Spain moves forward with a Truth Commission to investigate human rights violations under Franco

UN experts hailed the measure as a historic opportunity to investigate human rights violations, guarantee reparations and make progress toward non-repetition.

A group of independent United Nations experts welcomed the decision by the Spanish authorities to establish a Truth Commission to investigate the human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed during the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship.

Francisco Franco ruled from 1939 to 1975 under an authoritarian, personalist and repressive regime imposed on Spain after the Civil War. The Franco dictatorship was characterized by the absence of democratic freedoms, National Catholicism, censorship and the systematic repression of the opposition, and it ended with the dictator’s death in 1975.

That is why the UN special rapporteurs maintained that the Truth Commission is a historic opportunity not only to confront a painful past, but also to reveal the truth about the harms, the circumstances and the responsibilities that made them possible.

The UN noted that the Commission is expected to produce a final report with conclusions and recommendations to guarantee reparations and prevent repetition. They added that the process must be independent and carried out with the meaningful participation of victims.

In addition, the Truth Commission will also include a specific subcommission to investigate the violations committed against women detained in the centers of the Patronato de Protección a la Mujer (Board for the Protection of Women) between 1941 and 1985. These include arbitrary detention without trial, forced labor, human trafficking and the enforced disappearance of their newborn children. 

Along the same lines, the experts stated that there is still “much to be done,” because criminal accountability for the perpetrators, reparations for the victims and the whereabouts of the disappeared must be guaranteed. They also hope that institutional and legal reforms will be carried out to dismantle the vestiges of the Franco dictatorship.

How will it work?

The Truth Commission will be chaired by jurist and former judge Baltasar Garzón, as agreed by the Council for Democratic Memory. Alongside him, the body will be made up of Helen Duffy, Julián Casanova Ruiz, Araceli Manjón-Cabeza Olmedo, Manuel de la Rocha Rubí, María Alejandra Vicente, Silvina María Romano, Cristina Monge Lasierra, Sebastián Martín Martín and Francisco Erice Sebares.

The Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, chaired the meeting of the Council for Democratic Memory at which the appointment of the members of the Commission on human rights violations during the War and the Franco dictatorship was agreed, as established by the Democratic Memory Law.

They also added that the Truth Commission will be composed of ten people of recognized standing in the academic, legal, scientific and human rights fields. The council also appointed a group of alternate members who will ensure the proper functioning of this body.

The Truth Commission under debate

One of the voices that raised alarms about the Truth Commission was history professor and University of Seville researcher Lino Camprubí, who acknowledged the legitimacy of the families seeking to heal their wounds and stated that “opposing that is absurd.” He also laments that “almost immediately, that memory became a political weapon.” He added that the risk lies in establishing a legal memory, because it can become a covert way of silencing alternative accounts.

Along those lines, Alberto Venegas, director of the magazine Presura and a secondary school teacher, doubts that an “official truth” will actually be imposed in the investigation, although he insists on the need to exhume mass graves to guarantee the right to private mourning.

Another critic is historian Jorge Álvarez, for whom the Commission represents a legislative intervention in the discipline; he describes it as a “historiographical anomaly” because, according to him, the period of the dictatorship, 1936–1975, is the only one in the entire history of Spain that is legislated.

For their part, the Spanish authorities stated that the government “reinforces its commitment to public policies of democratic memory and to the right of victims and of society to know the truth about the human rights violations that occurred during the war and the dictatorship,” according to an official statement.
For the Spanish government, the opening of the Commission marks a decisive step toward consolidating a memory based on the recognition and dignity of the victims. However, according to some historians and researchers, history does not need to be rewritten from a “rose-tinted or black” legend, but rather understood in all its immensity and magnitude through the rigor of historians and academics. Meanwhile, the Truth Commission has only just begun.

Guillermo Whpei

President of Fundación para la Democracia