Did the 'pact of forgetting' open door to far right?

Events to mark 50th anniversary of dictator Franco's death intend to act as a reminder- especially to the young - of dangers of fascism

- Sam Jones

Mingorrubio municipal cemetery, which sits where the suburbs of northwest 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 tenure as prime minister was brought to a sudden end by a bomb that blew his car 30 metres into the air in 1973. Also buried there 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.

It was Arias who, 50 years ago this month, broke the news of the dictator's death to the nation.

"Spaniards, Franco has died," said the grief-stricken prime minister. “The exceptional man who, before God and before history, assumed the immense responsibility for the most demanding and sacrificial service to Spain, has given his life, burned day by day, hour by hour, in the fulfilment of a transcendental mission.”

Half a century on, the deeds and legacy of the man whose military coup against the Republican government ushered in a four-decade dictatorship built around the authoritarian ideology of National Catholicism, continue to divide and confuse 21st-century Spain.

The current, socialist-led government is using the 50th anniversary of Franco's death to trumpet Spain's transformation into a progressive modern European democracy.