The Francoist past lives on in Santa Cruz de Tenerife

The day dawns cloudy in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (204,856 inhabitants) and several people play sports under the flamboyant and jacaranda trees of the Rambla de Santa Cruz.

This steep stately artery dies at the foot of one of the most striking images of the city: the

by the sculptor Juan de Ávalos (1911-2006), inaugurated in 1966 and which for decades has centered a bitter debate on the removal of the vestiges of Francoism in a capital where the memory of the dictatorship prevails like no other.

"I've learned not to see it, but I'm ashamed that it's still there," says Andrés Gómez, 52.

"Look, it's part of our history, and history must be preserved," replied María Pilar Padrón, 63, in the center of the avenue, which until 2008 was called Rambla del General Franco.

Barely a kilometer away is the Plaza de España, an enclave of massive celebrations such as carnivals.

At its heart has been erected since 1947 the

, a cross-shaped lookout tower commissioned by the military coup leader Francisco García-Escámez, named Captain General of the Canary Islands by Franco in 1943 and which continues to give its name to one of the neighborhoods.

The Monument to Franco, made of cast bronze, and the last of those remaining in Spain dedicated to the dictator, concentrates the bulk of the claims.

In July, the government team of the City Council (CC, PP and former Citizens Councilor Evelyn Alonso) rejected a motion from Podemos to withdraw it immediately, as required by state and regional laws on historical and democratic memory.

The municipal officials resist demands, pressure from the regional Executive (PSOE, Podemos, Nueva Canarias and Agrupación Socialista Gomera), studies or requests from historical memory associations.

The regional regulation, from 2018, contemplated the creation of a regional catalog of this type of vestiges of Francoism.

The Official Gazette of the Canary Islands published a first list on November 17,

which only included the field work prepared by the Santacrucero City Council.

It contains up to 79 traces —monuments, street names, shields, distinctions...— from those 36 years of dictatorship and that neither the 2007 historical memory law nor the 2018 regional law have managed to overthrow.

The 'Monument to the Fallen', in the Plaza de España in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.Rafa Avero

The incompleteness of this first catalog constitutes, precisely, the main argument of the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez (Canary Islands Coalition), to resist the withdrawal of memories of the dictatorship.

"Santa Cruz de Tenerife has been removing symbols of Francoist origin for years," the mayor said in writing.

"What this capital is demanding is legal security to apply the law", and explains that "PSOE and Podemos try to show that it is a catalog of regional scope, but that curiously only refers to vestiges of a municipality, Santa Cruz from Tenerife, precisely the only one who did his homework years ago”.

Bermúdez also points out that the regional Executive itself is breaking its own law.

"It still has to approve a strategy that, I quote, 'will include the objectives,

The mayor's opinion clashes with that of the Vice Minister of Culture and Cultural Heritage, Juan Márquez (Podemos).

"Legal uncertainty is generated by not complying with the law," he explains in a telephone conversation.

"The reasonable thing, and this is supported by the reports of the legal services, is that it be completed as the contributions from the other municipalities arrive," he asserts.

"What does not make sense is to wait for the catalog of Valverde [El Hierro] or Caleta de Sebo [La Graciosa] to be available", and he minimizes the lack of a strategy.

“The catalog has an article and another title separate from that of the strategy, and it is not conditioned by it”, he explains.

"The interest of the City Council for this point included in the Canarian law and the little interest in the removal of the vestiges that both that same law and the state law require is striking."

Márquez wonders, finally, the reason for this resistance.

“It is hard to believe that in the middle of 2022 we are still discussing the moral reparation of the victims of Francoism.

I don't know if this resistance responds to electoral issues or other reasons that I prefer not to go into...”.

Tourists around the 'Monument to the Fallen', in the Plaza de España in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, on November 24.

Rafael Avero

The 'Capital of the Crusade'

Maisa Navarro, professor of Art History at the University of La Laguna and responsible for the technical study of the catalogue, has spent many hours analyzing why the Franco regime invested so many resources in erecting tributes in the city and why they survive.

“When I started my career, I was surprised by what happened in what, before 1936, was one of the most modern cities in Spain, which was able to change its appearance through rationalist architecture or with the organization of the art exhibition surrealist in 1935. What happened so that all that vanguard was crushed and the city became a barracks?

Navarro recalls that after the Civil War, Santa Cruz came to ask, through the Island Council, that it be declared

.

"The society of the city and the island spent the entire postwar period paying for monuments," he says.

The professor explains that the survival of these vestiges is "a tough subject, difficult to accept", and she notes that "broad sectors continue to resist seeing the reality" of these monuments.

"A certain part of the current oligarchy considers itself heir to the merits obtained by its ancestors."

The Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council has been governed almost uninterruptedly since 1983 by the Tenerife Association of Independents (ATI), a formation created that year by the then mayor of UCD —and later regional president— Manuel Hermoso, and which in the nineties it would constitute the germ of the current Canarian Coalition.

The PSOE interrupted this hegemony for a year after the 2019 municipal elections. A pact between the CC, the PP and the former defecting councilor of Ciudadanos Evelyn Alonso would evict the socialist Patricia Hernández from the mayor's office in 2020.

While politics decides the fate of the monument to Franco, life goes on around it.

“The statue is there?

I have no idea what it means”, admits Matías, 17, dressed in his CD Tenerife tracksuit.

For him, the game against UD Las Palmas played this Saturday is more important.

"It's ugly, but I don't care."

