Seven decades later, civil war still splits Spain

MARCA, Spain, Dec 4: Seventy years after he was shot during the Spanish civil war, 90-year-old Leandro Saun turns red with anger when talking about a conflict that still divides Spain.

''We're only partially over it,'' he says during a debate in Marca, a small village near the Ebro river, site of one of the bloodiest battles of the 1936-1939 war.

Saun fought with the Republican forces against General Francisco Franco's men, and spent 12 years in prison, four of them under a death sentence.

He has been telling his story at a string of events this year to mark 70 years since the outbreak of the war -- an anniversary that has opened a bitter debate between Spain's left and right on a subject long shrouded in silence.

''People of the first generation carry this in their hearts, but the present generation is different, we're on our way to this becoming less traumatic,'' says Jose Luis Ledesma, a professor at the University of Zaragoza.

The grandchildren of those who fought in the war are lifting the lid on an era their parents sought to ignore for fear of Franco, whose 36-year dictatorship only ended with his death in 1975. Around 50,000 people disappeared, were imprisoned or tortured during his time in power.

Grandparents, many now in their 90s, are also speaking up, feeling that time may be running out to tell their stories.

The war killed about half a million people and deepened the split between liberals and conservatives. For decades, it was a silent presence that simmered beneath politics and society.

''There's definitely an awakening, a huge movement to recover the memory,'' says Angela Jackson, a British civil war researcher who lives in Marca.

''Still, many people would rather not talk about it.''

NOT OVER YET

More than 100 graves of Republican fighters have been opened in recent years by people still seeking relatives; tours following specific battles such as the Ebro are being drawn up and secret underground passages and trenches used during the fighting are being cleaned up to show to the public.

Spanish students are learning again about poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who was killed by Franco's forces but was only briefly mentioned in textbooks until the late 1980s.

They are also being taken on school trips to see the physical remnants of the war, towns like Corbera d'Ebre, in Tarragona, a village in ruins, unchanged since the war ended.

''Spain is still three quarters of the way towards being an established democracy,'' says Paul Preston, a professor at the London School of Economics and author of numerous books about the civil war.

''But Spain isn't over the civil war yet. We're going through a period where things have to get worse before they get better.'' The debate has intensified since the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose grandfather was killed fighting Franco's men, was elected in 2004. In July, the government said it wanted to officially recognise victims of the civil war and offer compensation to relatives of the dead and imprisoned.

Opposition parties accused the government of reopening old wounds while some relatives of the dead said the plan did not go far enough.

''It's a disgrace that the president of the government opens up the wounds from the civil war. That was all settled by Franco,'' says Emilio de Miguel, a director at the Franco Foundation in Madrid.

The Foundation organises an annual mass at the Valley of the Fallen near Madrid, where Franco is buried, to mark the anniversary of his death on November 20. Up to 5,000 people attend every year, de Miguel says.

DESTROYED TOWN

The scars of the war -- physical and emotional -- can be found in Belchite in northern Spain -- a ruin of a town left untouched and uninhabited because Franco wanted to show the damage caused by the Republican fighters.

The Republicans launched a major offensive on Belchite in 1937, hoping to capture nearby Zaragoza. Most of the town was destroyed in fierce house-to-house fighting.

''Those who had relatives killed, of course, will keep resentment,'' said 86-year-old Angel, an olive tree owner in Belchite.

After the war, Angel and Belchite's other residents moved to a new village built by Franco next-door to the old town. The new village has streets named after Franco's generals, and dates marking significant events during his rule.

The old town's entrances haves been walled up as the ruins have become dangerous but some tourists and historians do sneak in.

Locals frown on people asking questions about the past.

For Isaac Montoya, an amateur historian who has spent years looking for the remains of planes shot down in the Ebro region, many of the past's secrets have yet to be unearthed.

''We still need to investigate in depth and give another version, different to the Franco one,'' he said. ''There's still a lot of people out there, I've found lots of bones in the middle of the forest, including skulls and femurs.'' Spanish schools now teach about the civil war - unlike 15 years ago when it was not on the syllabus. But there is little consistency in what children learn.

''What Catalan children are taught is nothing like what children in Andalusia are taught,'' says Paco Espinosa, a historian at the University of Seville.

As Spain tries to agree on the truth, witnesses like Saun offer valuable testimony.

''We are all Lorca,'' the 90-year-old tells the audience in Marca.

Reuters