The Socialist and Sí Podemos groups in the Cabildo de Tenerife will defend this Friday in the plenary session of the island corporation a motion in which it urges the withdrawal of honors and distinctions from Franco as the island’s adopted son.
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The proposal of the socialist team seeks to comply with the Historical Memory Law, which requires the elimination of any type of exaltation of the dictatorship, according to the PSOE in a statement.
Javier Rodríguez Medina, socialist councilor in charge of the defense of this motion, which is presented jointly with the group Sí Podemos Canarias, assures that the Cabildo de Tenerife must adopt the appropriate agreements to comply with the Historical Memory Law, as well as with as stated by the Constitutional Commission of the Congress of Deputies.
For this reason, explains Rodríguez Medina, it is proposed to the plenary session of the Tenerife Council “to adopt as the only agreement to withdraw the honors and distinctions granted to General Francisco Franco Bahamonde on August 20, 1936, by which he is named adopted son of the island of Tenerife “.
Rodríguez Medina points out that the regulations establish that “no one can feel legitimated, as happened in the past, to use violence in order to impose their political convictions and establish totalitarian regimes contrary to freedom and dignity, which deserves condemnation and rejection. of our democratic society “.
This proposal is sustained, continues the socialist counselor, in that the regulations establish that “public administrations, in the exercise of their powers, must take the appropriate and necessary measures for the removal of shields, badges, plaques and other objects or commemorative mentions of exaltation, personal or collective, of the military uprising, of the Civil War and of the repression of the dictatorship “.
Santa Cruz, a city with numerous remains of the dictatorship
The capital of Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, still preserves numerous vestiges of the dictatorship, among others, a monument that pays tribute to the trip that Francisco Franco made in the Dragon Rapide to start the coup. This monument, located in front of the port and next to the boulevards of the city, “violates” the Law of Historical Memory. This was concluded by a last report commissioned in 2018 by the City Council to the University of La Laguna (ULL). The people who participated in the research led by the professor of History, Maisa Navarro, also detailed other Francoist vestiges that remain in the capital of Tenerife.
However, following the conclusions of the report, the City Council, governed by the Canary Coalition, has not made any decision on the matter despite repeated requests in this regard.
Mercedes Pérez Schwartz, president of the Association for the Historical Memory of Tenerife and granddaughter of the last Republican mayor of the city, highlighted in an interview with this newspaper last February that “the study is already done and there are no excuses for not withdrawing it.” Although he said he understood that the pandemic had paralyzed many issues, he insisted then that the removal of the monument has been asked for many years and does not comply with a 2007 law. In addition, he stressed that it is not an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC), nor heritage. “It is the patrimony of the fascists and the Spanish right.”
Not far from the controversial monument is the oldest public school in the city, called Onésimo Redondo in memory of the considered ideologist of Spanish fascism and founder of the Juntas de Offensiva Nacional Sindicalista (JONS).
From Pablo Casado’s mass to the Paseo de Rajoy
In a situation similar to the one recently carried out by Pablo Casado when attending a mass in honor of the dictator, in 2018 Mariano Rajoy visited Tenerife and a video was recorded doing sports in the city, a video that was later broadcast on his social networks and in the that the then president of the PP was seen accompanied by other popular island leaders right in front of the controversial monument. The walk of Rajoy began in the Rambla de Santa Cruz, popularly known as La Rambla and which until just 10 years ago was called Rambla del General Franco. This great artery leads to the monument in honor of the dictator. At the moment in which the entourage passes in front of the sculpture, Rajoy looks at it and then his companions turn their heads and look to the opposite side to cross the middle of the road. The author of the video holds the plane over the sculpture for a few seconds once the walkers have passed.
