The “resignification” of Valle de Cuelgamuros undertaken by the Central Government to disassociate it from the Franco dictatorship and turn it into a “place of memory” completed a new phase yesterday with the exhumation of Primo de Rivera. The remains of the founder of the Falange were moved to the San Isidro cemetery at the express request of the family, who previously rejected the Executive’s offer for the body to remain in the mausoleum, but not in the place of honor it occupied until yesterday next to the high altar of the basilica.
Exhumation work began at daybreak. Before, even, that the first Falangist sympathizers swirled at the entrance to what was previously known as Valle de los CaÃdos. But it wasn’t until almost 1:00 p.m. that the procession set off, since, after lifting the large granite slab of more than 3,500 kilos that covered the tomb, the operators ran into several blocks of brick and concrete of which they had no knowledge.
Aside from the delay over the initially planned schedule, the coffin was removed without further setbacks. Contrary to what happened next.
Although the family had requested the greatest of discretion, nearly 150 Falangists gathered at the gates of the San Isidro cemetery to the cry of “¡Arriba España!†and under the Cara al sol chords. And when the hearse passed by, they tried to break the police cordon and provoked a struggle that ended with three arrested accused of an alleged crime of public disorder and five sanctioned. Once this tumult was resolved, some of the rally’s conveners, such as Manuel Andrino, national leader of the Falange, expressed their displeasure against what they consider a “desecration” of the Government of Pedro Sánchez. Although they also criticized the same family of Primo de Rivera for the “cowardice” and “treason” of not having “fought” enough to prevent the exhumation.
In the political arena, the Spanish Government congratulated itself on the operation. The Minister of Territorial Policy and spokesperson for the Central Government, Isabel RodrÃguez, emphasized the importance of having carried out this exhumation work with “all the scientific and technical rigor and with all respect and support for his family”, while the vice president second in the Spanish Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda DÃaz, celebrated the end of “a historical anomaly”, which “would probably not happen in any European country”.
In the PP, its campaign spokesperson, Borja Sémper, accused the Spanish Government of using State institutions for its own benefit. And anticipating the participation of the Minister of Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, in the floral offering that will be celebrated tomorrow on the occasion of the 86th anniversary of the bombing of Gernika – it will be the first occasion that a minister attends – the president of Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, of using the application of the Democratic Memory law as a smoke screen on the “real” problems that affect the Spanish on a daily basis.
