Possible compensation for the families of 130,000 people who disappeared in the Spanish Civil War edged closer

01:30 El NACHO 0 Comments

Possible compensation for the families of 130,000 people who disappeared in the Spanish Civil War edged closer yesterday as a judge was given the names of victims with the aim of starting a formal investigation. Court officials said 22 church and human rights groups handed to Judge Baltasar Garzon the names of 130,137 people contained in a dozen files, each the thickness of a telephone directory.
Judge Garzon, who tried to exile former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, had earlier requested the names with a view to launching a formal investigation into abuses committed during the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship of Gen Francisco Franco. Many of those who went missing were shot and buried in mass graves scattered across the country. If Garzon decides he has jurisdiction and enough evidence to open a criminal investigation to determine the circumstances of the deaths, it could lead to compensation for victims' families.
Prosecutors oppose an investigation due to a statute of limitations and because no charges can be made against former members of Franco's forces due to an amnesty law in 1977. But campaigners say the move is long overdue and that as Spain's Supreme Court has pursued atrocities by military regimes in Chile and Argentina, it should also do so in its own country. "Every crime possible against human rights was committed: genocide, forced disappearances and even war crimes. And it went on until the '50s, after the Nuremberg trials," said Fernando Magon, a lawyer acting for the groups. Although Franco died in 1975, successive governments preferred to forget the past and concentrate on transforming Spain from a poor dictatorship into a modern democracy.