First, a little mood music, maestro:
Alas poor Lorca, they don’t know where he is, Horatio…but maybe now, they’ll finally get to the bottom of whatever mass grave the great Spanish bard disappeared to:Of course, the worst atrocities were committed by the fascists against the Republicans (who were small-d democrats, as the fascists were not.) And that’s exactly why people like this don’t want those graves being dug up:Judge Baltasar Garzon opened the first formal probe into murder and repression during Spain’s fascist era on Thursday by filing a 68-page writ ordering the immediate exhumation of 19 mass graves — including one thought to contain the remains of poet Federico Garcia Lorca.Garzon, a National Court judge, is best known for his tenacious campaign to prosecute former Argentinian dictator Augusto Pinochet. His new order cites 114,266 people as missing or “disappeared” under General Francisco Franco. Garzon says the repression and systematic extermination of political opponents during the Franco era amount to “crimes against humanity.”An estimated 500,000 people died in the Spanish civil war, and both sides committed atrocities against civilians. Garzon’s initiative focuses on those who, like Garcia Lorca, were on the losing Republican side.
Stands to reason. The “People’s Party” were what the Franco-fascists morphed into once the dictatorship officially ended. And since it was their side that got the amnesty for the atrocities, of course they don’t want it all getting back out into the light of day! And what does that say about “democratic” Spain today?Spanish conservatives in general oppose the investigation. “I am not in favor of opening the wounds of the past,” said conservative People’s Party Mariano Rajoy last month.
Bingo. First truth, THEN reconciliation. Not the other way around.The left-leaning daily El Pais wrote, “The public lynching Garzon is being subjected to gives an idea of the democratic deficit that Spain suffers, derived in great measure from failing to confront ghosts when it should have.”
