Controversy in Spain over positive state-funded profile of Franco

Jun 3, 2011, 10:22 GMT

Madrid - Controversy was raging in Spain on Friday over a new encyclopedia which was seen as downplaying the dictatorial nature of General Francisco Franco's 1939-75 regime.

The controversy followed the publication by Spain's Royal History Academy of the first half of a 50-volume Spanish Biographical Dictionary on more than 40,000 influential personalities.

The article on Franco does not call him a dictator, only characterizing his regime as 'authoritarian' and even praising his 'courage.'

The article does not mention that Franco is widely held responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 opponents during the 1936-39 civil war and his subsequent dictatorship.

'Many of the victims of Francoism are still alive, and others remain buried' in mass graves, historian Jose Luis de la Granja, author of other articles in the encyclopedia, told the daily El Pais.

'The subject is sensitive,' and the way Franco was described in the encyclopedia was 'an aberration,' he added.

Dozens of Franco critics earlier demonstrated in front of the Royal History Academy, while Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde and Education Ministry officials urged the academy to revise the article on Franco.

Peruvian 2010 Nobel Literature Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa said it was a 'shame' that such articles were financed with public money. The Spanish state financed the encyclopedia with 6.4 million euros (9 million dollars).

A group of university professors and Franco's victims vowed to sue the academy, which said the encyclopedia had respected the intellectual freedom of its authors.

However, the academy said it may revise the article on Franco in the digital edition of the encyclopedia and in future paper editions.