IT’S FRANCO’S HEART THAT BEATS IN MADRID

No Gibraltarian and come to that anybody living in the real world will believe the confrontations at sea last week over the reef laying and the six hour car queues to leave Gibraltar at the weekend were anything but linked. Thanks to the world media from the BBC to Fox News much of the rest of the world now knows that too. Even Britain’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and the Foreign Office issued urgent protests to Madrid.

The confrontation started last Wednesday when a tug was laying concrete blocks in British Gibraltar Territorial Waters between the North Mole and the runway. Nor was this action a surprise because the creation of reefs in different parts of British Gibraltar Territorial Waters, as part of Gibraltar’s marine protection strategy, was announced when the Government published the fishing report. These reefs will increase biodiversity and provide refuge for many marine species.

This was not some whacky idea dreamed up by Environment Minister Dr John Cortes over a plate of calamari but approved science. So whilst the Andalucía Government accuses Gibraltar of potentially damaging the environment it has emerged that Sevilla has created 480 square kms of exactly the same reef structures off its own coastline – a coastline that it shares with Gibraltar.

So why has Andalucía done this? It has installed 25 artificial reefs over the period 1989 to 2011to protect the marine environment and promote traditional fishing methods. These being more selective allow the regeneration of fishing resources and to ensure rational exploitation.

The whole scheme has cost 12 million euros and whilst Andalucía has paid 25 per cent of the cost the balance has come from EU fisheries funds – in other words EU tax payers throughout the community.

Andalucía has installed these reefs which contribute to the protection of the coastal zones and some of these are of high biological interest just as Gibraltar’s waters are. Most importantly they are also a defence against overfishing.

The reefs prevent the use of drag nets which are not authorized and their installation preserves the ecological value of the sites. It also promotes the breeding of many species of interest to fishermen. Once the number of these fish increases it is possible for them to be caught in a sustainable manner.

Perhaps somebody needs to sit down and explain all of this to the owner of the “Divina Providencia”, which fishes illegally in Gibraltar’s waters and the neighbouring La Línea and Algeciras fishing communities. The Andalucía Government, which is a socialist and far left coalition, should be asking itself a lot of uncomfortable questions on this issue too.

All of that being so the actions of the Guardia Civil at sea last Wednesday and Thursday and also of Spain in protesting against Gibraltar’s reef laying had nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with their claim over Gibraltar’s waters. Sovereignty in other words. Yet Gibraltarians and indeed the UK Government knew that anyway.

Hence we move on to Friday and the weekend when Spain again shot itself in the foot by making Gibraltarians, Spaniards, EU citizens and other nationals queue in their cars in the blistering heat for up to seven hours to cross the border in to La Línea.

Whatever argument Spain may have about Gibraltar protecting the environment, and on the face of it there is none, all the world has now seen the true face of the Partido Popular Government in Madrid. Nobody believes the queues had anything to do with the search for contraband but everything to do with Gibraltar having stood up for its internationally recognised rights. Its territorial waters are recognised by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea so it is Spain and not Gibraltar that is the law breaker.

Spain has been shamed, Gibraltar’s environment is better protected and Gibraltar moves on whilst Madrid shows that it is Franco’s heart that that provides the beat of Rajoy’s Government.

(Photograph: Gibraltar’s Environment and Health Minister, Dr John Cortes, and Culture – Sports Minister Steven Linares hand out water to queuing motorists waiting to enter Spain on Saturday)

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on July 29 2013).

EL MARRUFO STARTS TO GIVE UP ITS SPANISH CIVIL WAR DEAD

The Spanish Civil War. It will always hold a special place in the hearts of those on the left of politics. Those on the far right would prefer you forgot it ever happened.

Internationally it is fast becoming another date in history: an event that happened before World War II and which for Germany was a practice run. Yet in Spain the memories are still raw nowhere more so than amongst the thousands of families who lost grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunt, nieces and nephews, assassinated by Franco’s forces and who to this day lay in massed or unmarked graves.

It was over a weekend at the end of March in 2009 that I found myself pitched in to tragedy of that conflict. In the Cádiz village of Jimena de la Frontera, my home for the past 15 years, they held a conference on the Spanish Civil War and how it affected the local community. It reached its climax on the Sunday with a visit to La Sauceda about 25 kilometres from Jimena.

