Friday, March 29

Sevillians assimilate Queipo’s departure from Llano de la Macarena: “Today is an important day”


The city of Seville has woken up with historic news: the remains of Queipo de Llano have left the Macarena Basilica at dawn, where he had been buried since 1951. Hours later, already bathed in daylight, the square has resumed its usual activity , marked, yes, by a great expectation and a considerable media presence.

The pending accounts beyond removing Queipo from Macarena, responsible for more than 45,000 deaths in Andalusia

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The early morning image contrasts with the silence and stillness that enveloped the area at the stroke of midnight. Moment that the brotherhood took advantage of to carry out the exhumation “in the strictest privacy”, as expressed by the Macarena congregation in a statement. A decision that some neighbors do not understand – “at two in the morning why, so that no one sees it?” -and that Alejandro Domínguez regrets, because he admits that he would have liked to witness such a historical event.

For this reason, the feeling is now somewhat bittersweet: “On the one hand relief, but also a lot of anger”, comments this neighbor who lives 50 meters from the Basilica and passed by around midnight, but did not notice the works that took place inside the Macareno temple. “It could have been more public and visible, but they have limited themselves to complying with what the Ministry has said”, complains Alejandro who, even so, celebrates it: “At least it is already out”.

“Memory troubadours”

Also with festive airs, a lady walks in front of the Basilica with handkerchiefs dyed in the colors of the republican flag. Her name is Isabel and she says that she has come to the monument for her aunt from Algaba “who died at the age of 92 and she could not see it.” Her aunt’s father was one of the 45,000 lives that the coup general ordered taken in Andalusia and, since then, her daughter “did not enter the Macarena again and only saw the Virgin when she went out” to the street.

He calls his elders “troubadours of memory”, because although they could not read or write, “they had a prodigious memory”. And around the stretcher table they sat at night and shared memories, speaking softly, sometimes in code. A ritual that was repeated in towns throughout Spain.

Isabel passes by with a shopping cart and predicts “a busy day.” She says that she has received the news “without further ado” because after so many years “she gets used to it.” The truth is that it is “the news of the day” and the predominant topic of conversation in the surroundings, as two friends, Andi and Alberto, admit, admitting when asked: “We were discussing it.”

Likewise, María, a Murcian who arrived in the Andalusian capital last night and after having breakfast in a nearby bar, has decided to visit the temple to “give thanks that justice has been done”. Even before crossing the threshold and discovering the place where the Francoist military man rested until a few hours ago, emotion wells up in the eyes of this Murcian woman. “If death, as Jorge Manrique said, makes us all equal, why do some dead deserve to be buried with honors and others in graves?” she wonders, broken by emotion, and later confesses that she has among her relatives victims “from both sides” .



Contradiction between brothers

Inside, the scene is pristine. There is no trace of the exhumation work that was carried out inside during the night, as evidenced by the sound of movers that leaked out. The only perceptible change to the eye is that the tombs with the name of the lieutenant general and his wife, Genoveva Martí Tovar, can no longer be seen. Tombstones that have woken up today covered by a carpet, like the one that hid for years the tomb of Francisco Bohórquez, a war auditor whose remains also left the temple last night in compliance with the dictates of the new Democratic Memory Law.



“They have already gotten away with it,” reproaches Josefa, who declares herself a lifelong macarena. An opinion shared by Reyes and Francisco Cabrera, brother for half a century. “They didn’t bother anyone”, she defends, before adding “the government should be in other things and not with this nonsense”, she criticizes. However, other brothers from the largest religious congregation in the city are in favor of removing the remains in a symbolic act of reparation for the victims.

Devotees like Carmen – who proudly highlights that she got married in the Basilica – acknowledge having received the news “with great joy”. “It has taken a long time”, he points out in reference to the 71 years that the coup plotter has remained buried in one of the most visited monuments in Seville. “Late but accurate”, comments Fina Ruiz in a similar sense, who declares having woken up with “very great satisfaction”.

Peace as a way

At one point, Miguel Ángel comments with his mother that “history is history and the dead should have been left where they were”. When this young Sevillian asks himself “why are we going to stir up the past”, another neighbor from the neighborhood intervenes to contribute his vision: “if they want to leave it inside, let them put a murderer here”.

It is Marina and she has come to the Macarena temple “to celebrate it”. “It is an important day and I wanted to see the carpet and stay calm”, she declares to this newspaper. “I am of the opinion that if someone does wrong, he has to pay for it and this man died with full honors,” she deplores. “If he couldn’t pay for it in life, then she will have to pay for it now,” she continues to condemn the fact that she has stayed for so many years in a place “as emblematic and relevant” as the Macarena in Seville. “He killed people who don’t even have a grave,” she condemns.

For this reason, for neighbors like Francisco who declares himself a “democrat”, this Thursday is “a day of joy”. Next to the fence, are Pepe and Antonio. The latter believes that “the remains of the coup general could have remained there” because he, personally, “did not bother him at all.” But his companion estimates directly that “they should not have buried him there.” One of the young people who comes out of the temple is Ángel. He frequents it often because he studies at the Faculty of Dentistry, in the Macarena neighborhood, and thinks that “the laws are there to be followed”, so he hopes that the issue will be resolved and it will not spill over into the brotherhood. Basically, as María says, “the purpose of repression has to be forgiveness”. “The future must be a society in peace”, and with the departure of Queipo from Macarena, the relatives of the victims of Franco’s regime finally close a historical wound.





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