The ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, has asked the Madrid City Council for explanations in relation to the possible location of the cleaning canton of the Madrid neighborhood of Montecarmelo in response to the complaint made by the Association of Friends of International Brigade members that alerts of the possibility that in A grave containing 451 international brigade members is located on these lands.
This was stated to EFE by the Platform No to the Canton of Montecarmelo after learning of the Ombudsman's document in response to the request against the municipal project to install a garbage classification plant and a base for the Urban Cleaning Emergency Service. (Selur) of 10,000 square meters.
This document details that documents have been requested from the City Council, such as permits and sectoral authorizations, as well as a report on possible signs of a mass grave with a significant number of human remains in the chosen plot. "The largest in Spain", according to the Association of Friends of International Brigade Members, based on its studies.
If so, as Gabilondo detailed, the exhumation of said bodies could be "requested" in accordance with the regulations on democratic memory.
This situation has arisen after months of disputes between the neighbors and the City Council over the location of the Selur base and the garbage canton projected in this neighborhood, and after Luis González, a resident of Montecarmelo, has announced, in a document advanced by El País, the possibility that a grave with international brigade members could be found at the site.
As González details in said document, there is a common grave to the northwest of the Fuencarral cemetery where, according to oral tradition, the mortal remains of 451 volunteers of the International Brigades of 16 nationalities who fought in the Civil War were thrown after being exhumed. .
"Given the indications that add to the plot at hand, the Madrid City Council cannot continue with this decision without first clarifying whether it is complying with the Democratic Memory Law, and previously ruling out that the grave of the Brigadistas volunteers International, probably the largest that exists from the Civil War, is outside this location,” says the neighbor.
The City Council, however, assures that there is no “proof” that there is a mass grave on the plot. The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, has assured that if "any discovery" occurs when the works for the canton begin, it will be transferred to the "competent" authorities to "make the decisions." But he insists on the absence of evidence to support the complaints.
The platform has been on a warpath for months in the canton and has denounced the opacity of the council and its way of doing politics with its back to the neighbors, "based solely on technical reasons, not social, mobility, or environmental."