I wrote at the time: “In November 1936 Lieutenant José Robles of the Instituto Armado led his troops from Ubrique to La Sauceda were they rendezvoused with other forces. La Sauceda was a small mountain top hamlet that for generations had been a refuge for bandits. Now apart from the local population it was a place of hiding for the many Republican and communist supporters that had fled the advance of Franco’s forces.

“Several hundred people were sheltering there and the Nationalist force made up of the army, Falange, Guardia Civil and Militias crept up on La Sauceda through the woods. After an aerial attack in which many men were killed or fled the troops moved in and took the inhabitants prisoners.

“The women and children were taken to the nearby cortijo of El Marrufo in lorries where they were held in the chapel. The men were taken on foot. Many of the women were raped before both they and the children were shot and dumped in a mass grave. The grave beneath one of the buildings is as of yet unexcavated but along with the men's graves nearer Puerto de Galis they are believed to be amongst the largest in the province with hundreds of victims.”

Well time has move on and at last excavations have started to recover the remains from the graves on what is a private estate. It is a daunting task. However on Saturday the first 28 of the hundreds of people who were tortured and executed by Franco’s troops at the cortijo were buried with dignity 76 years after they were shot and dumped in mass graves.

Theirs are the first bodies to be found in the seven mass graves that are known to be at the estate in the Valle de la Sauceda. In 1936 the estate was converted in to a torture camp for the hundreds of families who had sought refuge at Sauceda from the advancing Franco troops.

The Foro por la Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar and the Asociación de Familiares de Represaliados por el Franquismo de La Sauceda y El Marrufo began the work last July to archaeologically excavate the cortijo. The 28 discovered were all shot. It is clear they had their hands bound with wire and were then shot in the head: all also have different impacts on their bodies. This all goes to confirm the horrors that had occurred at El Marrufo between November 1936 and February 1937.

The 28 bodies found in the first phase of the excavation were buried in the cemetery at La Sauceda. The village is now abandoned and the cemetery was in a semi-ruined state but has now been restored for these victims so they could be buried in dignity.

Andrés del Río of the Foro por la Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar said it was important not only to recover their bodies but also to establish the Republican values and the ideas for which they died. The ceremony was attended by the director general of Memoria Democrática, Luis Naranjo Cordobés, who read a manifesto setting out the ideals for which these people were executed at the cortijo.

The studies have not concluded as the DNA of the victims has been collected so that their families can be traced. It will be difficult because between 200 and 800 people disappeared in La Sauceda and the historians have only located twenty families so far.

Back in 2009 I wrote these words about the ceremony I attended at La Sauceda. The same words ring just as true today after Saturday’s interments: “It is at these moments that the politics, the facts and the figures are stripped away. It is then you are faced with the raw emotion felt by those who suffered these deeds all these years ago. It was not statistics that perished but fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. It would take a stronger man (or woman) than me not to have been affected by their openly displayed grief and I have no shame in saying my tears mingled with theirs on this hallowed ground”.

(The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on December 6 2012 and in other publications).

TIME FOR OUR UNIONS TO COME TO SPAIN’S AID

At the Labour Party Conference in Manchester I was talking to some delegates from Unite the Union. I was speaking about the Spanish Civil War and the Unite Memorial at the Karl Marx Memorial Library in London. It was at that point that a non union member asked – “Why aren’t our unions doing more to help Spain now?” A good question.

Everybody knows that Spain is in an economic mess: it was brought on in part by the collapse of the speculative property bubble but at the heart of the debacle lies the country’s abusive and in some cases criminal banks.

The banks have received massive bailouts and are still in line for more cash. Indeed Bankia, which is at the centre of the scandal, has in the first nine months of this year reported the highest loss in Spanish banking history - 7,053 million euros. It is waiting for a cash injection of 19,000 million. As this appalling loss was announced its former president Rodrigo Rato was summoned to appear before the High Court to answer fraud charges.

It is against this scenario that Spain’s jobless totals have now hit over 25 per cent – the highest in Europe, nearly 53 per cent unemployment amongst the young (the European average is 22.8), with an accompanying cut to the dole payments. Education and the health service are in crisis; pensioners are under attack and every day over 500 people are evicted from their homes yet still owe the banks thousands on their mortgages.

The major unions, the UGT and CC.OO, are behind the many industrial protests. A general strike will be held on November 14 unless the Partido Popular centre right government cancels its austerity cuts or holds a referendum to approve them. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is committed to slash 150 billion euros over the next three years from State budgets.

