The deputy of Sí Podemos Canarias Manuel Marrero affirmed this Tuesday in the regional Parliament that the one known as monument to Franco in Santa Cruz de Tenerife “is our Valley of the Fallen”.
Marrero has made this statement during the appearance, urged by the Socialist Group, of the Minister of Public Administrations, Justice and Security, Julio Pérez, to explain the consequences that the recently approved Democratic Memory Law will have in the Canary Islands.
An item on the agenda of the plenary session of the Autonomous Chamber that has revealed the conflicting positions between the groups that support the Government, PSOE, Sí Podemos Canarias, Nueva Canarias and Agrupación Socialista Gomera, and those of the opposition, CC, PP and Citizens.
The councilor Julio Pérez has picked up the gauntlet thrown by Manuel Marrero to attack the PP and Ciudadanos deputies, who have affirmed that the new Democratic Memory Lawlike that of Historical Memory, bury the spirit of the Transition and try to “rewrite history”.
He has pointed out that more than burying it, “it develops and deepens that understanding” that was not, he added, “a kind of tie between fascists and democrats”, “an agreement so that anti-democratic values would survive”, but just the opposite, “make them disappear without violence.
As for whether it is intended to “rewrite history”, Pérez has said that “naturally” yes, especially when “what is written is a lie.”
And he has asked the popular deputy Astrid Pérez, who has branded this new law as “wet paper” as well as the Canarian Historical Memory, if “the monument to Franco should survive” in Santa Cruz, if the dictator “deserves a monument ”, and if removing it is “undoing the spirit of the Transition”.
He has elaborated that “no law is necessary” to proceed with the removal of this monument that presides over the confluence of Anaga Avenue with the Rambla de Santa Cruz (formerly Rambla del General Franco), and if the mayor, the nationalist José Manuel Bermúdez “didn’t want to, it’s probably because his councilors -those from the PP- think like you”.
Along the same lines, the deputy of Sí Podemos Canarias Manuel Marrero has meant that “a catalog” of Francoist vestiges “is not needed, nor a law to remove it” if there really was “a democratic and anti-fascist political culture”.
But it happens that “there are people who are still looking for excuses as to whether it has an artistic value or whether it can serve as a tourist attraction”, alluding to what was stated by the PP councilor Guillermo Díaz Guerra.
The popular deputy Astrid Pérez has agreed with the Government that Spain lived through “a dark age” between 1936 and 1975, from the military uprising until the death of Franco, and on the need to study history “in a rigorous way by historians, politicians, jurists.
However, he continued, “some governments use memory laws to rewrite chapters of the past” and are “tempted to alter and manipulate some facts.”
Pérez has indicated that the PP does not intend to contribute to “reopening closed wounds” and that the Democratic Memory Law has gone ahead with the votes, among others, of the EH Bildu deputies “to whitewash the environment” of the terrorist group ETA.
Ricardo Fernández de la Puente, from Ciudadanos, has opined that the new state law “not only lacks real measures” but also “does not take into account the victims of terrorism” and suffers from a “revisionist” desire.
Likewise, he has appreciated a contradiction in trying to “end the criminal classification” of the apology of terrorism and classify as a new crime that of apology of Francoism, an aspect that Julio Pérez has denied, who has asked “what does one have to do with the other ”.
He has also inquired of the Citizens deputy if, with the Criminal Code in hand, “he does not go to jail” whoever advocates terrorism when it implies an impairment or humiliation to the victims or their families.
Along the same lines, the deputy from Nueva Canarias Luis Campos has criticized that terrorism serves “as a recurring excuse for some” to go against any type of memory law or when it comes to repudiating a “miserable” coup d’état.
“Some will always use any argument not to ultimately reject what happened for decades in this country,” he added.
Jonathan de Felipe, from the Canarian Nationalist Group (CC-PNC-AHI) has advocated repudiating “all forms of violence against people” and has pointed out that when a Democratic Memory Law is approved it is “because it has been lost”.
He has abounded in that “the best way to honor it is to defend democracy” and has wondered if it really “is at stake”.
In the same tone, he stated that “institutions are put at stake and respect for them is weakened when we do not give them the sense they have of popular government”, of “listening to the people and reading the circumstances of the moment”.
And he has wondered if “democracy is coming and debating who is on the left or the right”, or reducing the debate to “with me or against me”.
The socialist deputy Matilde Fleitas, requesting the counselor’s appearance, has agreed with him in asking the opposition “what is the problem of rewriting the past when there are erasures and erasures.”
And he has urged the Table of the Chamber and the Government of the Canary Islands to make October 31 official as a day of remembrance and tribute to the victims of the coup d’état and the Franco dictatorship, as established by the Democratic Memory Law , as well as May 8, a day of homage to those who suffered exile.
