Everyone seems to agree that you have to abide by the law. What is not so clear is how to do it. The announcement by the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands that the Catalog of Francoist vestiges of Santa Cruz was already ready, and that, therefore, once the Technical Commission for Historical Memory gives its approval, it could applied, has caused an intense rejection in the Santa Cruz City Council, so much so that yesterday, the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, asked himself before the media if he had to put a “hole” in the monument in the Plaza de España or tear down the Recova.
“I would like to ask the Government some questions about the monument that has been in the Plaza de España for many years. Do we have to tear it down? Put a hole in it? That is what the Government of the Canary Islands is proposing, that we spend public money to tear down that monument, or to remove the lions from the Serrador bridge, or to tear down the structure in the form of a barracks The one that the report of the Our Lady of Africa Market talks about, that is what the Government proposes, that we tear down La Recova”, the mayor wondered. Some questions to which the Deputy Minister of Culture, Juan Márquez, wanted to limit and “rigor”, pointing out to DIARIO DE AVISOS that “it is not convenient to treat people like idiots when it comes to saying that we want to bring down the market. I think you have to be rigorous with what you say. The files propose changes of names in some spaces, of streets, of some elements that have Francoist meanings”.
For the deputy minister, the mayor’s statements seek to “divert attention from what is important and which are those monuments that represent an attack on the memory, recognition and moral reparation of the victims, and I speak, for example, of the monument to Franco or that of the fallen”. Márquez insisted that “we must be rigorous with what is said, as much as the experts who have prepared this catalog have been, and what we have to do is continue expanding it with the rest of the Archipelago. We started with Santa Cruz because there is a very important job that has not been done until now, it is a city in which we find more vestiges”.
Asked if Santa Cruz’s argument that a catalog cannot be made in phases has any path, Márquez clarifies that what has already been prepared is the catalog that includes the Law of Historical Memory of the Canary Islands, a document that will now go expanding with the rest of the municipalities. “You have to be rigorous when talking about the laws, but also when it comes to complying with them, which is what the Santa Cruz City Council has not done with both the 2007 and 2018 laws. The mayor welcomed the absence from a catalog. Now it’s done. It is true that we are talking about the regional scope of the Canary Islands, which is why it will be expanded and updated as work progresses throughout the territory. The Historical Memory Technical Commission is the one that determines for Heritage where and how it has to carry out the work, and that is what we are doing,” he said. In addition, he adds that “the catalog is not something closed. If within 20 years a Francoist vestige appears, it can be updated”, and insisted that “we must be rigorous when talking about the laws and, above all, be those who have not complied with those of historical memory; that you should be a little cautious when trying to teach lessons about it”.
As for whether the monument to the Fallen is going to be removed, despite the fact that the study carried out by the City Council established that the resignification of the Cabildo years ago would allow it to be preserved, Márquez referred to the Technical Commission. “It has to be the Technical Commission that pronounces on the records that we have worked on, once that work is ratified, everything will be very clear about how to act. We are within our powers signaling and inventorying what the elements are, from there we will have to advance in compliance with what the experts in the field and the Technical Commission say. I think there are solutions, what cannot be done is sending misleading messages or erroneous legislative interpretations all the time, to, in the end, be an excuse not to act”. In addition, he concluded by recalling that “there are monuments that must be removed, because the signifier is evident and supposes an attack and recognition of the memory of the victims, and others in which solutions will have to be sought. It is not about throwing down the market, we are talking about changing the name in some cases and withdrawing honors and distinctions in others”.
Meanwhile, Bermúdez continued to defend yesterday the stigma that Santa Cruz has for being the only city with a catalog of vestiges, released without the rest of the municipalities. “It is that there are no other municipalities that have vestiges. How do they know that we are the one with the most if they haven’t done the rest of the studies”, he wondered. Likewise, the mayor insisted that “they want to apply the law at various speeds. For Santa Cruz, one and for the rest, another”, he concluded. A claim in which he has the support of his government partner, the PP, whose spokesman, Guillermo Díaz Guerra, indicated yesterday that his party will ask the City Council to request the challenge of the catalog, to add that it “is prepared without consensus, it seems made by political activists rather than by an institution.”
La Recova, ready to defend its name
The president of the Our Lady of Africa Market Cooperative, Estefanía Hernández, yesterday showed her total rejection, not only of the possibility that something in La Recova could be demolished so that it no longer resembles a barracks, as pointed out by the General Director of Cultural Heritage, Nona Perera, in statements to COPE Tenerife, but also to the name change. “Our denomination obeys the name of a virgin”, she defended. For Hernández, changing an 80-year-old “brand” “is a great detriment.” “The market was held because there was no room for merchants in La Recova Vieja” and he trusts that it will reconsider, “and we won’t have to take legal measures”.
