The family of Primo de Rivera has asked the abbot of the Valley of the Fallen and the General Directorate of Public Health of the Ministry of Health of the Community of Madrid to exhume the remains of José Antonio, lawyer and founder of the Spanish Falange.
This was communicated by the Duke of Primo de Rivera, Fernando Primo de Rivera, representative of the family, days after the Democratic Memory Law was definitively approved and after statements by Minister Félix Bolaños in which he advanced that "the pertinent actions to exhume José Antonio Primo de Rivera and Gonzalo Queipo" when the new text enters into force.
Primo de Rivera's family has also requested the corresponding licenses from the San Lorenzo de El Escorial City Council. Once the authorization is obtained, the remains will be deposited in the place that the relatives have decided, thus fulfilling the will expressed in his will by José Antonio Primo de Rivera.
Shot in 1936 at the age of 33, the remains of Miguel Primo de Rivera's son were initially buried in Alicante. In 1939, his lifeless body was transferred to the El Escorial Monastery and 20 years later, in 1959, his mortal remains definitively arrived at the Valley of the Fallen.
Given that article 54.3 of the Democratic Memory Law establishes that the crypts adjacent to the Valle de los Caídos basilica and the burials existing therein have the character of a civil cemetery, the family of Primo de Rivera considers itself "obliged to comply the will of our uncle and carry out the exhumation and corresponding burial of his mortal remains in a sacred cemetery in accordance with the Catholic rite," the statement said.
With this decision, therefore, "there is no place" for the processing of the procedure provided for in the second additional provision of the law, and the exhumation process "must remain and will remain within strict family privacy, without being able to become a public exhibition prone to confrontations of any kind between Spaniards".
Primo de Rivera's family also assures that José Antonio "will continue to maintain the preeminent place that corresponds to him in the memory of many Spaniards and will not be the object of further humiliation." "As many people know, this transfer would be the fourth since his death and his new burial would be the fifth of his so-called eternal rest. Few human remains have traveled so much. But knowing his ideas, this would probably be the last of his concerns," the letter continues.
The family of Primo de Rivera has also wanted to vindicate "the figures of his sister Pilar and his nephew Miguel" who, with the Democratic Memory Law, "have taken away the titles of Count of Castillo de la Mota and Duke of Primo de Rivera, which they carried with so much honor and dignity".
For their part, government sources have affirmed that the central Executive "appreciates the predisposition" of Primo de Rivera's family "to proceed with the exhumation and comply with the Democratic Memory Law."
"The law establishes that before the exhumation, the family must be contacted and proceed according to the appropriate channels to carry it out, being able to be buried in the crypt of Cuelgamuros, if they so wish, since José Antonio Primo de Rivera is a victim of the Civil War", continues the response of the Spanish Government.
The Executive led by Pedro Sánchez has also added that they are working so that the more than 100 families who have asked to find the bodies of their relatives in the now renamed "Valle de Cuelgamuros" can "give them the burial they want".
