• Proposal to rename street in honor of Republican general causes controversy
• City to begin name changes in keeping with Spain’s ‘Law of Historic Memory’
In the renaming of streets previously called in honor of the victorious Spanish Civil War forces of Nationalist Gen. Francisco Franco, a controversy has erupted in the city of Ciudad Real over submission of a proposal to rename a street in honor of Gen. Antonio Escobar Huerta, the last commanding officer loyal to the Republican government to surrender his command to Franco’s forces.
Escobar Huerta finally surrendered to Nationalist Gen. Juan Yagüe at the old casino of Ciudad Real on Mar. 26th, 1939, in the final days of Spain’s bloody three-year civil war. Escobar was then transferred to Barcelona and later executed by firing squad on Feb. 8th 1940 at Barcelona’s Castle of Montjuic.
The petititon for the street’s name change comes after the local municipal council announced that in 2016 it will begin to implement name changes to those streets formerly named in honor of heroes of the Franco dictatorship. Such name changes have been called for by Spain’s “Law of Historic Memory”, which was passed by a Socialist party-led parliament in 2007 but whose implementation has been all but stalled since 2011 under the government of the conservative Partido Popular (PP).
Read the Full Story in Spanish at La Tribuna de Ciudad Real >>