Ignacio Fernández Toxo, leader of the Comisiones Obreras (CC.OO) said: “It’s up to the government whether there’s a general strike or not. If they were going to hold a referendum things would be completely different.” Expect the general strike to go ahead on November 14 – the same day as in Portugal, Greece and Cyprus with support from France and Italy in what will be a day of action and solidarity in the EU.

There is much more going on at street level. The people of Spain have given up on their politicians be they from the Partido Popular or indeed the socialist PSOE. It is Izquierda Unida, the far left alliance with the communists at their heart, which is making strong gains or the nationalists in the Basque and Catalan regions who are demanding independence. People are in uproar over the cuts, the corruption, the banks and the collapse of society.

It is a nation that is in despair and demonstrations of 60,000 people be it against the economic situation or the political system are now the norm. However the ghost of Franco lives on in Spain and there are many in the centre right Partido Popular who want to see an enforced end to all protests be they on the streets or over the social media.

The Spanish Government has been talking of a new law that would turn innocent protestors in to criminals. It is an attack on the heart of Spain’s democracy. It is using the isolated violent incidents that have occurred during these mass protests against corruption and the cuts to criminalise certain acts of peaceful protest. Indeed the very act of inviting a person to participate in a peaceful protest via Facebook would be against the law punishable by imprisonment. With the nation taking to the streets Rajoy looks to Franco for the solution.

A mass campaign has been underway in Spain to stop these amendments to the law in their tracks. Some argue they would not be permitted as they are against the Constitution. The key concern is that the Rajoy government is considering them at all because it displays a declaring of war on all who oppose their administration and at present that is the majority of the Spanish people. If Francoist repression cannot be introduced one way it will another.

Which brings me back to the question – “Why aren’t our unions doing more to help Spain now?” The Unite members were unanimous in their response that our unions should back their Spanish comrades. The fact is the crisis in Spain is far more than about the economic crisis, unemployment or the cuts, it is about the very foundations of democracy and free speech.

Many brave British trade unionists laid down their lives in the fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Many others such as Jack Jones fought, many were injured. The ghost of Franco is now stalking Spain: it is time for our trade unionists to support their Spanish comrades once again - not this time with their blood but certainly with their solidarity, words and deeds. Let us start on November 14. Ask your union today what it is going to do to support Spain’s embattled workers.

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on November 2 2012)

SPAIN’S ABUSIVE BANKS

The big economic news has been the massive 100 billion euros bailout of Spain’s banks with perhaps multi billions on the way. However the back story has been the numerous protests by Spaniards against measures to support banks which are largely in trouble through their own greed, corruption and mismanagement.

It is no surprise that Bankia is being investigated by the Guardia Civil for fraud. This is the bank whose 2011 results showed a profit of 40.9 million euros but turned out to be a loss of 3.3 billion euros. Read those figures again very carefully and you see the full extent of this fiscal fiasco.

The head of Bankia is José Ignacio Goirigoizarri. He asked the Spanish government for a 19 billion euros bailout. He also explained that the bank would not be repaying this money. It was not a loan or a handout but capitalisation so didn’t need to be returned. Remember that next time you go to the bank for a loan. Tell them you won’t be paying it back as it’s not a loan but you are recapitalising. Good luck with that one!

The other Spanish banks at the time were outraged by the bailout being handed to Bankia which accounts for around 50 per cent of all the bank debt in Spain. María Dolores Dancausa, a senior official at Bankinter, called the help given to Bankia as excessive and demanded an explanation as she and other bankers believed it gave the bankrupt bank an unfair advantage over them.

Now Spain is set to get a 100 million loan not bailout from the Euro zone that money has to be paid back. No doubt María Dolores is happier as all banks will be helped but I doubt whether Germany is going to buy Goirigoizarri’s argument he needn’t repay it as its just “capital”.

On the streets of Spain there is a major backlash against the rescuing of Bankia in what has been and still is an abusive banking system. Let me first take you to the Andalucía town of Ronda. Recently 71-year-old Antonio Gil Jiménez was detained in the centre of Ronda by police after entering a branch of the Caja Madrid and causing a disturbance as he demanded the return of his money. He accused the savings bank, which is now part of the embattled Bankia group, of having cheated him out of his savings.

