It is with peculiar irony that the first entity which has decided to co-operate is the "Xunta" or regional government of Galicia in the north west of the Iberian peninsula where Franco was born and his family still live in impunity in a castle. The Galician government has this afternoon brought out 3,588 of their dead. Their dead have already been our dead claimed by the literature and memories of times before we were born. Those 3,588 names are as much as ours Ernesto Che Guevera. As much as ours.

Super judge Garzon leaves no room for indifference. He is the man who put a writ on Pinochet whilst he was taking tea with Thatcher to international acclaim, praise, respect and the long term consequence of teaching tyrants and mass murderers to be more careful about their holiday arrangements. He is the man who oversaw the criminalisation of the Basque independence movement and the man who wrote letters for a time to sub-Cmdt Marcus in the mountains of Chiapas. He is the man who has consistently and without fail got up noses on on the left and right all his adult life. Nonetheless he is greatly admired. He polarises and that goes down a treat.

Already the lyrical symbol on a plinth and many a bronze statue of the bourgoise catharsis of what was lost to Franco's coup ; the poet Lorca - has been listed by his family members (if not descendents) as preferring the silence of the missing grave to the role call of politically opportunistic and ahistorical posturing. But the Lorca's are posh and not bound by the same passions as the rest of us.

The party of the right wing, the PP, the other Spain, the Spain that won the war and gave the salutes and clocked up its 200+ saints under Ratzinger for fighting the reds and anarchists, masons and anglophiles of Franco's lifelong obssessions, point to the constitution of the 70's and the decision to turn a blind eye to the past. Understandable there are many old murderers who went honourably daft and not too few who were laid to a rest in hallowed grounds with fresh flowers. And for some reason they and their descendents have been observed to vote PP.

The groups who wish to "reclaim historical memory" and campaign under that name are happy, of course they are - they haven't appeared to have learnt their lessons even now. The republic was legitimate but its legitimisation is in its memory as it stands not a memorial which can be constructed artificially next. Naturally they want to know which of their family were used as slave labour to hollow Franco's maesoleum out the mountain to build the "valle de los caidos" and then get buried in the concrete walls. They want to know which council or which church they should bring their DNA samples to verify which bones the rags of which have turned to dust and been woven again into our memory and flags.

Could we think of anything more noble?

But when I say the old folks nor their young have learnt their lessons it is because I know I don't remember that republic, its birth, its women offered birth control, its children offered shoes, its peasants offered land, its workers offered education. I don't remember its war. I've met many a veteran who helps remember for me. I live in the city where the republic died amongst communities which are now descended from both sides of the conflict and none. Moreover I remember what happened this June when the old geezer waved his flag like the heroic ex-political prisoner he was in the Spanish Congress and how a "socialist" minister scolded him.  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/401145.html It was yet another confirmation in the long line of gestures which should be understood for what they mean. If there is a republic in the Spanish state it will be third in its own terms - not the moving of the goalposts which when you look at them closely are hewn from impervious mountain rock.

So perhaps we should leave the dead in the grave as the vocal witnesses to their murder.
Maybe they are safer there than on Garzon's witness stands mutely accusing their murderers - as both plaintiffs and defendents find the means to afford words & twist them to the purpose of the day and its politics of Zapatero's liberals versus the PP.

Not a family member I've spoken to who can look to the lost twigs or branches of their family trees and say Franco, or Hitler or whomever took them - think they can bring them back or have any doubt as to who took them away.

3,588 done dead & dusted.
24,412 in rough figures yet to be declared.

there should still be room for @ least one or a few thousan unknown soldier(s).