Posted on 06/18/2018 5:23:43 PM PDT by BBell
Madrid (AFP) - Spain's new Socialist government is determined to remove the remains of Francisco Franco from a vast mausoleum near Madrid and turn it into a place of "reconciliation" for a country still coming to terms with the dictator's legacy.
"We don't have a date yet, but the government will do it," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said late Monday during his first television interview since being sworn in on June 2 after toppling his conservative predecessor Mariano Rajoy in a confidence vote.
He recalled that a non-binding motion approved last year in parliament called for Franco's remains to be exhumed from the massive Valley of the Fallen mausoleum some 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Madrid and the site turned into a "memorial of the victims of fascism".
"Spain can't allow symbols that divide Spaniards. Something that is unimaginable in Germany or Italy, countries that also suffered fascist dictatorships, should also not be imaginable in our country," Sanchez added.
Earlier on Monday Socialist party spokesman Oscar Puente said the mausoleum should be transformed into a "place of reconciliation, of memory, for all Spaniards, and not of apology for the dictatorship."
Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist from the end of the country's 1936-39 civil war until his death in 1975, when he was buried inside a basilica drilled into the side of a mountain at the Valley of the Fallen, one of Europe's largest mass graves.
Built by Franco's regime between 1941 and 1959 -- in part by the forced labour of political prisoners -- in the granite mountains of the Sierra de Guadarrama, the monument holds the remains of more than 30,000 dead from both sides of the civil war, which was triggered by Franco's rebellion against an elected Republican government.
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If Franco doesn’t win the Civil War, Hitler invades Spain right after defeating France, and probably takes Gibraltar.
Viva Franco! Viva Pinochet!
That should get a good rise of blood pressure out of you.
Communists and socialists are like vampiric roaches.
Spoken like someone who never lived under Communism. I have.
The “Marquis of Queensbury” rules do not apply. The only way to defeat the Communists (when they were ascendant between the wars and shortly after WW2), was with an iron fist. It was that or slavery.
BTW, the “Republican Government” of Spain (*SPIT*) sent the entire gold reserves of Spain to Stalin as the price of his support during the war.
When its a choice between Communism and authoritarianism, any SANE PERSON who cares about survival of civilization would choose the latter over the former.
Spain survived Franco’s conservative rule quite nicely. The countries that were conquered by Communism didn’t fare nearly as well....they are still largely economic basket cases with a hollow empty place where once they had a national soul.
Nope, I’m laughing at morons who like nazis because they think they are anti-communist. It’’s the ethos of the weakling who doesn’t believe in the principles America is founded on. Like all weaklings, they wish for a strongman.
It’s similar to those who watch mafia movies because they are so pushed around in their own life, it makes them feel good to see Tony Soprano ignore the rules and give someone a beatdown. And that is why we see these “conservatives” waxing on admiringly about nazi lore and fellow travelers.
The World is not America. Different countries have completely different situations and what works here doesn’t necessarily work there.
And if you think Franco and Pinochet were “Nazis” then you swallowed the Leftist narrative hook, line and sinker.
The last thing Spain needs now is a socialist/communist/Marxist government. Haven’t they had enough of them and the harm they can cause?
Well, anti-Semitism is on the rise in Catalonia, so a part of Spain is partying like it’s “1492”.
Hitler had no capability with which to take Gibraltar. Especially not as long as the Royal Navy existed, a RN which the Germans had little ability to interfere with.
The RN would have simply blasted any attacking Germans right off the rock.
It would be similar to trying to take Iwo Jima as a massive Jap fleet surrounded the island.
The Germans didn’t take Gibraltar, because they couldn’t. Tobruk was weaker than Gibraltar and Rommel and the Africa Corps couldnt take it despite a 7 month siege. But the blockheads were just gonna storm Gibraltar.
The Brits were too strong.
Even if true, without question, Hitler still invades Spain, and with it, would have gone one of the few safe havens Jews had in Europe.
Shameful for a conservative to admire Pinochet and Franco. Both were fascists. Both made excuses for Hitler.
Both are the epitome of weaklings who have nothing of value to offer an American.
The answers to the communist menace are easily found in the men of US history, not in some comic strutting totalitarian.
Hitler didn’t for good reasons. Franco was like-minded enough that he didn’t need to invade a fellow traveler.
Franco did just enough to make Hitler think he was a fellow traveller. They really didn’t care for each other at all.
So how were “men of US History” supposed to get rid of a menace like Allende?
The answers to the communist menace are easily found in the men of US history, not in some comic strutting totalitarian.
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The question is: Will it always be thus? Only time will tell, but my bet is that the U.S. is not immune to a Leftist totalitarian crisis. In fact, one could easily argue we’ve been slippery sloping our way towards it for almost a century.
Mark
When anyone gets to be 74 years old I hope their career is over.
Keith Richards, are you listening?
Im just waiting for Chevy to kick the bucket so I can be the one to post Chevy Chase is still dead
That quote is in fact exactly one of the reasons I don’t buy the idea that Putin doesn’t still adhere or try to propagate Marxism-Leninism.
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