Democratic memory: battle horse in the Valencian Courts

The minister and general secretary of the PSPV, Diana Morant, and the minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolaños, will participate this Tuesday in an act in defense of democratic memory at the so-called Paredón de España, a wall near the Paterna cemetery where they were shot.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
15 April 2024 Monday 16:48
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Democratic memory: battle horse in the Valencian Courts

The minister and general secretary of the PSPV, Diana Morant, and the minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolaños, will participate this Tuesday in an act in defense of democratic memory at the so-called Paredón de España, a wall near the Paterna cemetery where they were shot. to 2,238 people from 191 towns in the Valencian Community and 60 other Spanish municipalities. It will be the third almost consecutive event with the presence of PSPV officials in a few days where the proclamation of the Second Republic is celebrated and where the debate on the Concord Law begins in the Valencian Parliament.

Last Saturday, the secretary of the Institutional Area of ​​the PSPV and Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, attended an event commemorating the victims of Francoism in Oliva and warned that the Mazón Government “intends to plunge the Valencian Community into denialism.” historical".

A day later, in Paterna - the scene where Morant and Bolaños will take the photo today - the socialists with the former general secretary of the PSPV and now OECD ambassador in Paris, Ximo Puig, in front, claimed memory as a tool " to dignify all those who fought for freedom” in the face of a “false harmony that wants to destroy coexistence.”

An offensive that will be completed this Tuesday at the Paterna wall with two members of the Government of Spain who have already announced their intention to take the future Valencian norm to court, once it is approved in the regional Chamber. By the way, on Thursday the control question to the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, asked by the socialist group will also focus on the content of the law.

And the initiative presented by the PP and Vox has generated a lot of political controversy in its objective of "recognizing all the victims of violence, social, political, terrorism or ideological persecution besieged in the Valencian Community during the period between 1931 and to this day."

The tension between opposition groups and the government after the formulation of the bill is evident. Despite this, PP sources insist to La Vanguardia that they are willing to accept opposition amendments to the text led by Vox. Also in the ultra training they point out to this newspaper that they are capable of accepting modifications as long as "they are going to contribute to the equality of all victims."

A tagline that they repeat in the PP to defend the content of their text which, they argue, “does not take away rights from the victims of Francoism [those protected by the state Democratic Memory Law] but rather extends them to other victims.” The popular ones pay more attention to those murdered by ETA in the Valencian Community - included in the text - than to the deaths in the years prior to the dictatorship.

At this point, the left-wing parties disdain that the year 1931, when the Second Republic was proclaimed, is cited as a starting point, since they remember that it was a democratic regime. At this point, neither PP nor Vox are going to give in and have already fueled their arguments to extend the temporary period of recognition of “all victims” also to the “convulsive Second Republic” mentioned in the explanatory memorandum of the proposition of law.

Presidency sources recall that the Law of democratic memory and coexistence of the Botànic, approved in 2017, already established in its section 3 that the regulations would have effects in "in the period spanning from the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic on 14 April 1931 until the entry into force of the Statute of Autonomy of the Valencian Community on July 10, 1982."

It is also not clear whether the opposition amendments will be aimed at seeking specific agreements that soften the content of the text, seeking possible disagreements between the two parties that have proposed it, or they will directly be amendments to highlight the abyss that currently separates both blocks. . “If they are confrontational amendments, we will not accept them,” they explain in the PP, who foresee that the changes proposed by their rivals will be “unaffordable” since their final intention is to take the rule to court; “And they are not going to prosecute a rule full of their contributions,” they clarify.

From the PSPV they admit that they have not yet defined their amendment strategy because they see it as very difficult to improve a text so far from their ideological corpus. Nor are Compromís clear whether they will propose changes beyond the amendment to the entirety that both parliamentary groups have already announced and that will be debated in the plenary session of Les Corts next Wednesday.