This Thursday, the Tenerife Cabildo approved a motion to proceed with the file for designating the sculpture by Juan Ávalos in Santa Cruz de Tenerife as an Asset of Cultural Interest in accordance with the court ruling dated June 28, 2024.
The Plenary Session of the insular Corporation has also processed a proposal stipulating that “once the file is concluded, the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council must implement the corresponding measures within the framework of Article 35 of Law 20 /2022, October 19, Democratic Memory; whether that involves removal, elimination, conservation or re-signification of the said sculpture.”
This decision follows a proposal from the Cabildo to redefine the monument as “concord” and which prompted a storm of criticism. “Whose concord is it referring to, those who vanished on July 18, 1936 and post-dictatorship? Is it the harmony of the families left without siblings, parents or children?” questioned the president of the Association for the Recovery of the Historical Memory of Tenerife, Mercedes Pérez Schwartz.
According to the EFE agency, the spokesperson for the PP, Lope Afonso, stressed that the current island government “has never had in its governmental agreement the promotion of the protection of the Juan de Ávalos monument,” asserting that the initiation of the file for its potential BIC declaration is merely “a result of a court ruling.”
“In light of the public reach of the sentence, opinions and headlines have emerged in the press, which have literally stated that ‘the Cabildo will champion the protection of that monument’, suggesting a voluntariness that has never been part of this government’s intentions,” he added.
He advocated for the proposal to redefine as a “necessity” to communicate to the public the “true intentions” of the corporation, emphasising that if there are artistic or architectural values worthy of protection in that monument, the insular political commitment is to “seek consensus” through re-signification.
The spokesperson for the Socialist Group has reproached CC and PP for hastily proposing their re-signification, stating that “the Council is not in a position to redefine a statue, and we must await the processing of that BIC.”
The endeavour to declare the monument to Franco as BIC is not a new one. Several years ago, both the Royal Canarian Academy of Fine Arts of San Miguel Arcángel and the Association for the Research and Protection of the San Miguel Arcángel Heritage had previously requested it. In 2022, the Tenerife Council, under PSOE leadership, denied those requests. The socialists explained at the time that, following a thorough analysis of a study conducted by the University of La Laguna on the matter and the report from the Historical Heritage Technical Unit of the Government of the Canary Islands, they concluded that it lacked remarkable artistic values.
During the last legislature, the Government of the Canary Islands (then led by Ángel Víctor Torres) issued a Catalogue of Francoist Vestiges that referred to the exaltations of the regime that persist in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, including the monument to Franco. This extensive report compiled by experts from the University of La Laguna outlined why it does not comply with the Democratic Memory Law. However, the San Miguel Arcángel association, the Raíces Historical Memory Association, and the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council (governed by CC and PP) initiated a legal battle against the catalogue, which was ultimately suspended by the current Government of the Canary Islands, also under CC and PP’s leadership. The current Regional Executive aims to publish it in the Official Gazette once it encompasses all municipalities.
With the catalogue of vestiges now suspended and a BIC file underway, the victims of Franco’s regime feel disheartened after years of struggle.
