Law will approve exhumation of Civil War graves

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma21/10/2015 00:00

The Balearic government is to introduce a law on graves, the motion for which was tabled today (Wednesday). Processing of the law is expected to be immediate, with its approval coming before the end of the year and its implementation anticipated early next year. This is a law that deals specifically with the graves of the some 2,000 people in the Balearics who disappeared during the Civil War.

Under the motion that has been proposed, the government would assume responsibility for identifying the locations of the remains of the victims of Franco’s Nationalists and, “if it is possible, to recover the remains and to identify them.” The motion establishes that the law would have as an objective the protection and preservation of graves from the Civil War through co-operation with town halls and the councils of the four islands. It is believed that that there are some sixty graves in all, ten of which have so far been identified, three of them being in Formentera.

Article 10 of the law will establish that the government will denounce to the public prosecutor the existence of indications of the committing of crimes against humanity “of a massive and systematic character” by a specific group or through the violence perpetrated against these people during the Civil War and Francoist dictatorship.

Representatives of the political parties supporting the motion acknowledge that it will be a law that is coming very late for many families, but it will be one that seeks to “close the black chapter in the history of the Balearics.” It will also address a “right which families have long called for.”