At Spanish trial, victims tell of Franco's abuses

By Sinikka Tarvainen Feb 8, 2012, 16:09 GMT

Madrid - In September 1936, a few months after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, supporters of general Francisco Franco came and took Maria Martin's mother away.

They said they were taking her for questioning to Arenas de San Pedro, a place near the family's home village in central Avila province.

'But they killed her on the way. They killed 27 men and three women,' the 81-year-old - who was 6 at the time - told Spain's Supreme Court last week.

Maria Martin appeared as a witness earlier this month at the trial of Baltasar Garzon, a judge who is charged with professional misconduct in connection with his judicial inquiry, Spain's first, into the Franco dictatorship's crimes.

Francoists unlawfully killed more than 100,000 alleged opponents during the 1936-39 Civil War, which swept the general to power, and during his ensuing 36-year dictatorship, Garzon estimated.

The judge's supporters believe that the trial, which held its final session on Wednesday, was aimed at silencing him and at burying the memory of those events.

But instead, the court room became a venue for Franco's victims to air their grievances.

Spanish and international human rights groups are now waiting to see whether the testimonies have an effect on the upcoming verdict of the Supreme Court, which critics see as being dominated by a political right sympathetic to Franco.

Two conservative groups suing Garzon want him to be suspended on grounds that he overstepped his authority and ignored an amnesty granted for Civil War era crimes in 1977. Prosecutors working at the court, who did not represent the plaintiffs, called for his acquittal.

'Spain is violating international law and several United Nations resolutions' in not investigating Franco's crimes, Caroline Edelstam, a Swedish observer at the trial, told Spanish daily El Pais.

In Spain, however, Garzon is a highly controversial figure who had been making headlines long before he decided look into the Franco era, in 2008.

The 56-year-old judge's list of cases reads like a Who's Who in the criminal world. He has pursued drug lords, violent Basque separatists, Islamist terrorists and corrupt politicians.

He soared to international notoriety by trying to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998. He opened new judicial ground with his international human rights investigations, which ranged from Argentina to Guantanamo and Western Sahara.

Garzon's critics see him as an overly ambitious figure who seeks out high-profile cases because of an insatiable thirst for fame.

His supporters claim that jealous colleagues, corrupt politicians, Franco sympathizers and others are now trying to get rid of him.

In addition to the Franco trial, Garzon is facing a separate trial in which he is accused of illegally wiretapping conversations between suspects and their lawyers in connection with a corruption case. He could face a third trial on charges of accepting bribes from the Santander bank.

Unlike some other countries in Europe or Latin America which had dictatorships, Spain has never dealt judicially with the Franco era.

The dictator died peacefully in bed in 1975. Two years later, an amnesty was granted to his collaborators to allow a divided nation to heal.

It was only in 2007 that the then Socialist government ordered the removal of statues representing Franco from Spanish streets. Associations representing the victims are now opening mass graves. But many victims still feel that the past is being swept under the carpet.

Franco had a systematic plan to eliminate leftists who had fought against him in the Civil War, Garzon and witnesses maintained at the trial. One historian spoke of 'acts of genocide.'

'The order was, that not a trace was to remain of the reds and that they were to be made to disappear,' Civil War investigator Antonio Ontanon Toca told the court this week.

'It has been 75 years of oblivion, and everyone has just looked the other way,' complained Olga Alcega, a 75-year-old witness.

Maria Martin came to the court room dressed in black, as if she were still in mourning.

She believes she knows where her mother is buried. The mass grave is near a bridge crossing a river. But she has failed in all her attempts to recover her mother's remains.