Days after his protest he decided to take his complaint to the Ombudsman who is responsible for Bankia clients. He has asked for the return of the 18,000 euros he invested with the Caja Madrid three years ago in May 2009 in a deal that lasted “in perpetuity”. Not five years, not 10 years but “in perpetuity.”

Antonio Gil insists that at the time he believed he was investing his life savings in a secure account and not what has turned out to be a “producto basura” – a rubbish product. He had confidence in the financial entity with which he has banked for years but his trust was abused by a bank that could take a pensioners savings “in perpetuity”.

He says that since 2011 he has requested the cancellation of his investment in this product only to be told each time Caja Madrid would contact him. Finally in April he was informed his investment of 18,000 euros was worth 14.306.40 euros and a month later it had fallen further to 13,500 euros. This led to his angry protest in the bank in May.

Antonio Gil has asked the ombudsman for the return of his money in its entirety because he had not been given the correct information on an investment product which he has called “abusive”.

He is not alone. Ronda has a population of around 35,000 yet it is estimated that some 200 residents have been cheated by “productos basuras” with a number of financial institutions.

Now let us move on to Arcos de la Frontera just an hour’s drive from Ronda. Recently members of the Andaluz Workers Union and Izquierda Unida (United Left communist led-party) in Espera took over the Arcos branch of Caja Madrid in protest at the government’s rescue of Bankia. The protestors led by the communist mayor of Espera, Pedro Romero occupied the bank from 10.30 forcing the branch to close for business.

The mayor says the situation which is suffered by families in the Sierra de Cádiz is unsustainable, but the government prefers to concentrate its efforts on rescuing Bankia, even though the banks are to blame for the economic crisis. He says the government also makes it impossible for councils to help local residents, by restricting their money. 

Also in Cádiz province is Olvera, which is 30 minutes away from Ronda. On the same day as the Arcos protest the communist led council decided to close its accounts with two well-known savings banks because it believes they are not treating its clients properly. The local authority also invited other town halls to adopt similar measures against the abusive banks in their communities.

As you read this courts throughout Spain are admitting cases brought against banks that have entered in to abusive agreements with their clients in which they have seen their investment wiped out or greatly reduced. In the courts and on the streets the banks’ troubles are only just starting as a massive backlash takes place which will overshadow any EU bailout or government intervention. In many areas it is being led by the far left but in its anger Spain knows no political boundaries. Over 26 per cent of its people are unemployed whilst around half of its youth are jobless with no hope for the future. Yet the fat cat bankers are bailed out whilst families experience economic meltdown; have their homes repossessed and their benefits cut. No jobs for half a young generation but financial support, high salaries and bonuses for abusive bankers. Welcome to the Spain of the centre right Partido Popular and its premier Mariano Rajoy: truly the heirs of Franco.

(The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on Friday June 22 2012. Versions of this article have also appeared in Panorama and other publications).

SPAIN’S TRAGIC MAP OF DEATH

It is 75 years since the start of the Spanish Civil War and in recent days the Ministry of Justice has published a graphic map on its website showing more than 2,000 burial sites of the victims of the war and the Franco repression to be found on the Iberian Peninsula, the islands and the north coast of Africa.


It is not a map of historic reference but an aid to those who still want to find or recover their family members. Visitors to the ministry’s website can key in regions of Spain or a person’s name to see if the common grave has been located. Advice is given on how recover these remains for reburial depending on the rules and regulations applying in the various autonomous regions.

The map of Spain is covered with green, red, yellow, black and white markers denoting the state of a specific common burial site. Some graves have been exhumed, others untouched, some have disappeared, there are zones with a number of burial places but there is a giant blue star in the centre of Spain indicating the Valle de los Caídos where many of the victims of Franco’s slaughter was transferred to.

The Valle de los Caídos – Valley of the Fallen – was started by Franco in 1940 supposedly as a national act of atonement. It took over 18 years to build, cost over 1.1 billion pesetas with much of the funds raised from National Lottery draws and donations.

Just who built the monument is a matter of argument. Certainly the paid workers were the poor from the land who had no other employment. “Red” prisoners were also used. The charge that the monument site was “like a Nazi concentration camp” refers to the use of convicts and Popular Front war prisoners. They worked in exchange for their convictions being lifted. Ten per cent of the workforce is said to have been prisoners but other sources claim up to 20.000 prisoners were used with dark references to “forced labour.”

