Visca la llibertat. Litografia d'Antoni Miró
Textos de les intervencions dels cònsols de França i Alemanya
The Dignity Commission/
Comissió de la Dignitat
September 15th, 2002
Ms Viviane Reding
Member of the European Commission
responsible for Education and Culture
Dear Ms Reding
Ever since 1985, when Mélina Mercouri and the European Parliament introduced the splendid idea of institutionalising a yearly AEuropean Capital of Culture@, the project has been successful in promoting the cause of culture, strengthening the ties between European nations and peoples. It has also served to encourage cultural tourism and to enhance values associated with democracy, tolerance and culture. It is, therefore, an institution that all Europeans should be proud to support.
This year the European Commission has chosen Salamanca as a European Capital of Culture. While being in favour of the selection of this beautiful Spanish city for this rôle, a choice which we feel is most fitting, we believe that there are aspects associated with the programme of Salamanca 2002 that should be brought to your attention, especially as they may clash with one or more of the requirements specified above.
As you must know, on October 15th 2002, the organizers of the Salamanca European Capital of Culture programme are planning to hold an exhibition called APropaganda en guerra@ (War propaganda), to put on show Aposters and documents@ associated with the Spanish Civil War which are at present kept in the Archivo General de la Guerra Civil (General Civil War Archive) in Salamanca. This idea at first sight may seem worthy enough, but the fact is that this exhibition has raised a lot of opposition not only within Spain, but also at international levels. Some 600 professors from over 200 universities worldwide, have shown their opposition to it (see adjoined Manifesto), to which we must add the support of leading figures such as Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former Director General of UNESCO, ex-President Francesco Cossiga, Danielle Mitterand, ex-President Mario Soares, Baroness Gloria Hooper, Nobel peace prize-winners Rigoberta Menchú and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nawal el Saawadi, Paul Preston and Noam Chomsky, as well as leading European cultural figures such as Mikis Theodrakis, Georges Moustaki and Peter Gabriel.
The reason this opposition has been expressed with such vehemence is the present Spanish Government=s position regarding the ownership and use of these documents. No heed has been taken of the shocking way in which they came to be in the city of Salamanca in the first place. No attention has been paid to UNESCO criteria regarding the need to return archives displaced in time of war. Indeed, a good portion of this material -though not all- was stolen as loot by Franco=s rebel army. The papers plundered from democratically run archives and institutions such as the Catalan Government, Republican town and city halls, Trade Unions (such as UGT) and political parties (such as ERC and PSUC) by Franco in the 1938-1939 period. Many private individuals were also affected as has been stated in a recent article by Teresa Pàmies, last year=s winner of the prestigious Catalan Letters Honour Prize. The Franco regime collected these papers and sent them to Salamanca with the sole purpose of scrutinizing them with a view to persecuting individuals found therein to have cooperated with democratic institutions. This operation resulted in one of the most brutal campaigns of repression in European living memory, comparable -as leading historians have pointed out- with those carried out by Hitler, the Stasi and Stalin. Thousands were shot, imprisoned and exiled.
Despite an earlier Spanish Government=s decision to return the documents in 1995, their arbitrary presence in Salamanca over a long period (1939-2002), is now presented by the current Spanish Government as the justification for arguing that they should remain in Salamanca. The truth is, however, that this AArchive@ -which had until recently been a police depot- was only institutionalized in the late 90s, possibly as a step to avoid their return.
In the past there was no chance to demand the return of these documents to their original archives and owners -then outlawed and persecuted- because between 1939 and 1975 Spain was ruled by a dictatorship that kept the country immune from democracy and from the European context which the Spanish State now enjoys. But the Catalan Parliament and the bodies affected by the looting of their archives have never ceased to demand their return since democracy was reinstated in 1978. Independent experts insist that when the documents are returned, the step will in no way damage the Salamanca Archive which, with modern methods, will have no difficulty whatsoever retaining copies of all the returned material.
However, hopes for the documents= return have been dashed by the 23.7.2002 decision of the Spanish Government-run Board of the Salamanca Archive, to which, incidentally, no Catalans were invited to attend. Not only are they to go ahead with the exhibition, but they also decreed that no papers are to be returned to their legitimate owners. In a time when even the Irak government has agreed to return the archives plundered from Kuwait, we find the decision of the Spanish Government intolerable. Not surprisingly the decision has led to an unprecedented wave of protest in the media, to the extent of raising doubts about the Government=s own stance over the Franco coup, which it now seems to want to legitimize, a suspicion that gathers momentum when we consider the recent failure of the party in power to give support to motions in parliamentary chambers condemning the military coup that led to the Civil War. But more important, it may also be interpreted as a gesture that does little in favour of culture, the need for reconciliation and understanding between peoples and communities in XXI century Europe.
If the AEuropean Cities of Culture@ event was introduced to enhance the cause of culture, to strengthen ties between the nations and peoples in Europe, as well as to cultivate values associated with democracy, tolerance and culture, we feel that this exhibition in Salamanca -the way it has been organized and what it stands for- is something that the European Commission for Culture should take steps to censor and prevent. Not only do we feel that you should be informed of the real nature of the exhibition, but we also request that steps be taken by the Commission to suspend it. To proceed otherwise is to make a mockery of democracy and values so painstakingly forged in modern Europe. We would therefore be more than willing to come and expose our views to you in more detail, and would indeed welcome a meeting with you on the subject.
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