There is movement in the area of discord in the Montecarmelo neighborhood, north of Madrid. Neighbors have warned that, during Holy Week, workers from the Urgent Cleaning Service (Selur) were clearing the land on which a garbage canton is planned. In addition, they marked some kind of grids with yellow tape that set off alarms in the neighborhood. All of this logistics is the prelude to a study that the Madrid City Council will carry out, through surveys and georadar, to verify whether or not there is a common grave of international brigade members under that soil, as a spokeswoman for the Urban Planning Department has confirmed to this newspaper. However, this exploration has no relationship with what the Central Government was preparing through the General Directorate of Democratic Memory, according to the City Council. This project, which is practically ready, is waiting for the government of José Luis Martínez-Almeida to give the license to enter the plot.
The City Council has gone ahead with the project coming from the Government on behalf of a request from the Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABI), which hopes to verify with archaeological explorations whether the plot where the cleaning facility was planned is or not a common grave with the 451 bodies of international brigade members who fell in combat during the Civil War. The City Council's georadar study, in any case, comes after the director of Democratic Memory of the Ministry of Territorial Policy contacted the City Council's Heritage Directorate to express his “will” to carry out archaeological explorations on the ground. In January, EL PAÍS announced that the municipal heritage department recommended postponing the start of the works until verification was carried out. For this, the management of Democratic Memory hired a team of archaeologists and anthropologists who are waiting for authorization from the local government to enter.
The Secretariat of State for Democratic Memory has told EL PAÍS that it had no information about this study with georadar carried out by the Consistory. The Urban Planning Department has not responded to what has happened with the permits either.
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The suspicion of the existence of a mass grave has crossed over into the project that is opposed by the neighbors, who organized in 2023 in the No Al Cantón de Montecarmelo Platform. The cleaning facility was initially going to be built near the Infanta Leonor school, but the rejection by the residents of this area north of Madrid coincided with the eve of the March 28 elections. The mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, paused the project to study an alternative location. In September, the delegate of Urban Planning and Environment, Borja Carabante, confirmed that the alternative was the plot that is not only next to the Fuencarral cemetery - where the 451 brigade members were buried before being exhumed by order of the Franco regime - but next to the Alemán School, the Sol Solito nursery school and numerous neighborhood communities. The new location, for the platform, was worse than the first.
In November, the Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) joined this opposition with a series of documents that, according to them, indicated that the brigade members who died in combat between 1936 and 1937 and who were exhumed by orders of the civil governor of Fuencarral, Manuel Mora Figueroa. Although Almeida, in response to EL PAÍS publications, stated that there was “no indication” of the presence of the graves, he has now authorized studies to check whether or not there is something under the ground. For now, the movement continues in the so-called plot 26.2b, which has 10,259 squares. This Tuesday, forestry engineers from a private company arrived to take an inventory of trees and bushes.
The Platform No to the Canton of Montecarmelo has its reservations about the City Council's study. “They ignore the Government by not yet granting permits and they are preparing to do that work first,” says a spokesperson, who recalls that the responsibility for searching for missing persons is the responsibility of the General Administration of the State, as the Memory Law says. Democratic. The citizen organization also criticizes that Urbanism has not informed them that it would carry out this study. After this new episode in the neighborhood struggle, the platform has sent letters to the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo; to the president of the Community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso; and the mayor of Madrid himself, José Luis Martínez-Almeida.
There are also doubts about the technique that the City Council will use. Democratic Memory has warned this newspaper that “archaeological tastings are the most reliable way to ascertain the existence of possible corpses.” This technique consists of making excavations every certain distance to check if there are remains under the ground. On the other hand, a georadar, as experts have explained, sends electromagnetic impulses into the earth's interior that bounce and show alterations. In this case, they warn, it is not such a precise method in the canton area, which has several elevations produced by sediments or debris discharge.
The archaeological tasting project is practically ready and is only waiting for the Madrid City Council and the Community to grant permits to intervene on the plot. “The City Council has not yet given the license,” they confirm from Democratic Memory. The project, which has been authorized, contracted and financed by the central government, will be led by the group of archaeologists and forensics Arqueoantro, with nearly 12 years of experience, as reported by Memoria Democrástica. The team has participated in projects such as the investigation and location of mass graves with the bodies of those retaliated by the Franco regime in Carlet (Valencian Community) and the excavation and exhumation of graves in Paterna and in the old Civil Cemetery of Castelló, also in the Community Valencian.
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