Sunday 25 November 2007

Salvador Puig Antich



















By one of those strange coincidences the 20th November is also the anniversary of the death of General Francisco Franco.

Almost forty years after his bloody military coup he died in his bed.

The less said the better.

I prefer to commemorate the death of the Catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antich, the last person to be executed by garrotte vil on Franco's orders on the 2nd March 1974.

A recent film, "Salvador", relates a romanticized, falsified version of his life and execution.

The less said the better.

I prefer to recommend the film "El Verdugo" (The Executioner, Luis Garcia Berlanga. 1963), a black comedy about capital punishment and one of the best Spanish films I´ve ever seen.


The 20th November is also the anniversary of the execution by the Republicans in 1936, of the founder of the Falange, José Antonio Primo de Rivera.

It is not a coincidence that last week, with a variety of commemorative acts and demonstrations organized by right-wing, neo-Nazi groups and others who mourn the passing of the dictatorship, the American white-supremacist and former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, was invited to speak in several Spanish cities.

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