The Association for Democratic Military Memory (AMMD) continues its fight to obtain the exhumation of two admirals linked to Francoism who remain buried in the Pantheon of Illustrious Sailors in San Fernando (Cádiz). The association has just sued the Ministry of Defense before the National Court to try to force justice in the department of Margarita Robles to exhume the remains of Juan Cervera Valderrama and Francisco Moreno Fernández, directly responsible for the massacre against civilians known as name of La Dissolution and the participants. of the 1936 coup d’état.
The AMMD has long been asking Defense for the removal of these two admirals from the pantheon: in February, it registered a formal request with the ministry without success and in June it presented an appeal, but after having exhausted the administrative route, it decided to initiate legal proceedings. With the trial, to which elDiario.es had access, the association demands the appearance in testimony of Minister Margarita Robles and several historians and researchers of this historical period.
Juan Cervera Valderrama was chief of naval staff of the putschist army during the civil war and Francisco Moreno Fernández was the leader of the self-proclaimed “national squad.” His brother, Salvador Moreno Fernández, then commander of the cruise ship “Almirante Cervera”, also accompanied them to the pantheon until last summer, when the ministry announced that his remains had been exhumed in an intimate ceremony in the express request of the family. be buried in a pantheon on his property.
The association considers that the exhumation of the two remaining admirals and the removal of their plaques and tombstones must take place in compliance with the law on democratic memory, which obliges administrations to remove from public spaces elements that glorify the war or dictatorship and prevents the remnants of the coup. that the conspirators be buried in a place visible and accessible to the public other than a cemetery such as the Pantheon, which, located within the Naval Non-Commissioned Officers School of San Fernando, is the scene of tourist visits.
“In this moving place which invites us to reflect on the meaning of discipline and service to the homeland, the presence of admirals who, elevated to power by the military coup and the dictatorship of General Franco, marked their careers military, is absolutely incongruous as authors. of a military rebellion against the constitutional order then legally and legitimately in force, the Second Spanish Republic, in addition to being responsible for acts which today would be qualified as war crimes”, states the association in the document complaint filed on October 2.
Stories of repression
The text presents the military as responsible for the massive bombings against civilians fleeing Malaga towards Almería after the capture of the city in February 1937, an episode known as La Desbandá and during which “under the combined fire of ships and planes » between 3,000 and 5,000 civilians seeking refuge were massacred. From the sea, the light cruiser Almirante Cervera, commanded by Salvador Moreno, carried out the bombardments on the Canarias and the Balearics. The latter continues to give names to certain streets in several cities, to the point that the Madrid City Council took it back two years ago after respecting a decree which indicated it.
The paradox is that, while some of those responsible remain buried with honors in a public pantheon, the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory this year declared La Desbandá a “Place of Democratic Memory” and honored its victims. “This is one of the most terrible and painful episodes of the war and, perhaps, one of the most misunderstood due to the silence imposed by the dictatorship,” Minister Ángel Víctor Torres declared at the time.
The government itself justified the withdrawal, in light of the law on democratic memory, of the titles of nobility granted by Franco to Francisco Moreno and Juan Cervera Valderrama. The latter joined the military uprising on July 18, 1936 and was appointed in October by the dictator as chief of staff of the Navy to coordinate the reorganization of Franco’s naval forces and the purification of “disaffections”: for example, at the Ferrol base, 136 sailors were shot dead, many of them workers.
In his memoirs, he goes so far as to say that “it is necessary to make a good selection among active personnel…” and in 1961, now deceased, Franco granted him the title of Marquis of Casa Cervera, now abolished . His remains were transferred to the Pantheon in 1962, with a tombstone that reads: “Chief of the Naval Staff. He governed it in difficult days. From the war of liberation. The Fatherland honors his memory.
Francisco Moreno, for his part, was involved in the military conspiracy and, along with his brother, “participated actively as an agent of General Mola” in the 1936 coup, the lawsuit says. Appointed head of the “National” Fleet at the end of July 1936 and member of the Defense Council, Moreno Fernández held this position throughout the civil war, in addition to leading the blockade forces of the Mediterranean, and was one of the ” brains” by La Desbandá. To recognize his services, Franco granted him the title of Marquis of Alborán, now abolished, in 1951. His tombstone, modified in 1978, states that Moreno “devoted his life to the service of the Navy and of Spain “.
For the AMMD, maintaining their graves is “absolutely incompatible with legality” and also “with the military morality that the life and actions of Navy professionals should illustrate,” she explains in the lawsuit. The Pantheon was built in 1950 “for the purpose of serving as a reference for role models” for students studying to become Naval officers and its purpose was to house the mortal remains of those “motivated by their high design of honor or duty. They got recognition. and glory”, affirms the association, for which, taking this into account, it is even “more inexplicable” that the Francoist soldiers remain there.
Francisco Moreno – and his already exhumed brother – were on the list of charges brought against the Franco regime by Baltasar Garzón in the order of October 16, 2008, accused of illegal detention and crimes against humanity committed during the civil war and the Franco regime.
