The justice of Spain suspends the exhumation of Fra …

The Spanish Supreme Court has temporarily suspended the exhumation of dictator Francisco Franco from his mausoleum in the suburbs of Madrid, delaying one of the flagship projects of the government of Pedro Sánchez.

The Supreme Court said in a statement that one of its chambers "unanimously decided to suspend the exhumation of the remains of Don Francisco Franco Bahamonde, which was to take place on June 10" .

The decision is temporary to allow time for the resolution of appeals by the family of the dictator, buried with honors in the basilica of the Pharaonic complex of the Valley of the Dead, on the outskirts of Madrid, 43 years ago.

"The motive on which this decision is based is to avoid the damage that would otherwise be caused to the appellants (…) if these remains were exhumed, the remedy reviewed and that it was necessary to return them to the Where they are. ", The Supreme argued in his statement.

The executive announced in a brief note that it would "postpone the execution of the exhumation until, in the coming months, a decision on the substance of the issue is made".

Nevertheless, he is "convinced that the Supreme Court will reject this appeal".

"The Supreme Court has decided to suspend democracy with caution," said Emilio Silva, president of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, quoted by El País newspaper in Madrid. "The decision to exhume Franco has been approved twice by the Parliament, where lies the popular sovereignty.It is serious that a political decision is bypbaded by the Supreme Court".

The "Generalissimo", one of the instigators of the military uprising against the Spanish Republic in 1936, which unleashed three years of bloody civil war, ruled the country with an iron fist between 1939 and his death in 1975.

However, out of curiosity that did not go unnoticed by some leftist leaders, the Supreme Court adopted the Franco version of history, considering the dictator as head of state since his self-proclamation in October 1936, with the legitimate government of the Republic. current In this regard, Silva, president of the majority badociation of victims of the Franco regime, believes that "could be considered as an act of apology for the coup d'etat" of July 18 this year .

At his death, Franco was buried in the Valley of the Dead, a Pharaonic Mausoleum that he had built between 1940 and 1950, using mainly thousands of political prisoners.

His grave, covered with fresh flowers and venerated by the nostalgic of the Franco regime, stands in front of the altar of the basilica carved into the side of a mountain and crowned by a 150-meter high cross.

In the complex were buried 27,000 insurgent camp fighters as well as about 10,000 Republican soldiers, transferred without permission from their families from mbad graves.

It constitutes an unacceptable "place of exaltation" for Pedro Sánchez (PSOE) who, shortly after taking office in June 2018, made his exhumation one of his main draft horses.

Although they wanted to carry it out during the summer of 2018, the executive found a judicial guerrilla war with the heirs of the dictator and the resistance of the Benedictine monks who maintain the mausoleum.

Sanchez was to get the green light from the Vatican and reject the family's proposal to reinstate the dictator with his daughter in a crypt of Almudena Cathedral, facing the danger that would represent the construction of a pilgrimage site of Franco in the heart of Madrid.

Instead, the government chose the El Pardo cemetery, a more discreet area north of Madrid, where the remains of Franco's wife lie.

More than forty years after the end of the dictatorship, the wounds are still not closed and the question of the historical memory of this period is divisive.

The previous government of the PSOE, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004-2011), approved in 2007 a law on historical memory to eliminate the remains of the dictatorship, to identify the tens of thousands of people buried in mbad graves and to rehabilitate the memory of the victims. defeated, condemned under the Franco regime.

The right is wary of these policies and accuses the Socialists of reopening the wounds of the past, which they say are closed.

Indeed, the conservative Mariano Rajoy, in power until the motion of censorship presented in 2018 by Sanchez, boasted of not having spent even one euro to apply this law.

In total, the socialist government does not throw in the towel. "Reaching the ultimate goal is more than just the road we have to travel," said Vice President Carmen Calvo.