Two Tributes Honor the Diplomats and Journalists Who Stood Up to the Dictatorship

As part of the hundred events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of dictator Francisco Franco, two tributes were held on Monday for the diplomats who remained loyal to the Second Republic and for 20 journalists who worked to push the country toward democracy. The first event took place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where Minister José Manuel Albares unveiled a plaque with the names of the 45 members of the Foreign Service who, as noted by Ainoa Careaga, the granddaughter of one of them (Fernando Careaga), “lost everything to remain true to their principles.” The second tribute was held at the Larra building, current headquarters of the Diario Madrid Foundation, which fought for freedoms and the defense of free expression, earning it a series of sanctions and fines until its closure in 1971. There, a plaque was also unveiled to honor “those who defended freedoms through journalism.”

Albares explained that “very few” diplomats opposed Francoism (only 45 out of a total of 275 in 1936), but he emphasized that “they were the best,” as they “defended freedom and democracy” and “acted with loyalty” to the Constitution of 1931, therefore “paying a high price.” The dictatorship, he added, “sought to erase their names,” which is why he recited them one by one on Monday in the presence of their relatives, who were particularly moved at that solemn moment, as were other colleagues. “By honoring them,” the minister concluded, “we honor the profound essence of the democratic profession, which commits to using reason and word as the only instruments, never confrontation and conflict, and never war.” Ainoa Careaga, born into democracy and now a diplomat, explained that since adolescence she had been told the history of her family, “marked by loss, exile, and despair, but also by dignity, coherence, and the defense of ideals.” Her grandfather, Fernando Careaga Echevarría, was secretary of the Embassy in Helsinki during the Civil War and went into exile after Franco’s victory, first to France and then to Venezuela.

Clara Girbau, Spain’s ambassador to Guatemala and daughter of Vicente Girbau, a politician and diplomat who was arrested, tried, and imprisoned for nine months by the Franco dictatorship, was expelled from the diplomatic service after his imprisonment. Part of his ashes, as per his wish, were buried in the civil cemetery of Madrid, near Pablo Iglesias and members of the Free Institution of Education. He lost his Spanish passport, but as his daughter recalled in her message, “he continued his intellectual and political commitment against the dictatorship from abroad, joining what he called ‘the wandering Spain.’” In 1976, after Franco’s death, Girbau returned to Spain and was readmitted to the diplomatic service, retiring as Spanish ambassador to Malta.

The names of the 45 honored members of the Foreign Service this Monday are the result of research by historian and diplomat Ángel Viñas, who announced a new expanded and updated edition of the work In Service of the Republic: Diplomats and the Civil War, which he directed in 2010, at the initiative of then Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Ángel Moratinos.

During his speech at the event, Viñas lamented that “certain political parties, media, and the trash circulating on social networks” continue to “persist in maintaining the myths that were used to try to justify the coup d’état, the Civil War, and Francoism.” “Time and men pass,” the historian reminded, underscoring “the challenge” of continuing to unravel what happened and facing those who seek to “distort the past” with cultural wars: “They created it, the victors do it, and authors and politicians who do not bother to search in the archives or the aptly named graves of forgetfulness.”

Journalist Nativel Preciado also referred to that collective memory mission while paying tribute to the journalists who fought for the recovery of freedoms in Spain. Preciado, awarded alongside 20 other professionals, many of whom are connected to the Prisa Group (publisher of EL PAÍS), like two former directors of the newspaper—Juan Luis Cebrián and Soledad Gallego-Díaz—, Iñaki Gabilondo, Raúl Cancio, Manuel Vicent, Maruja Torres, Rosa Montero, and Andrés Rábago, El Roto; recalled a phrase by Nicolás Sartorius, one of the founders of the CC OO union: “The dictator died in bed, but the dictatorship died in the street.” “There were many anonymous heroes,” Preciado insisted. “José Antonio Martínez Soler [abducted in 1976 by an ultra group that tortured him to reveal his sources] risked his life and was beaten. Gorka Landaburu [a bomb package from ETA caused him to lose three fingers on one hand and two on the other], has war wounds. Journalists, worker priests, neighborhood movements, student groups, wives of prisoners… all pushed for democracy to arrive.”

Preciado, who spoke on behalf of the 20 awarded alongside Vicent and Víctor Márquez Reviriego, concluded her speech by calling to “not let those with chainsaws change the narrative,” and treat the “damaged current democracy” like a limping car that can still deliver much with some “small repairs.” The Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez, insisted on the same idea: “You are the living memory of our democracy. Tell the new generations, so they know what it took to achieve freedoms and the dangers now looming.”

A jury of experts selected by the Association of European Journalists and the Fundación Diario Madrid—including singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat, photographer Marisa Flórez, filmmaker Manuel Rodríguez Aragón, journalist Miguel Ángel Aguilar, historians Susana Sueiro and José Álvarez Junco, and writers Soledad Puértolas and Andrés Trapiello—selected the 20 journalists honored, but all insisted that “there are many more” who deserve this recognition. There was also a space left on the plaque placed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the diplomats whose names are still erased from history, who used the only weapons they had—courage and determination—to confront the dictatorship and help define the democratic country in which they wanted to live.