A publication on social networks in which the vice president of the Granada Provincial Council and deputy mayor in Motril, Nicolás Navarro (PP), considered a television program about La Desandá as an “advertorial” has provoked the rejection of left-wing and political parties. the Granada Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (AGRMH). Navarro has chosen that word to explain that, for him, historical memory is not “really restorative” if other episodes on the part of the Republican side are not also recounted. The popular man assures elDiario.es Andalucía that he does not want to downplay its importance nor does he understand the “discomfort” of those who censor his statements.
Specifically, the senior official in both the provincial institution published this Saturday on his Facebook profile a reflection about a report which was being broadcast on Spanish Radio Television (RTVE)specifically in the Weekly Report program. “As I understand that it will not be a coincidence and it will be an advertorial so that the current population that did not experience the war understands it, I hope next Saturday another one in which they will explain to us who set fire to the Cerro de la Virgen de la Cabeza, destroying the artistic and historical heritage Motrileño, who set fire to the powder magazine of the Main Church or who murdered the Augustinian and Capuchin martyrs among other atrocities. This is just so that historical memory is truly restorative.”
In statements to this newspaper, Navarro says he does not understand the “unrest” and affirms that he does not want to downplay its importance or be equidistant from the La Desbandá massacre, which involved the indiscriminate murder of thousands of people who were fleeing along the road that linked Malaga with Almería on February 8, 1937, in the middle of the Civil War. He argues that he was surprised that it was broadcast “for no reason” on that date, which was “no anniversary.”
“Watching calmly tonight on TVE, on November 23 of any year like 2024, I find a mini report of the Desbandá of 1937 between the news and a copla program, an unfortunate and sad event of the Spanish Civil War that never it had to happen. This population movement was a flight of the population due to the attacks of the national troops,” he writes at the beginning of his publication.
The left calls him “contempt”
Grenadine Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (AGRMH), PSOE and Izquierda Unida have accused the provincial vice president of “belittling” the memory of the victims with his publication. The AGRMH regrets that this episode highlights the “manipulation” and “ignorance” of public figures who try to minimize this episode, and emphasizes that disparaging La Desbandá goes against the recognition and reparation to the victims, maintaining that the words of Navarro are against respect for history and democratic memory.
Fátima Gómez, spokesperson for the Socialist Group in the Granada Provincial Council, has also condemned the vice president’s words, describing his comment as “offensive” and “deeply insensitive” towards the victims of one of the most tragic episodes of the Civil War. Gómez demands a public apology and a clear positioning from the president of the Provincial Council, Francis Rodríguez.
However, what happened with Nicolás Navarro has another meaning in the Motril City Council. In the capital of the Tropical Coast of Granada there have been several episodes in recent years that put Navarro and the Government team led by Mayor Luisa García Chamorro in the spotlight. For this reason, Izquierda Unida-Verdes will bring a motion to the municipal plenary session this Friday to urge the City Council to remove the city’s medal from the dictator Francisco Franco, which should have happened years ago.
The IU spokesperson, José Llorente, remembers that Nicolás Navarro himself headed a commission to study the withdrawal of the insignia, which turned out to be a “trick” not to do so. “When he despises La Desbandá in his comment, he implies that there is a use when he refers to an advertorial and brings up the issue of the victims of the Republic in Motril,” he points out. Llorente points out that Navarro “refused to remove names of religious people because the religious people were the object of republican or left-wing violence,” which is why they seek to have him speak out in this Friday’s plenary session in defense of “democratic coexistence.”
In any case, the aforementioned himself says he is not in any political dispute: “I neither try to ignore, nor try to downplay the importance it had, nor what was the origin or cause of that unfortunate event.” He says that “historical memory will be restorative” if all the events that occurred are put on the table. “I promoted the Motril History Museum and managed to get everyone to agree that there would be a section on war with harmony ahead,” he says.
Thousands murdered
It is worth remembering that La Desbandá occurred on February 8, 1937 when between 100,000 and 150,000 people fled Malaga after the city was taken by Franco’s troops, supported by Italian and German forces. During the exodus, the refugees were attacked by land, sea and air on their way along the coasts of Malaga, Granada and Almeria, leaving thousands dead. This episode, considered one of the greatest crimes against civilians of the Civil War, remained invisible until researchers and memorialists recovered its story in recent decades.
The controversy, therefore, is not minor because it appeals directly to one of the central episodes of historical memory in Spain. While from the political left they criticize the attempt to “distort and justify” the crimes of Franco’s regime, from the AGRMH they emphasize that reparation does not allow equidistances: “Equating tragedies like La Desbandá with isolated episodes of violence distorts its magnitude and its historical context.”
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