There is suspense in the Montecarmelo canton project.
The Director of Democratic Memory of the Ministry of Territorial Policy has contacted the Heritage Directorate of the Madrid City Council to express his “will” to carry out archaeological explorations on the land where he wants to build a cleaning canton.
The tastings will confirm whether or not there is a common grave with the bodies of 451 international brigade members who fell in combat during the Civil War, as suspected by the Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) and the Platform No to the Canton of Montecarmelo.
“It seems advisable to postpone the start of municipal works and previously allow the General Directorate of Democratic Memory of the Ministry to carry out an archaeological survey,” recommends the Culture Area of the Madrid City Council.
Sources from the Ministry of Territorial Policy have confirmed that this contact occurred in January and that the response from the City Council's Heritage “has been positive.”
What comes next is “finalizing details of the archaeological prospecting project.”
According to a communication from the Culture Area, this project will be sent to the Urban Planning Government Area, which has jurisdiction over these works.
The Urban Planning Department, directed by Borja Carabante and which has responsibility for these works, has “no record of this information,” according to what a spokesperson told this newspaper.
“There is also no defined date for the start of work,” he said, arguing that dialogue is still being held with the residents of Montecarmelo who, since September, have confronted the City Council over the location of this cleaning facility on land near a school, a nursery and the Fuencarral cemetery.
In November, the AABI joined the opposition to the project with a series of documents that, they say, indicate that the brigade members who fell in combat between 1936 and 1937 could be buried in the area and after being exhumed from the Fuencarral cemetery, where they were until 1941.
More information
The Prosecutor's Office files the complaint from the neighbors for the canton of the Madrid district of Vicálvaro
The letter from the common grave of the international brigade members has been put on the table of around twenty embassies of countries related to the brigade list, on that of the Ombudsman and, more recently, on that of the Directorate of Democratic Memory.
The General Administration of the State, protected by the Democratic Memory Law, has the authority to search for people who disappeared during the civil war and the dictatorship.
Therefore, you can request to temporarily occupy publicly owned land to locate remains of missing persons.
Paragraph 3 of article 20 of the Memory Law orders that the competent authorities allow the occupation, unless there is a “justified cause of public interest.”
The Culture Area takes all this into account to suggest that tasting be allowed on the land.
If the City Council refuses, it would be at risk of seeing the works stopped if human remains appear.
In that case, the area explains, it would be necessary to notify the Central Government so that they can verify if they are bodies of missing persons.
The Board of Directors of the AABI, an interested party in the exploration, has welcomed the communication.
“We are in the best of scenarios.
We are sure that the tastings will begin soon.
We have responded to the City Council thanking them for the notice,” states the Board.
The AABI met with Democratic Memory at the end of November to show them the documents that give indications that the bodies are in that plot: a list of the exhumed brigade members, among whom is a nephew of Virginia Woolf, and books of session minutes of the time that confirm that the exhumation of the brigade members and their transfer "to the common grave of the cemetery of this town" was ordered.
The first concentration of the residents of Montecarmelo, in September, for the canton project in the neighborhood.
JUAN BARBOSA
There is also optimism from the Platform No to the Canton of Montecarmelo, which has opposed the relocation of the facility that was originally going to be built near the Infanta Leonor school.
The rejection of the school's residents coincided on the eve of the 28-M elections and, with pressure from this and other neighborhoods, it was achieved that another location be evaluated.
But the City Council chose a plot that they considered “the worst of all possible” due to its proximity to the Alemán school and the Sol Solito garden and because of the impact on mobility.
They have also expressed their fear of waste treatment, although the City Council has defended, on multiple occasions, that this type of infrastructure is changing rooms for sweepers, warehouses and parking lots.
"As citizens we have the usual complaint, which breaks the life of the neighborhood, which makes no sense and which is going to seriously harm thousands of neighbors, but above all the 4,300 children and babies from 0 to 3 years old who go to the schools attached to that plot,” said Rafael Llanes, spokesperson for the Platform.
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