SEVILLE – The remains of General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano and General Francisco Bohorquez Vecina have been excavated there after 71 years of rest and removed from the Macarena Basilica in Seville. The application of the Democratic Remembrance Act was the reason.
At 2.20 am on Thursday, the remains of the Franco general responsible for 45,000 executions and his wife Genoveva Martí left the Basilica of Macarena in Seville. On Wednesday at 11.51 pm, another hearse took Bohorquez Vecina. He was responsible for the execution of sentences, from the basilica. Relatives of both generals as workers for the excavation arrived at the Sevillian temple at 9.OO pm on Wednesday.
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Modest applause
When the doors of the basilica opened and the hearse left, several dozen people were outside. This included the press and relatives of the generals who had attended the dig. The silence was broken only by modest applause from the family members.
Hoy es un gran día para Sevilla, para Andalucía, para España… Uno de los mayores genocidas de la historia de nuestro país (45.000 asesinatos) sale de noche y a escondidas, como los cobardes, de su tumba en la basílica de la Macarena.
Que su nombre se pudra en la historia. pic.twitter.com/Ub2gna6fMc— Asociación Memoria Histórica Distrito de Latina (@MESA_MH_LATINA) November 3, 2022
Following the Democratic Memory Act
The excavations have been carried out under the new law of historical and democratic memory. This came into effect in October of this year. Moreover, the law states that “the remains of leaders of the 1936 military coup d’état may not be or remain buried in any place of public access, other than a cemetery, which commits the accomplishment of public acts of glorification, glorification or commemoration of human rights violations.” during the war or the dictatorship”.
The Macarena Brotherhood had already announced that the remains of Queipo de Llano, his wife and General Francisco Bohórquez would leave the basilica in November to comply with the new law and cooperate docilely.
However, no one had announced that the excavations would take place this Thursday. The basilica was open as normal for worship. However, at 9.00 pm, after closing time, the workers and relatives of Queipo and Bohórquez arrived, alongside the coroner and a single government representative.
Queipo de Llano, leader of the 1936 uprising
The remains of Gonzalo Queipo de Llano y Sierra were buried in the basilica a day after his death. This was on March 9, 1951. British historian Paul Preston in his latest work refers to Queipo de Llano as the psychopath of the south. As head of the army in southern Spain, he was directly responsible for the deaths of more than 45,000 people. There were almost no battles in Seville, however, 14,000 of these deaths took place here. Among them, were the poet Federico García Lorca and the politician Blas Infante, institutionally recognized as the father of the Andalucian homeland. He left more than 700 mass graves. Some are so large that they are estimated to contain more than 1,300 victims of Franco’s repression.
