In Spain they exhumed the fascist leader from the mausoleum

The remains of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founding leader of the fascist Falange party founded during the Franco dictatorship in Spain, in the mausoleum called Valley of the Fallen, were removed 64 years later and placed in a Madrid cemetery.

The remains of Rivera, leader of the Falange party, after the Franco dictatorship on October 24, 2019, as part of the efforts of the leftist governments in Spain, which approved laws to erase the traces of the dictatorial period (Historical Memory- 2007 and Democratic Memory-2022), were found in the mausoleum inside the basilica.

During the first months of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the remains of Rivera (November 20, 1936), who was shot dead by the Republicans of the time in the prison of the city of Alicante, in the Valle de los Caidos, where he was taken in 1959 by order of the dictator Franco, have been discovered this morning by his family and transferred to the San Isidro cemetery in Madrid.

National and international media showed great interest in Rivera’s relocation, which coincided with the 120th anniversary of his birth. While Rivera’s remains, which were removed from the mausoleum with the organization of his relatives, were transferred to the cemetery in the center of Madrid, some 50 kilometers away, a very small group of the pro-fascist Falange party chanted slogans and demonstrated.

The outbreak of a group that met in front of the San Isidro cemetery and made fascist salutes was quickly prevented by the intervention of the police.

Inside the Basilica of the Valley of the Fallen, built between 1940 and 1958 by order of the dictator Franco, only the individual tombs of the dictator Franco and the leader of the Falange Rivera were located.

CRITICISM OF THE OPPOSITION TO THE LEFT GOVERNMENT

Under this basilica are still the remains of some 33,000 people who died on both sides (Franco and Republicans) during the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship.

While the government refrained from speaking out in order not to give importance to the transfer of Rivera’s tomb, the opposition right-wing parties affirmed that Francoism was not the problem of Spain today, and that the ruling left-wing coalition was making propaganda before the local elections. which will be held on May 28.

It is expected that the remains of General José Moscardó and Lieutenant Colonel Jaime Milans del Bosch, two other important names in the military field of Francoism, will soon be excavated in the military museum (Alcázar de Toledo) in the city of Toledo. (AA)