Events to mark the 50th anniversary of dictator’s death are intended to remind Spaniards, particularly the young, of the dangers of fascism
M
ingorrubio municipal cemetery, which sits where the suburbs of north-west Madrid fade out into the countryside, must have been something of a comedown for a man who was originally laid to rest with a 150-metre-high cross for a headstone and four enormous bronze archangels to watch over him.
But six years after his remains were disinterred from the grotesque splendour of the Valley of the Fallen and flown by helicopter to Mingorrubio for reburial, Francisco Franco is at least in good company.
On the opposite side of the cemetery to the generalísimo’s mausoleum is the grave of his right-hand man Luis Carrero Blanco, whose life and tenure as prime minister were brought to a sudden end by a bomb which blew his car more than 30 metres into the air in 1973. Also buried in the cemetery are the murderous Dominican dictator, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, and Carlos Arias Navarro – known as the “Butcher of Málaga” for his brutal repressions during the Spanish civil war.
