Primo de Rivera, founder of the fascist Falange party, was exhumed this Monday from the Cuelgamuros Valley, formerly known as the Valley of the Fallen. The exhumation coincided with the day the Falangist was born, it was a private and family act without the presence of members of the Government and closed to the media.
Contrary to what happened with the dictator Francisco Franco, removed from the Valley in 2019, the exhumation of Primo de Rivera was carried out at the request of the family, to comply with the Democratic Memory Law and prevent the Government from taking the pertinent measures.
Primo de Rivera’s tomb was in front of Francisco Franco’s, next to the altar of the basilica, and was the only individual tomb left in the mausoleum. According to the law, the body of Primo de Rivera could remain in the basilica since the Falangist, shot in 1936, was, in fact, a victim of the Civil War. The only condition was that he not occupy a prominent place and that the remains be transferred to one of the side crypts where the bodies of about 34,000 war victims lie.
Faced with the possibility that the body of Primo de Rivera would be transferred inside the basilica itself, and after months of negotiations with the Government, the family decided to request the exhumation. The Falangist will be definitively buried in the San Isidro cemetery, in the center of Madrid.
fourth burial
This is the fourth burial of Primo de Rivera. The politician was shot in the first months of the Spanish Civil War, on November 20, 1936, in Alicante, accused of conspiracy and military rebellion against the government of the Second Republic. Three years later, in 1939, and already after Franco’s victory in the Civil War, the body of Primo de Rivera was transferred to the El Escorial pantheon. And, in 1959, he was buried in the Vale dos Caídos, at the request of Francisco Franco, where he remains to this day.
The exhumation of Primo de Rivera complies with the Democratic Memory Law, which in its article 54.4 establishes that in the Cuelgamuros Valley “only the mortal remains of war victims may be buried” and that “any body that occupies a place featured in the venue will be translated”.
“It is one more step in the sense of what we are doing with the Cuelgamuros Valley, which is that no person is honored or praised, nor is any ideology that evokes the dictatorship,” explained Félix Bolaños, Minister of the Presidency.
After the exhumation of the dictator and founder of the Falange, the next steps for full compliance with the law would be the expulsion of the community of Benedictine monks from the Valley, the delivery to the relatives of the mortal remains of the victims buried in the crypts and the creation of a center for dissemination and memory of the Civil War that gives a new and definitive meaning to the place.
Source: TSF
