it is prior to the norm. In 2016 they achieved a historic sentence to recover the bodies. The rest were administrative recognitions.
Despite this sentence, the Francisco Franco Foundation and a private lawyer asked the Justice to stop the work.
In March, the Supreme Court rejected those requests and paved the way for the exhumations.
Most of the Lapeña descendants died, but Purificación lives on, who is the granddaughter and great-niece respectively of the brothers Manuel and Antonio, both shot in 1936 by Francoism.
“I have more hope now, but I am also a little afraid, because there are older relatives who do not have time. And if there is a political change, this would be paralyzed,” Purificación told Télam.
The thousands who lie in the grave are not going to be exhumed, but each family has to file a request with the National Heritage (which manages the space) and prove that their family member is there.
Silva emphasized that there are years of fighting for “something basic, such as burying a loved one where they want and not where a dictator decides,” and that is that his grandfather, like the thousands of other bodies that were scattered throughout the country, they populated Cuelgamuros at the request of Franco.
As the president of the State Federation of Forums for Memory (FEFFM), Arturo Peinado, explained to this agency, these bodies are “republicans killed in the war and in later years, who were transferred without the permission and knowledge of the families to the tomb of Franco, something like paying homage to the executioner”.
Meanwhile, the grandson of Emilio Silva Faba appreciated the official announcement, but compared it to the exhumation that Franco’s family achieved, which in 2019 carried the dictator with the coffin on his shoulders and to which the relatives “who wanted” could go.
The other exhumed politician was the founder of the Falange, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, in 2023.
“Both came ex officio from the Government, but those of the victims come from the victims,” the lawyer for the Lapeña family, Eduardo Ranz, told Télam.
Purificación commented that he requested permission to attend the exhumations, in which they do not participate.
Despite criticism for the delays and methods, the relatives appreciate the advances and fear that they will be reversed in the event of a change of political sign in July.
The fear is based on the fact that the Popular Party (PP) is the one that is best positioned to win next month’s elections, according to the average number of polls carried out by RTVE and published on Thursday.
He, like his potential ally, the far-right Vox, voted against the 2022 rule and stated that they would repeal it, alleging that it divides and rekindles wounds in society.
This year, they filed appeals before the Constitutional Court to declare it unconstitutional.
“The PP thing is a false fight, because the law is not going to judge any Francoist. It is not going to make a census of executioners, it is going to make one of victims,” said Silva, whose family the Falangists took away their properties ” at gunpoint”.
Ranz hopes that the extractions take place “as soon as possible” to compare the DNA and, although he does not believe that “the bodies will be ordered to be reintroduced in Cuelgamuros”, he fears for those who “now make that same request, since they can be affected by the change of government”.
The interviewees ask not only to maintain the 2022 law, but also to repeal the 1975 Amnesty Law because “it works as a full stop law” and together with other regulations “prevent access to justice,” explained the head of the FEFFM .
In that Amnesty Law, key in the democratic transition, lies the idea of reconciliation. It was even in a certain way graphed in Cuelgamuros, where victims and perpetrators were matched.
Another demand from the relatives is the creation of a state body that will last beyond the political fluctuations or that if “the right won, it would have to do a stronger job to eliminate it,” said the head of ARMH.
“The government chose a grant model to search for the disappeared; it distributes resources and families compete among themselves,” Silva criticized, because in the case of a PP and VOX government, it would only be enough to cut or eliminate them, as happened in other governments of previous right.
However, those consulted highlighted the -partial- transition from a model of “private” and extrajudicial exhumations to another in which the State takes charge of them, in a country in which the relatives were in charge of seeking resources and hiring forensics.
“The new Law of Memory assumes the public duty of exhumations and finances it,” Ranz said.
In any case, private exhumations “do not cease to exist, they have been permanent since 2000, when the graves of the Franco regime began to appear,” although “a judge never appeared,” Peinado explained.
The demand for official judges and forensics is common to family members. In addition, the regulation of the standard is still pending.
This week the Government appointed Dolores Delgado as prosecutor of the Democratic Memory and Human Rights room, in accordance with the Memory Law, a new instance for victims.
“In Spain there are many people with a very low democratic and political level. The media and governments did not promote a democratic and political culture,” Purificación said.
For Peinado, the problem of “lack of democratic culture” has to do with the fact that “Francoism was not defeated in the streets” and because “when you see the names of the victims, at the same time, the executioners are being pointed out. And If you see the surnames of many hierarchs of the dictatorship, these are repeated in the conservative forces of Parliament”.
Source: Ambito
