Photograph of Vicente Cuervo Calvo on Peña de la Atalaya street (Madrid) in 1979, one year before he was assassinated. Cuervo family
Vicente Cuervo Calvo, a 21-year-old affiliated with the CNT anarchist union, was killed on February 10, 1980 during riots in Vallecas (Madrid).
He was killed with a firearm by an individual whose identity could never be ascertained.
The documentation compiled on this case has now made it possible to determine that Cuervo is a fatal victim of the terrorist action perpetrated by an extreme right-wing group.
43 years after the assassination, the Council of Ministers agreed on February 21st to award him posthumously the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Civil Recognition to the Victims of Terrorism.
"It is an act of justice because the murder had been forgotten for years and years," says his nephew, Miguel Cuervo.
The classification as a victim of terrorism equates Vicente Cuervo with the rest of the victims of ETA, the GAL, the Grapo or jihadist attacks.
This recognition comes after the investigations that the family began three years ago to clarify the circumstances in which the murder occurred.
The information that Miguel Cuervo, a historian, was compiling with the help of his father, Juan Carlos Cuervo, for an academic paper was key to "shed more light" on the facts and maintain that the murder of his uncle "had an ideological motivation because he was participating in a demonstration against a Fuerza Nueva rally in which its leader, Blas Piñar, participated.”
In 2022 they requested the Ministry of the Interior to grant the Grand Cross: “We were out of time,
The General Directorate of Support for Victims of Terrorism, in charge of investigating the case, requested an expert report from the Memorial Center for Victims of Terrorism to certify whether the attack against Cuervo was of a terrorist nature.
The work of this institution, directed by the historian Gaizka Fernández Soldevilla, is conclusive.
The more than 200 pages of documentation contributed to the file resolve that he is the victim of a terrorist act that is found in the cases included in article 573 of the Penal Code.
The Ministry of the Interior has contacted Vicente Cuervo's brother to inform him that the family has the right to request financial compensation.
He could be granted this help on an "exceptional" basis despite the fact that it is out of date.
1/ Good news!
Yesterday the Government awarded the Grand Cross of Civil Recognition to the Victims of Terrorism to Vicente Cuervo Calvo, assassinated in Madrid on February 10, 1980 by the extreme right.
It was justice for his memory and for his family, that ... https: //t.co/E9hAPZlCyW pic.twitter.com/T9trdvja6a
— Gaizka Fernández Soldevilla (@GaizkaFS) February 22, 2023
This conclusion is reached after a detailed study on attacks perpetrated by extreme right groups during the Transition, and includes references to parallels between this event and others of a similar nature, some of which have been resolved by cataloging the deceased as victims. of terrorism.
The report includes a pronouncement in Congress by the Minister of the Interior at the time, Antonio Ibáñez Freire, who classified Cuervo's death as a terrorist act from the extreme right, as well as a Supreme Court ruling in which reference is made to a document kept by the Memorial Center and that confirms this fact as a crime of terrorism.
Vicente Cuervo, according to the investigations carried out by his nephew Miguel, was "a restless person and ideologically committed", a worker at the Telefunken factory, a CNT militant and an activist of the counterculture of the moment.
On the morning of February 10, 1980, a few days after elements of the extreme right murdered the young communist Yolanda González in Madrid, the FNT union, affiliated with Fuerza Nueva, had called a meeting in the vicinity of the well-known Cine París de Vallecas that was not authorized by the Civil Government of Madrid.
Despite this, several ultras, including Blas Piñar, attended the event.
Left-wing groups called a protest demonstration that Vicente joined along with his partner and some of his friends.
“My uncle Vicente did not go there;
he had gone to actively protest ”, recalls his nephew.
Our Story
, “Vicente Cuervo was murdered in cold blood by a middle-aged individual with a firearm, in an alley in front of the Dones bar.
A direct witness confirms it very precisely."
EL PAÍS chronicle of the murder of Vicente Cuervo, published on February 12, 1980.
The case was dismissed after three months, without having identified anyone as the author of the death.
During the following days, the family received anonymous threats, Miguel Cuervo affirms: “They phoned my grandparents and uncles and told them 'we're going to go get your remaining children', 'shitty reds'.
I understand that [Juan José] Rosón [then civil governor of Madrid] himself called home trying not to report my uncle's death.
They didn't want trouble."
“This subject was taboo for the family during the first years because it was so painful.
This decoration comforts us a lot ”, he says.
The Memorial Center, based in Vitoria and directed by Florencio Domínguez, supported in its report the consideration of Vicente Cuervo as a victim of terrorism.
To this was added another opinion from the Secretary of State for Security in the same sense.
The Spanish Government has decided to award him in a "relatively quick" time, says his nephew, which has caused "surprise" in the family.
He believes that this decision represents "a step forward in the recognition of the victims of the extreme right during the Transition", because "there are many cases that have the same pattern: years and years of oblivion, total impunity and above all silence and lack of of institutional recognition.
The center that honors the memory of the victims of terrorism has a team that is dedicated to investigating victims of far-right and parapolice terrorism.
"To them and their families, who often were not protected by the institutions, we owe justice, memory and reparation," says Fernández Soldevilla.
Miguel Cuervo, for his part, reports that the Collective for the Forgotten of the Transition (COT) has been created, an association that is trying to gather "similar stories" of victims attacked by far-right ultras and the powers of the State, and It intends to "repair and recognize their families."
Cuervo emphasizes that the investigation into his uncle has been motivated by the desire to "know the truth, not only to repair the pain caused to the family, but also to contribute to historical knowledge and shed light on similar episodes that occurred during the transition.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I'm already a subscriber