The Valle de los Caídos is the final resting place of Franco. He also had interred there José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falange, the Spanish Fascist party that aided Franco’s propulsion to power.

The valley contains both Nationalist and Republican graves but apart from being the final resting place of Primo de Rivera and Franco, the tone of the monument is distinctly Nationalist and anti-Communist. Here you will find the slogan “¡Caídos por Dios y por España!” - “Fallen for God and Spain!” symbolising the close ties between Franco’s regime and the Catholic Church. Franco also chose to announce the creation of the monument on 1 April 1940, the day of the victory parade to celebrate the first anniversary of his triumph over the Republic. Franco announced his personal decision to raise a splendid monument to those who had fallen in “his” cause.

As the Ministry of Justice published its map, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the Minister of the Interior, first vice president of the government and the favourite to succeed premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, said it would be practically impossible to identify thousands of the bodies at the Valle de los Caídos.

The Ministry of Justice’s map and website will have encouraged many people whose family members are interred there to try to find their remains. However Rubalcaba warned them the task would be extremely complex and practically impossible to achieve.

It is said that in the Valle de los Caídos are the remains of 33,847 victims of the Civil War from both sides. Between 1959 and 1983 491 bodies were removed and taken to their home towns and villages for reburial. According to the Patrimonio Nacional another 21,423 victims have been identified but the remains of 12,410 have not.

The events of 75 years ago plus the Franco era still haunt and divide Spain. The Ley de Memoría Histórica brought in by the socialist government aims to find the thousands of still missing graves so that grandparents, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters can finally be identified and laid to rest. It is a painful task.

(A version of the above article appeared in The Morning Star on May 11 2011)

SPANISH PROSECUTOR DEMANDS INVESTIGATION IN TO FRANCO’S MISSING BABIES

The numerous cases of babies that went missing shortly after their birth during the Franco era in Spain have now led the chief prosecutor of the nation’s High Court to write to the Ministry of Justice demanding a full investigation.

The cases date from 1940 and continued to just after Franco’s death in 1980. The chief prosecutor, Javier Zaragoza, has sent a letter to the minister of justice, Francisco Caamaño, to propose that the ministry opens a special office to handle the cases of those who believed their children or brothers and sisters have disappeared and to then seek a solution to their claims.

Zaragoza has called for an “administrative” investigation for the alleged crimes committed between 1940 and 1980. He wants the Ministry of Justice to locate the whereabouts of children reported missing and to investigate the false death certificates that were given to parents by hospitals at the time of supposed demise of their child – these parents suspect a false identity was then created for the baby.

Spain has introduced the ‘Ley de Memoria Histórica’ which was approved by parliament in 2007 but whilst it deals with the victims of the Civil War (1936-39) and during the era of the dictator Francisco Franco (1939 – 75) it does not include the children who disappeared during the ‘Franquismo’ period.

The letter from the chief prosecutor Javier Zaragoza was sent to the ministry just 15 days after he’d met with the families of the Grupos de Afectados de Clínicas de Toda España that had reported “hundreds of cases” of snatchings of recently born babies from Spanish clinics where the parents were told their infant had died.

However the actions of the chief prosecutor has been criticised by the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoría Histórica that represents the families of those who were victims of the Franco era. In a communiqué the association says the case should be far more that an “administrative” investigation. It points to: “the theft of the babies that have been kidnapped and these boys and girls are kidnap victims” and that has not been stated in the prosecutor’s letter. It is obvious a serious crime is involved; hence it should be a “criminal” investigation.

The Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón has previously stressed the need to investigate these thefts of children and opened a brief case in 2008 which suggested that 113,000 babies disappeared during the Civil War and the years of ‘Franquismo’. Garzón’s investigation was brought to a halt after the extreme right went to court to seek a ruling he had no competence in the matter. Garzón was suspended from his post on a temporary basis in May of this year – but the judge spoke out about the systematic kidnapping of the children of Republican prisoners who for more than 60 years have not had the minimum investigation into their case.

Garzón is of the opinion that there could have developed a system for the disappearance of minors, the children of Republican mothers (the dead, prisoners, executed, exiled or simply disappeared) for several years from 1937 to 1950, which at the time were carried out under the umbrella of apparent legality. The official records speak of 30,000 children being adopted during the 40s and 50s with cases largely handled by religious institutions.

