A message from the "Comissió de la Dignitat"

I received this in my email today.


Dear friends,

I think every worthy cause deserves a day like today. A day in which the transparency of the air enables you to see the very last wrinkle of your opponent's sullied face. And this is what today's newpapers have brought us. Firstly, the news that judge Baltasar Garzón is to be tried and possibly suspended from his job at the Audiencia Nacional Court (a Special court which, admittedly, should not even exist) for having dared to open up the possibility of investigating the sombre truth about Franco: the mass graves and other crimes perpetrated by his regime, not least of which the mass graves with 26,300 bodies discovered in Valencia in 2005. But that is not all. The newspapers also inform us that the huge monument honouring the Cruiser Baleares in Palma bay -the pride of Franco's fleet sunk by the Republicans after having shelled thousands of fleeing refugees on the coastal roads of Andalusia- is not to be demolished. It is to be conserved! What an example for today's youth, to be sure! Can you image the same occurring with a monument dedicated to a Fascist-manned warship in any other part of the democratic world? This could only happen in Spain. But there is yet more. Today the Basque Parliament (where PP, PSOE and Rosa Diez's clique have the majority allowed them by the suppression of the Basque left) have voted against instating a Truth Commission (such as the ones established by Nelson Mandela in South Africa in the early nineties) to discover the truth about the crimes of Franco. This must not be unearthed!

Today has therefore been a good day for the Catalan cause, and the cause of democracy, which are indeed part and parcel. From today on we may go to democrats the world over and point to Spain's huge democratic deficit without fear that anyone with eyes in their head might fail to perceive it.

Europe largely ridded itself of Fascism in 1945. The one place it lives on is in putrid old Spain, where 56 of the streets in Madrid still bear the names of Franco's generals. As Euronews said today, who can be surprised that Catalans want to be free of all this?

Dear friends. I'm writing all this in English because I feel the sooner the whole world knows, the sooner we can put an end to so much iniquity and disgrace.

Democracy and Dignity. Barcelona February 5th 2010