In the last plenary session of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, all parliamentary groups voted in favor of the Historical Memory Law, with the exception of the Parliamentary Group of Podemos, which voted against it.
The presidents of three victims' associations, from La Palma, Tenerife and Arucas (Gran Canaria), attended as guests, who, together with the rest of the associations that make up the Memorialist Forum of Gran Canaria, have been fighting and demanding Truth, Justice and Reparation for years.
I met with the presidents of the three mentioned associations for the first time a year ago, to discuss the draft of the aforementioned Law, and we reached two conclusions.
The first, that if it came out like this, as it has been approved, it would not contribute anything new to the state Law 52/2007 of the Zapatero government, and that "we better keep it in a drawer".
And secondly, that we should make an effort so that, in some way, the issue of stolen minors would be included as best as possible.
With these premises, I began my work in the presentation process. Because this Law arises in its origin as a necessary response to the demands of the victims' associations and their families and a debt of the Canarian society towards them.
On several occasions I went to Gran Canaria to hold various meetings with all the victims' associations that make up the Memorialist Forum of Gran Canaria, and they sent me multiple amendments to said draft. I also collected amendments from Freemasons of the Canary Islands and from groups of stolen minors.
Of 70 amendments, the mixed parliamentary group presented 6; NC presented 10; PSOE presented 12; the PP none; CC 1 and Podemos 41.
It should be added that Podemos supported all the amendments of the other groups, not receiving similar reciprocity towards those of the various associations, transferred to the presentation by this spokesperson.
It has been a lost opportunity. A deficient law has therefore been approved, which does not advance one iota on the state law, which continues to be repeatedly violated in the Canary Islands.
A law, in short, that despite arriving 11 years late, did not bet on becoming the best law in the entire State and, however, included the minimum agreement between the groups that supported it, to make it possible for a party like the PP, which did not support the state law, which did not dedicate a single euro to its compliance during the recent mandate of Mariano Rajoy, which is currently still opposed to the exhumation of the bloodthirsty dictator Franco, to feel comfortable with this text.
The many attempts at improvement contributed by the various associations and the parliamentary group of Podemos were in vain, so that the victims and their families would be honored with a dignified law, which would satisfy their demands, without stinginess and in a clear commitment from Canarian society to settle a historical debt with more than 3,000 executed and disappeared during the coup d'état and the very long dictatorship, as well as its subsequent consequences for many years.
In the explanatory memorandum, where the situation of that entire stage should be contextualized, only the Canary Islands are mentioned, citing the Statute of Autonomy and its powers in this matter.
It is no coincidence that it is 'forgotten' that there was great repression in the Islands, motivated by the desire to put an end to the republican reformist project and that involved the detention of thousands of people, disappeared, shot, slaves in forced labor battalions or people who, given what they experienced, had to leave the Archipelago.
It is 'forgotten' that they were detained in Fyffes or Gando, among other places; shot in the Barranco del Hierro, thrown into the void in the Sima Jinámar, confined in the prison colony for homosexuals in Fuerteventura, disappeared in the wells of Arucas, in the mountains of La Palma or on the Tenerife coast.
What is not named does not exist, is hidden and, furthermore, is ignored.
Nor should the truth be sweetened and the facts replaced by euphemisms that hide it, as this Law does.
Language is not neutral and assimilating the weak with the defeated is not honoring the murdered people, nor is calling military rebellion or rebels what was a coup d'état and a terrible dictatorship.
Nor are the demands of the victims satisfied with a "moral reparation", when they demand comprehensive reparation.
Despite the multiple recommendations of the UN, that crimes against humanity are imprescriptible, none of this is included in the text approved by the Parliament of the Canary Islands.
Nor does it urge the State Government to include it in state regulations and to review and improve both the Historical Memory Law of 2007, repeatedly violated and considered as a law "of good intentions and some failures", such as the Amnesty Law of October 15, 1977, considered as a 'Law of point and end', to end once and for all the pardon that the heirs of the dictatorship granted themselves.
Despite the multiple contributions of the Podemos Canarias Parliamentary Group, in terms of the sanctioning regime or actions in the field of education and research, none of this was taken into account by the rest of the parliamentary groups.
Under the qualification of "we must not create more chiringuitos" or the insularist excuse of "let's see on which island we put it" the proposal to create a Canarian Institute of Historical and Democratic Memory was rejected, endowed with sufficient human and material resources to promote the pretensions of this law.
In exchange, only a website called "virtual center" is created. Stinginess and insularism came together to prevent the creation of a center that would coordinate the documentation, digitize it, serve as a place for research, for advice to families, as a reference so that this society never repeats these atrocities.
When some of those who support this Law in the Canary Islands continue to oppose at the state level the exhumation of the dictator, or to condemn the coup d'état, the long dictatorship and its terrible consequences, it is very difficult to argue the consensus with which this Law has been carried out.
The consensus of the acceptable minimums so that it is wet paper and also ends up in a drawer.
By Manuel Marrero Morales
Deputy of the Parliamentary Group Podemos Canarias
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