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http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20081016/tpl-uk-spain-disappeared-9e08e31.html
Spain to investigate civil war disappearances
A member of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARHM) digs near a human skull in a mass grave close to the village of Mayorga
A Spanish judge said Thursday he would investigate the disappearance of thousands of people during Spain's 1936-39 civil war and ordered the exhumation of victims' remains, including those of poet Federico Garcia Lorca.
Baltazar Garzon's decision to launch the biggest ever probe into the conflict came despite opposition from state prosecutors who say that under a 1977 amnesty law these crimes are closed.
Garzon wants relatives of victims buried in mass graves to know the circumstances of their deaths, in what campaigners regard as a step towards healing wounds from a conflict which divides Spain's now modern and prosperous society to this day.
"Any amnesty law which aims at erasing crimes against humanity, which can't be described as political crimes, is null," said Garzon, who tried to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 for alleged human rights crimes.
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Spain's civil war, which started with General Francisco Franco's military coup and ended with his taking power and ruling as dictator until his death in 1975.
Campaigners say the move is long overdue and that as Garzon has pursued atrocities by military regimes in Chile and Argentina, he should do so in his own country.
"It's very exciting because I think it's about time this country recognised the suffering of these people and started something that, 70 years later, could be considered as justice," said Emilio Silva, head of the Association for the Recovery of Historic Memory, which exhumes bodies buried in mass graves.
The names of over 130,000 people who disappeared during the civil war were handed to Garzon in September by church and human rights groups. Many were shot and buried in mass graves during the civil war and Franco's subsequent dictatorship.
Garzon ordered the opening of 19 graves including that of Garcia Lorca, then Spain's most famous poet and playwright, who was shot in 1936 by Franco's forces.
Many victims' families want their relatives' remains exhumed to give them a decent burial. But Lorca's niece wants his remains left untouched in a shallow grave near Granada, southern Spain, where they lie alongside those of three other men.
She says that would allow future generations to remember how the author of "Blood Wedding" and "A Poet in New York" was treated.
In his ruling, Garzon cited as evidence an interview Franco gave to Chicago Daily Tribune journalist Jay Allen in 1936 in which the general said he would pay any price for victory.
"You'll have to kill half of Spain," Allen said in the interview. Franco replied: "I said I'd pay any price."
Spain to investigate civil war disappearances
A member of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARHM) digs near a human skull in a mass grave close to the village of Mayorga
A Spanish judge said Thursday he would investigate the disappearance of thousands of people during Spain's 1936-39 civil war and ordered the exhumation of victims' remains, including those of poet Federico Garcia Lorca.
Baltazar Garzon's decision to launch the biggest ever probe into the conflict came despite opposition from state prosecutors who say that under a 1977 amnesty law these crimes are closed.
Garzon wants relatives of victims buried in mass graves to know the circumstances of their deaths, in what campaigners regard as a step towards healing wounds from a conflict which divides Spain's now modern and prosperous society to this day.
"Any amnesty law which aims at erasing crimes against humanity, which can't be described as political crimes, is null," said Garzon, who tried to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 for alleged human rights crimes.
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Spain's civil war, which started with General Francisco Franco's military coup and ended with his taking power and ruling as dictator until his death in 1975.
Campaigners say the move is long overdue and that as Garzon has pursued atrocities by military regimes in Chile and Argentina, he should do so in his own country.
"It's very exciting because I think it's about time this country recognised the suffering of these people and started something that, 70 years later, could be considered as justice," said Emilio Silva, head of the Association for the Recovery of Historic Memory, which exhumes bodies buried in mass graves.
The names of over 130,000 people who disappeared during the civil war were handed to Garzon in September by church and human rights groups. Many were shot and buried in mass graves during the civil war and Franco's subsequent dictatorship.
Garzon ordered the opening of 19 graves including that of Garcia Lorca, then Spain's most famous poet and playwright, who was shot in 1936 by Franco's forces.
Many victims' families want their relatives' remains exhumed to give them a decent burial. But Lorca's niece wants his remains left untouched in a shallow grave near Granada, southern Spain, where they lie alongside those of three other men.
She says that would allow future generations to remember how the author of "Blood Wedding" and "A Poet in New York" was treated.
In his ruling, Garzon cited as evidence an interview Franco gave to Chicago Daily Tribune journalist Jay Allen in 1936 in which the general said he would pay any price for victory.
"You'll have to kill half of Spain," Allen said in the interview. Franco replied: "I said I'd pay any price."
