After a two-year battle with the government, heirs of the Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco have been ordered to open his flamboyant summer estate to the public.
The regional government of Galicia this week declared the late 19th-century property in the town of Sada a cultural heritage site. As such, El Pazo de Meiras must open its doors to the public four days a month. Franco’s heirs have asked the government to cover the cost of security on those days.
The move is the most recent step in Spain’s belated quest to come to terms with the legacy of its civil war and the Franco dictatorship. The last triumphant equestrian statute of the dictator was removed from public view last month — more than 30 years after his death.
Street signs honoring Franco and his generals have also recently been withdrawn from many towns, and volunteers have dug up the remains of his victims buried in mass graves.
The neomedieval estate was officially given as an “offering” by the city of La Coruna to the Generalissimo — “founder of the new empire,” according to the effusive gift-giving decree — amid the nationalistic furor of the civil war. But the money to pay for this gift came from taxpayers and forced donations by residents of the La Coruna region, where Franco was born.
“In reality, it was plunder dressed up as a purchase,” wrote Manuel Rivas, a Galician writer, in El Pais, adding that the palatial token was a “trophy of triumph.”
The fortress-like property and its surrounding gardens and forests was bought in 1938 from a writer, Emilia Pardo Bazan, for between 400,000 and 750,000 pesetas (US$334,000 and US$626,000), ABC newspaper reported. The generalissimo used it as a summer getaway during his 40-year dictatorship.
“I accept this gift with pleasure exclusively because it is a donation from my beloved countrymen,” Franco is quoted to have said on taking possession.
The Commission to Recover Historic Memory of La Coruna plans to offer guided tours describing the forced donations and other pressures that put El Pazo de Meiras into Franco’s hands.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
NOTORIOUS JAIL: Even from a distance, prisoners maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger, could be distinguished Armed men broke the bolts on the cell and the prisoners crept out: haggard, bewildered and scarcely believing that their years of torment in Syria’s most brutal jail were over. “What has happened?” asked one prisoner after another. “You are free, come out. It is over,” cried the voice of a man filming them on his telephone. “Bashar has gone. We have crushed him.” The dramatic liberation of Saydnaya prison came hours after rebels took the nearby capital, Damascus, having sent former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fleeing after more than 13 years of civil war. In the video, dozens of
RSS