W
EEKEND
Issue 11 Nov 19 - Dec 02, 2015
GIBRALTAR
CT Scanner Suite opened at St Bernard’s Hospital Page 29
WORLD
NEWSPAPER WITH A DIFFERENCE
TRAVEL
David Lindo - the urban birder explores Malaga Page 72
CITY FM MALAGA Preferred media partners See our ad Page 81
Issue 11 Nov 19 - Dec 02, 2015
CAN SPAIN EVER BE FREE OF FRANCO? I
N the hills of the Sierra de Guadarrama, fifty kilometres north of Madrid, sits one of the tallest stone crosses built anywhere in the world (below). It stands more than 150 metres high and precedes over a vast basilica built into the rock below known as the ‘Valley of the Fallen’. It is home to over 40,000 people who fell during the Spanish Civil War. It is also the final resting place for Franco.
TORTURE
FOOD & FINE DINING Page 64
WEEKEND WORLD - 1
The Spanish dictator, who died four decades ago, plunged his country into war and went on to preside over the death, incarceration, torture and exile of hundreds of thousands of his opponents. He is often reviled as one the continent’s most fascist leaders alongside Hitler and Mussolini. Yet today the government still tries to ignore the brutality he inflicted and far from allowing old wounds to heal, this failure has kept old hatreds alive for longer than anyone thought possible. ‘The sins of Spanish democracy are being still unatoned today.’ But the so called ‘pact of forgetting’ - the unspoken agreement made between left and right in the wake of Franco’s death to look to the future, not the past which was cemented in the 1977 amnesty law, looks to be unravelling thanks in part to The Platform for Truth Commission who have called for political parties to commit to investi-
The 20th November is always a reflective time for Spaniards as it marks the day that Spain was released from the grip of dictatorship at the hands of Francisco Franco. But now, even 40 years on, the country is still trying to come to terms with the legacy he left behind gating disappearances and unsolved crimes inflicted upon Spanish citizens during the 1939-1975 of Francisco Franco. So yes, if the Spanish government commits
to investigating these alleged crimes and fulfils the resolutions as requested by the UN, then Spain may finally be able to heal old wounds. And will finally be free of FRANCO.