CONFLICTED SPAIN EXHUMES EMBALMED ‘CAUDILLO’ FRANCISCO FRANCO FROM OPULENT STATE MAUSOLEUM
VALLE DE LOS CAIDOS —SPAIN on Thursday began exhuming the embalmed body of Francisco Franco from a grandiose state mausoleum in order to relocate it to a more discreet grave in a country still conflicted over the dictator’s decadeslong regime.
“The exhumation process at the tomb of Francisco Franco has begun,” a government spokesperson said, indicating that members of Franco’s family were on hand to witness the opening of the grave at the Valle de los Caidos, or Valley of the Fallen, site near Madrid.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has made moving the remains of “El Caudillo” (The Leader) a priority since coming to power in June 2018, saying Spain should not “continue to glorify” a man who ruled with an iron fist after the bloody 1936-39 civil war that his Nationalist forces won.
“It is a great victory for dignity, memory, justice and reparation—and thus for Spanish democracy,” Sanchez said of the historic moment, just over a fortnight before a general election.
Valley of the Fallen
Since his death 44 years ago, Franco’s body reposed inside a vast, imposing basilica in the Valley of the Fallen, some 50 kilometers northwest of Madrid.
Ahead of the operation, 22 members of the late dictator’s family arrived at the site carrying wreathes to witness the exhumation, which began shortly before 11 a.m.
Spanish Justice Minister Dolores Delgado was also on hand to represent the government, but no journalists were allowed in.
Franco’s body will be flown to El Pardo where it will be reburied alongside that of his wife in Mingorrubio state cemetery just north of the Spanish capital.
In the event of inclement weather, the coffin will be driven to El Pardo by hearse.
Initially scheduled for June 2018, the operation was delayed by more than a year due to a string of legal challenges filed by Franco’s descendants.
Election issue
Critics on both the left and the right have accused Sanchez of electioneering, with Pablo Iglesias who heads the radical left-wing Podemos saying the Socialist premier was unearthing “Franco’s mummy” to win votes.
Spaniards are divided over the exhumation, with 43 percent in favor of the move, 32.5 percent against and the rest undecided, according to a poll published this month in El Mundo daily.
Ordered by Franco in 1940 to celebrate his “glorious (Catholic) crusade” against the “godless” Republicans, construction of the Valley of the Fallen lasted for almost 20 years.
Partly built by the forced labor of political prisoners, the site is one of Europe’s largest mass graves, housing the remains of over 30,000 dead from both sides of a civil war that was triggered by Franco’s rebellion against an elected Republican government.
Most had fought for Franco but the monument also contains the bones of many Republican opponents who were moved there from cemeteries and mass graves across the country without their families being informed.
A 150-meter cross towers over the site which Franco dedicated to “all the fallen” of the conflict in what he called a gesture of reconciliation.—afp