The Popular Party has announced that it will “promote the necessary mechanisms” to use the catalog of Francoist symbols of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, approved this Monday by the Technical Commission of Historical Memory with the only votes against the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez (Canarian Coalition), and the first deputy mayor, Guillermo Díaz Guerra (PP). Both have repeatedly repeated the same argument to explain their reluctance to apply the law, which is that there must be a catalog for the entire Canary Islands, and not just for the capital of Tenerife.
The Canarian Government, on the monument to Franco: “Surely the law will be applied”
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In a statement, Díaz Guerra has repeated today that he justifies his vote against by estimating that the catalog, which in his opinion lacks “plurality and objectivity”, must have a regional character and must be carried out after “preparing the corresponding regulations”.
“The Government of the Canary Islands does not have this regulation and therefore it is the first to break the Historical Memory Law,” says the PP councilor.
In addition, he believes that the catalog of Francoist symbols, which includes the one known as the monument to Franco located in the center of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, “is full of partial assessments that must be reviewed.”
This councilman, who came to defend that Franco’s symbol become a tourist attraction, also considers that not only must we have “experts” in the cultural, historical or artistic field, but “with the opinion of citizens”.
Just five days ago, Manuela de Armas, Minister of Education, Universities, Culture and Sports of the Government of the Canary Islands, reiterated that the Franco’s imprint of this monument “is so evident that it does not need discussion”and that “the law will surely be applied.”
The counselor also stated that she was amazed that “at this time public officials still say what they say with complete calm” regarding this vestige of the dictatorship and affirmed that if she were mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife she would not need to know the vestiges that are in Telde or in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to remove this monument. Arms responded thus to the argument put forward on more than one occasion by Mayor Bermúdez and Díaz Guerra that the monument would not be touched until a report on the remains of the entire archipelago had been completed.
María Isabel Navarro, the main researcher of the catalog, stated last week that the removal of the remains “is not a whim, it is an obligation set by law”, and recalled that Santa Cruz de Tenerife was a “propaganda instrument” and the The “most emblematic” scenario of Francoism in the Canary Islands, where an “abuse of oblivion” takes place to maintain these symbols, which for the most part have already been removed from the rest of the islands.
Do not remove, but replace Francoist symbols
The Popular Party in Santa Cruz de Tenerife is not only reluctant to eliminate the vestiges of the dictatorship and the coup, but also, last February, it demanded that the Port Authority return to its place the propeller of the Canarias cruiser and the bust of Cándido García San Juanboth vestiges of Francoism on the island that were removed from the port of the city.
Already then, Díaz Guerra used the same argument used now, insisting that the Government of the Canary Islands “should have drawn up a catalog of the entire Autonomous Community, and not just the municipality of Santa Cruz de Tenerife”, something that, in fact, the Government yes it is doing, since it is preparing a dossier for the entire Canary Islands, but the one for Santa Cruz was completed first, among other reasons, because progress had already been made on it since a study by the University of La Laguna on this issue was completed in 2019 . However, Díaz Guerra described the city as “harassment” to ask the City Council to remove the vestiges and comply with the law.
