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The new Franco Law
• 15 May 2008 •
 IN some ways, the Spanish Civil War is still going on. The after- effects of Fransisco Franco's regime are still influencing the Spanish Government. Soon, the official reduction of Franco's influence is likely to affect your town, village or city. After months of haggling over minute details, the Spanish Law of Historic Memory has finally been passed.
For the ruling Socialist Party, the PSOE, it was a close-run thing which they have felt very strongly about since first coming to power.
The bill effectively condemns Franco and offers an opportunity for the country to honour his victims. The law provides a way for families who are still feeling the effects of persecution to seek some form of closure, or even compensation. On the other hand, it has also been called an attempt to “airbrush the darker past of Spain.”
Either way, symbols of Franco are already being removed from buildings. His name is being removed from streets and statues are being pulled down. For the opposition party, the Partido Popular (PP), the problems with this law lay in the fact that they have never officially broken their ties with Franco. Indeed, some of their leading politicians have said that they still admire his leadership.
But now that the Spanish Government has formally, officially, and with no turning back, denounced the regime of the dictator, the work really begins to discover the location of the bodies. And there are bodies all over Spain, buried in mass, unmarked graves just waiting to be found and for the bodies to be identified. During the Civil War, the Nationalist dead were given full honours, whereas the Republican dead were discarded.
Military trials which had far reaching effects, still suffered today, have been declared illegitimate. In Spain, nobody ever stood trial for war crimes, but even that is now being questioned. The dead on the losing side have been waiting for generations for the war to come to an end. Although this is clearly not the end of the process, it is being seen by many as a victory in the final battle of the Spanish Civil War.
But old wounds have been opened and some people, especially in Catalonia, are arguing that the law does not go far enough, due to concessions that had to be granted in order for the bill to pass.
But still, statues are coming down and street-names are being changed. Many hope that Franco is nothing more than a distant memory but, while the after-effects of his regime still echo throughout the country, is it right to attempt to eradicate the past in such a way? Journalist Emilio Silva, who is the head of the ‘Association for the Recovery of Historic Memory’. said, “For over 30 years after the end of Franco's dictatorship in Spain, our parliament has not spoken about the victims of the Civil War. Thousands of people have suffered repression.
There are perhaps 15,000 missing people in mass graves in all of Spain.” He believes that the time to repair the damage of the dictatorship is now.
But there remain some who refuse to think badly of Franco. The Franco Foundation is largely made up of old men who fought with him during the war and worked for him during the regime. They have called the new law “against history”.
The Foundation say that they are not against the recognition of Republican dead but they think that the pain of the war should be resolved in the homes of those affected by it and that the government has no right to intrude. Many have asked why it has taken 32 years for the Spanish to pass this law and the only answer can be that the ghost of Franco is still sitting on the shoulders of too many. However, whether this law will reignite the passions that started the Civil War, or become a means of closure, remains to be seen. |  Return to Top
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