Monuments, sculptures, shields, streets, and distinctions

EFE

The catalog published on November 17 lists monuments, sculptures, objects, shields, inscriptions and tombstones, street names, urban spaces and honors and distinctions (medals, adopted children, favorite children) related to people who participated in the military uprising, the Civil War and the repression of the dictatorship.

Among them are military coup leaders, soldiers, volunteers and deceased in the Civil War, volunteers from July 18 and later, provisional lieutenants and provisional sergeants, political posts in the period of exception and later, ideologues, propagandists and iconographers of the regime and civilian collaborators. .

Monuments:

Nuestra Señora de África Market-General Serrador Bridge (1943), Monument to the Fallen in Plaza de España (1947), and Monument to Franco on Rambla de Santa Cruz-former Rambla del General Franco (1964-1966).

Sculptures and objects:

Arch of the Barriada by García Escámez (1944-1947), Obelisk to Francisco García-Escámez (1946-1949), Bust to José Enrique Marrero Regalado (1950s), Propeller of the Canarias cruise ship (1936/1940/ 1980), Bust of Joaquín Amigó de Lara (1986) and Bust of Cándido Luis García Sanjuán (2008).

Shields, inscriptions and tombstones:

Shield of the Naval Command of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1945), Inscription of the José Antonio School Group (1944), Inscription of the Onésimo Redondo School Group (1944), Funerary tombstone in honor of Estanislao Gómez-Landero (1947) , Tombstone in memory of Estanislao Gómez-Landero (1947), Tombstone of the neighborhood of La Victoria (1950), Funeral tombstone of General García-Escámez (1951), Plaques of the National Housing Institute (1954/1954-1957), Tombstone and inscriptions of the José Antonio Group (1955), Tombstone and inscriptions of the Nuestra Señora de Candelaria Group (1955), Tombstone and inscriptions of the Juan XXIII Group (1966) and Tombstone to the Fallen of Igueste de San Andrés (1975).

Denominations of streets, urban spaces and others:

Anatolio de Fuentes García Street (1973), Comandante Moreno Ureña Street, Conde de Pallasar Street (1973), Darias y Padrón Street (1970), Francisco Bonnín Street (1964), José Maldonado Dugour Street (1973), Juan Vara Terán Street ( 1973), General Serrador Bridge (1943), Rambla General García-Escámez (1973), Calvo Sotelo Street (1936), Capitán Gómez Landero Street (1937), Comandante Sánchez Pinto Street (1937), Santiago Cuadrado Street (1936), Lieutenant Martín Bencomo (1937), Cándido Luis García Sanjuán Street (1973), Doctor Zerolo Street (1956), Miguel Zerolo Fuentes Street (1973), Modesto Vidarte Street (1969), Sargento Provisional Street (1967), Joaquín Amigó de Lara Square (1973), Plazoleta del Alférez Provisional (1967), Javier de Loño Pérez Bridge (1973), Francisco La Roche Avenue (1952), Américo López Méndez Street (1973),Belisario Guimerá and Castillo Valero Streets (1973), Eusebio Ramos González Street (1973), Paseo Francisco Aguilar y Paz (1994), Doctor Pablos Abril Square (1967), Adalberto Benítez Togores Street (1982), Elías Ramos González Street (1978 ), Manuel Ramos Vela Street (1982), Pintor José Aguiar Street (1982), Glorieta del Arquitecto Marrero (1956), Ernesto Groth Street (1982), CEIP Fray Albino (1944), CEIP García-Escámez (1945), Susana Villavicencio (1975), La Victoria neighborhood and square, General García-Escámez neighborhood, Marqués de Somosierra neighborhood, La Abejera-García-Escámez market and García-Escámez soccer field.Manuel Ramos Vela Street (1982), Pintor José Aguiar Street (1982), Glorieta del Arquitecto Marrero (1956), Ernesto Groth Street (1982), CEIP Fray Albino (1944), CEIP García-Escámez (1945), Susana Villavicencio (1975 ), La Victoria neighborhood and square, General García-Escámez neighborhood, Marqués de Somosierra neighborhood, La Abejera-García-Escámez market and García-Escámez soccer field.Manuel Ramos Vela Street (1982), Pintor José Aguiar Street (1982), Glorieta del Arquitecto Marrero (1956), Ernesto Groth Street (1982), CEIP Fray Albino (1944), CEIP García-Escámez (1945), Susana Villavicencio (1975 ), La Victoria neighborhood and square, General García-Escámez neighborhood, Marqués de Somosierra neighborhood, La Abejera-García-Escámez market and García-Escámez soccer field.

Honors and distinctions:

Vicente Sergio Orbaneja (1939), Francisco García-Escámez e Iniesta (1946), Infantry Regiment No. 49 and the Tenerife Mixed Artillery Regiment (1956), Blas Pérez González (1957), Belisario Guimerá del Castillo Valero (1976), Cándido Luis García Sanjuán (1991), Joaquín García Pallasar (1956), Joaquín Amigó de Lara (1967), Adalberto Benítez Tugores (1971), José Varela Iglesias (1940), Agustín Muñoz Grandes (1955), José Antonio Girón de Velasco (1955), Luciano García Machiñena (1969), José Aguiar García (1970), Francisco Aguilar y Paz (1989), Volunteers of July 18 and 122 decorated (1940-1973).

The document has been prepared by the research team of the University of La Laguna, made up of doctors María Isabel Navarro Segura and Yolanda Peralta Sierra and doctor Ricardo Guerra Palmero, commissioned by the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands.

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