Of course those responsible are now either very elderly or deceased and the records, if they exists, will be in archives. However many of the children will still be alive but unaware of their true identity or that their parents and brothers and sisters are searching for them.

(Photo: Baltasar Garzón)

(A version of the above article appeared in the Morning Star on December 12 2010)

FRANCO’S 30,000 STOLEN BABIES

La Línea is the Spanish town that has grown up across the border from Gibraltar at the tip of southern Spain. Over the years Spaniards have flocked to the town to seek work in the dock and ship yards plus the other booming businesses of Gibraltar. This is relevant to what follows because it means the itinerant husbands and wives did not have their families to support them in the event of giving birth or a child’s death.

Last November Cristina Díaz Carrasco broke the astonishing tale of her brother’s possible disappearance from La Línea hospital in 1967 to the media. He was said to have died shortly after his birth. As her mother was from Irún in Northern Spain and had no family in the area his body was buried by the hospital. The family returned each summer and left flowers on what was presumed to be his grave. However after works at the cemetery in 1980 the grave could not be found and it was subsequently discovered that there were no records at the cemetery, the Civil Registry or the archives of his birth, death or interment.

It was an interesting story but I presumed a one off. Not so because since Cristina made her suspicions public at least five other families have come forward with a similar tale in La Línea.

One of the latest involves a woman named Carmen from the Canary Islands. She came to La Línea in 1968 with her husband to work. She arrived pregnant and fearing all was not well sought medical aid. On November 14, 1968 she gave birth at the private Inmaculada Clinic to a son who she was told soon died.

Neither Carmen nor her husband had any family in La Línea and the hospital told them not to worry it would take care of everything. It was when her daughter saw Cristina Díaz Carrasco on the Antena 3 TV programme ‘Espejo Público’ and they discussed it she found their situations had been very similar and just a year apart.

She had never visited La Línea cemetery to visit the grave of her son but now she decided to make the trip. Again no grave could be found nor did the cemetery have any records of such a baby having been buried there in November of 1968. She also visited the Archivo Histórico Municipal in La Línea which holds the records from that time. There is no record of his birth, death or burial.

One might argue that this were cases of poor record keeping except that in wider Spain during the Franco era it has been established that children were indeed taken from their parents without their knowledge and passed on to an adoptive family.

It is reported Judge Baltasar Garzón has estimated that during the post war period of the Franco dictatorship a staggering 30,000 babies were re-allocated in this way. Garzón has reached that conclusion by gleaning facts and figures from various studies. It has also been reported that 200,000 pesetas was the price of acquiring such a baby in the 1960s. In his book – Mala gente que camina – Benjamín Prado says that in Spain people think “such things only happened in Argentina or Chile which had much shorter dictatorships. The courts do not want to investigate in case the same thing happened here.”

In Madrid in the 1960s one of the standard jokes amongst children was to say to their parents “did you buy me in the Rastro?” However Prado points out that many did just that – bought them at the market - and hence many Spaniards do not know their true parentage or indeed who they are.

Now there are many web pages and social networks on this theme. The problem is that the Andalucía health system that runs the present hospital La Línea didn’t exist then and the birth and death records are in archives with those involved in recording them long since retired or deceased. However the thirst for the truth amongst the 40-year-olds is strong and they will not be silenced until the truth is uncovered.

As I wrote this article the prosecutor in Algeciras – the nearest major town to La Línea - has decided to open an investigation into these local disappearances. Chief prosecutor, Juan Cisneros, has accepted the official reports by six families that involve births at the then municipal hospital in La Línea as well as two private clinics in the town. Cisneros says these cases have to be investigated to find answers for the families involved and determine just what happened in the last century.

All the affected families have now joined an association called Anadir formed by Antonio Barroso. He was adopted and suspects he was stolen from his true parents. The lawyer Enrique Vila is taking all these cases to the High Court both in Cádiz and in Spain where there are dozens more. However it has to be recognised that because of the time that has passed any investigation will be difficult to pursue a fact that was recently stressed by the head prosecutor in the Cádiz court, Ángeles Ayuso.

(Photo: Cristina Díaz Carrasco's grandmother supposedly with the body of her brother in La Línea hospital's mortuary).

(The above article appeared in The Morning Star in July 2010 and parts have appeared in Panorama in May and June 2010).