The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) recently filed a complaint with the Government for the display of a tapestry in which Franco was named during the last flag oath of the General Military Academy of Zaragoza, which was held on October 7. ceremony, led by Kings Felipe VI and Letizia, served for 411 cadets to swear the “defense of Spain”, among them Princess Leonor.
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The tapestry, under which kings and other civil and military authorities, such as the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, reads “2nd period February 20, 1927 General Franco” in reference to his time as the first director of the military academy since . 1928 to 1931, when the Republic dissolved it. It was the so-called second stage of the center, which began a year later, in 1927. Franco’s, joined by two other tapestries with similar references to other early directors such as José Galbis in 1882, in the first stage. , and Francisco Hidalgo de Cisneros , who took office in 1940, in the third period of the academy, which depends on the Army.
The association considers that although Franco did not carry out the 1936 coup d’état, the display of the flag “is a tribute to a coup leader and dictator who, in addition to violating the law of memory, violated the dignity of the victims in Franco’s regime. .” recognize in a public space the person responsible for the terrible and countless violations of human rights,” he argued in the claim that he presented through the official record before the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory.
In this, he asked for sanctions for those responsible for the Military Academy of Zaragoza and for the head of protocol of the Royal House, who within their tasks of “management and participation in the design” of this type of works “agreed this tribute to the dictator.” responsible for at least 114,226 republican civilians, most of whom remain missing today.
The president of ARMH, Emilio Silva, compared the situation to imagining “a plaque in a school that remembers that a terrorist studied there or a school in Austria that boasts that Adolf Hitler was trained in the rooms -its classroom.” Silva considered that “it is a conscious act” to “recognize a genocide” who inaugurated forty years “without freedom or elections” and came to power through “violence and terror”, so “he does not deserve even the slightest recognition of the army in a democratic country that should publicly reject it,” he said in a press release.
The association also considers, and stated it in the complaint, that the display of the tapestry is against the recently implemented Democratic Memory Law, especially its article 34, which requires the removal or elimination of elements that are against the democratic memory. The rule stipulates that buildings, shields, plaques, insignia or other elements “where the commemorative reference is made to the lifting of the uprising and dictatorship” will be considered in this category, but also to their leaders or participants in the system and organization. .who supported the Franco regime.
