Fernando Souto (c), president of the Commission for the Recovery of Historical Memory, accompanied by Beatriz Gómez (d) and Emilio Vega Rodríguez (i), from the association’s Historical Memory working group, during the press conference in which They have addressed the complaint that they have filed with the prosecutor’s office against the council of A Coruña, on the occasion of the refusal to withdraw honors from Sergio Peñamaría de Lano, mayor of A Coruña during the Franco regime. EFE/Cabalar
A Coruña, Mar 22 (EFE).- The Commission for the Recovery of the Historical Memory of A Coruña has denounced the City Council before the Prosecutor’s Office after failing to remove a street and a portrait of the former Francoist mayor Sergio Peñamaría de Llano.
In a press conference under the banner ‘Get Francoists off our streets’, the president of the Commission, Fernando Souto, explained that the entity, after demanding for months the withdrawal of the honors of Peñamaría de Llano, “due to democratic hygiene ” has decided to file a complaint against the City Council with the Prosecutor’s Office.
“We do not want future generations to repeat the acts of Peñamaría de Llano. We have to clean up our city ”, he recounted the need to eliminate the street of this former mayor and the portrait that is in the City Hall.
Therefore, he demands that the Prosecutor’s Office -with a letter delivered on March 16 and delivered to the media- act and demand that the local government comply with the Democratic Memory law and “remove it from the street.”
The member of the Commission Emilio Vega has assured that the A Coruña City Council “is placing itself in a democratic illegality” and has asked himself “what are the reasons why the A Coruña City Council refuses to withdraw these honours”.
According to data from expert Manuel Monge, 140 elements of Francoist symbology still remain in A Coruña and it is accepted that there are 14 streets with names linked to Francoism whose names must be changed.
Sergio Peñamaría de Llano was a soldier and mayor of A Coruña between 1959 and 1963 and participated, according to the entity, in the postwar period in the physical repression in the Valdeorras region as a lieutenant in command of the I Tercio de III Bandera de la Legión.
The entity also demanded almost a year ago that the Military Museum of A Coruña withdraw the honors of this same former mayor, a situation that has not yet been answered.
