Friday, March 29

86th anniversary of the murder of the father of the Andalusian country: “Blas Infante is in a mass grave and his murderer is on an altar”


The contradiction that supposes that the remains of Blas Infante, father of the Andalusian country, have not yet been found, but his murderer, General Queipo de Llano, is buried with honors in a public place such as the Basilica of La Macarena, has been around this Wednesday at kilometer 4 of the road from Seville to Carmona, the site where he was shot at dawn from August 10 to 11, 1936, a meeting place every year to remember and extol his memory.

The mass grave of Pico Reja in Seville already has 909 people located, of which 160 have suffered violent deaths

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All the parties with parliamentary representation except Vox, in addition to others that do not yet have it, different organizations and individuals in a private capacity up to half a thousand, have gathered at this point that today is part of an industrial estate next to the Kansas City Avenue in Seville, where he was shot when the Francoist troops commanded by Queipo de Llano had already seized power in Seville.

For this reason, many of the complaints from some of the people who have participated in the tribute have been along these lines, such as that of the spokesman for Por Andalucía, Juan Antonio Delgado, who has asked that the Democratic Memory Law be complied with and that they withdraw the remains of the Francoist general of the Sevillian temple, because “there will be no democratic normality while the executioners are buried under the altars and the father of the Andalusian homeland in a common grave”.

The socialist deputy Rafael Recio has criticized that the “lack of commitment and awareness” with the Law has prevented the eviction of the remains from being carried out until now, although, when asked about the years that the PSOE governed in the Junta and did not apply the Law in the matter of Queipo de Llano, has appealed to his condition as former mayor of Camas (Seville), where “we have been a reference in the application of memorialist policies, and if we have a reference law in Andalusia it is the result of governments of the Socialist Party” .

Criticism has also come from the voice of the leader of Adelante Andalucía, Teresa Rodríguez, who lamented that “Blas Infante’s murderer continues to bury with full honors in Macarena, breaking all laws, while Blas Infante continues to a common grave.

“The affection to his memory”

All in all, this Wednesday’s appointment in Seville has served to recall the importance in the history of Andalusia of a man who died at the age of 51, whose memory today is defended by, among others, the Foundation that bears his name, whose vice-president is his grandson, Javier Delmas Infante, who has thanked “the affection” with which his grandfather’s memory is treated, recalling that on that day, they killed “the man, but his blood made his ideal bear fruit.”


His grandson was the first to lay a bouquet of flowers at the foot of the monument to his grandfather, in an act in which whistles were heard and some people turned their backs when it was the turn of the delegate of the Board in Seville, Susana Cayuelas, when the attendees criticized what they consider inaction of the Board on issues such as Queipo de Llano or the reinforcement of Andalusianism in the institutions.

Moreno “collects the legacy of dialogue of Blas infante”

The organization has asked for respect at that time, without reproducing the whistles when it was the turn of the spokesman for the Popular Parliamentary Group and deputy secretary general of the Andalusian PP, Toni Martín. Before the act, Martín pointed out that the Government of Juan Manuel Moreno “collects the legacy of dialogue, consensus, agreement and respect of Blas Infante”, and said that it is “a significant legacy of the way of being of the Andalusians, that puts the value of the word before impositions, and in defense of democracy and Andalusianism”.

For his part, for the leader of Andalucía X Sí, Modesto González, this date “means a lot about why Andalusia has to continue in a permanent struggle”, and Rafael Recio defended that in his party “we have always ensured that its ideology, that unique, different reality, and it is what we have been working on for 40 years”.

Teresa Rodríguez understood that today is the key to “remember the testimony of the struggles of this people, who come from behind, and keep in the present the same struggles, the same hopes, for the future of the Andalusians”, to indicate Juan Antonio Delgado that “Andalusianism is stronger than ever, a maximum when we face a legislature with an absolute majority of the Popular Party, which has never believed in Andalusianism.”

“Silence and respect”

At the event, held under intense heat, the patron of the Blas Infante Foundation, Antonio Manuel Rodríguez, underlined the importance of the event, held “with no more protocol than silence and respect for those who gave up their lives before weather”.

He has indicated, as an example of Francoist repression, that only in Western Andalusia more people died as a result of reprisals by Francoism than during the Chilean and Argentine dictatorships, and has described Blas Infante as “a worthy man, like all the victims of Francoism”.

Another of the patrons of the Foundation, Javier Escalera, recalled that the father of the Andalusian country was assassinated “for having dared to demand peace and hope under the sun of our land”.

Murdered after nine days in custody

On August 2, 1936, the Francoist troops under the command of Queipo de Llano took Blas Infante from his home in Coria del Río, in Seville. A group of four men commanded by Sergeant Crespo took him to the town hall with the intention of assassinating him immediately, in application of the ‘Law of Leakage’, but Blas Infante’s wife was the niece of the coup governor Pedro Parias , and convinced him to keep him alive. However, she did not allow him to see him again, neither alive nor dead.

He was arrested at the Jáuregui cinema, converted at that time into a prison by the rebels, from where he was taken on the night of August 10 together with the former mayor of Seville José González Fernández de La Bandera, his deputy mayor Emilio Barbero Núñez and the socialist deputies Manuel Jiménez and Fermín de Zayas neighborhoods. They were all shot in the same place.

His remains are believed to be among the more than 1,100 bodies in the Pico Reja mass grave, the largest in Spain, in the San Fernando cemetery in Seville.



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