Speaker 1: From Fudro Media and pr X it's Latino USA. I'm
Speaker 1: Mariano Rosa Today. How a lawsuit filed in Argentina brings
Speaker 1: closure to victims of the Franco dictatorship.
Speaker 2: In Spain El Pole.
Speaker 1: On April twenty eighth, twenty nineteen, Spain held elections to
Speaker 1: choose the National Parliament, which in turn voted to select a.
Speaker 3: Prime ministers icon A.
Speaker 1: Japerio in Passao, the winning Socialist party has pledged to
Speaker 1: exhume the remains of Francisco Franco, Spain's former dictator, who
Speaker 1: died in nineteen sen seventy five and is buried under
Speaker 1: a massive mausoleum. They say Franco doesn't deserve the honor
Speaker 1: of having a major monument to his life. But this
Speaker 1: pledge has caused some controversy with people on the right
Speaker 1: who supported the dictator, and mixed into all of this,
Speaker 1: there are also demands from victims of the Spanish dictatorship
Speaker 1: to find and recover the remains of those who were
Speaker 1: killed and were buried in mass graves during Franco's forty
Speaker 1: year rule.
Speaker 2: He Yo de la Fochia HeLa.
Speaker 1: The issue of victim's remains has been a major feature
Speaker 1: of the national conversation in Spain recently and is now
Speaker 1: the topic of a documentary film. Over six years, Emmy
Speaker 1: Award winning filmmakers On Mudena Carraseo and Robert Bahar have
Speaker 1: been following a movement for justice that began with a
Speaker 1: kitchen table conversation and has evolved into a groundbreaking international
Speaker 1: lawsuit that brought together he hundreds of survivors of the
Speaker 1: dictatorship Keggio Framarza Tolousi laos ken.
Speaker 3: Francismo.
Speaker 1: The result is a touching documentary, Elilenzio DeRos or The
Speaker 1: Silence of Others, which follows the development of this lawsuit
Speaker 1: as it pieces together the stories of some of the
Speaker 1: victims of Franco's unbridled violence and connects this with the
Speaker 1: country's recent history.
Speaker 2: Implemento Nolvido Una mistia de toros paratos unlvidos paratos Nalai.
Speaker 1: The film, which was executive produced by acclaimed director Pedrol Modovar,
Speaker 1: won the twenty nineteen Goya Award, which is the Spanish
Speaker 1: equivalent of the Oscars. In twenty nineteen, directors al Mudena
Speaker 1: Carraselo and Robert Bahar join me to talk about their
Speaker 1: film all the way from Madrid. We're really happy to
Speaker 1: bring you this conversation once again today and welcome to
Speaker 1: Latino USA. Al Mudena and Robert oh Law, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, thank you, and right now the both of
Speaker 1: you are in Madrid. Am I right?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Correct, yes, I wish I was there is all I
Speaker 1: can say. Madrid is one of my all time favorite cities.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: I'm wonderful.
Speaker 1: But you know, when people think now of Spain, they
Speaker 1: think of Madrid there like fabulous cosmopolitan city that's like
Speaker 1: up all night. They think of Barcelona, this really bohemian place.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people right now are not thinking
Speaker 1: about the fact that for almost forty years Spain lived
Speaker 1: under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
Speaker 2: It's great that you bring it out because very often
Speaker 2: we think of the Franco dictatorship, if anyone knows about it,
Speaker 2: you know, we think of beaches and nice weather. We
Speaker 2: don't realize that a lot of the tourists that came
Speaker 2: to Spain during that time were coming too a country
Speaker 2: where people were being tortured, people were being murdered, so
Speaker 2: there was a complete lack of freedom of you know,
Speaker 2: freend of a press, freenom of expression. Obviously, for a
Speaker 2: lot of people who fought against it, it was a
Speaker 2: very deadly dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Now, in nineteen seventy five, Francisco Franco, the dictator dies,
Speaker 1: and I mean, I just can't imagine what that is
Speaker 1: like to suddenly the dictator has died, and now it's
Speaker 1: time to move into a democratic system.
Speaker 3: What's really fascinating is that in the case of sping,
Speaker 3: Franco died while he was still in power, and part
Speaker 3: of what that meant was that his regime had tremendous
Speaker 3: power and control in the process of shaping what democracy
Speaker 3: would look like in Spain, and that these two models
Speaker 3: has transition through rupture. Where there's a revolution is just
Speaker 3: to break with the past. This is transitioned through transaction
Speaker 3: where they negotiate with the outgoing regime. And so many
Speaker 3: of the ministers and the powers that be in the
Speaker 3: Franco regime helped shape the democracy. There ended up being
Speaker 3: a tremendous continuity between especially judges, the judiciary, the security forces, police, military,
Speaker 3: many of the same families and the same officials continued.
Speaker 1: So as part of this there's a discussion about amnesty right,
Speaker 1: how to deal with the crimes, you know, human rights
Speaker 1: violations that occurred under the dictatorship. And then there's a
Speaker 1: decision to create what is known in English as a
Speaker 1: pact of forgetting and Espanol.
Speaker 2: Is el Pacto de lolo.
Speaker 1: El Pacto del olvido, which.
Speaker 2: Is as if you could create a pact for that, and.
Speaker 1: It basically says, we as a country are basically going
Speaker 1: to say what's done is done. Forty years of dictatorship done,
Speaker 1: and we're going to make a pact to forget.
Speaker 3: Yes, And its main purpose was originally to free from
Speaker 3: the left political prisoners, but they added a clause to
Speaker 3: the amnesty law that said none of the crimes of
Speaker 3: the dictatorship would ever be prosecuted.
Speaker 2: The big problem with that, obviously, is that you're crafting
Speaker 2: a transition into democracy at the expense of hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands of people who will not get justice or even
Speaker 2: truth or even reparations. We're talking about thousands and thousands
Speaker 2: of people whose family members were killed, murdered and buried
Speaker 2: in mass graves still unknown mass graves all over the country.
Speaker 2: One hundred and forty thousand people are still buried in
Speaker 2: mass graves, and it's very important to remember the film
Speaker 2: is about the present. What is the legacy of that
Speaker 2: packed into the present day today in a democracy that
Speaker 2: it's now forty years old.
Speaker 1: But in your film, actually when you go and you're
Speaker 1: asking Spaniards, hey, do you know about you know, the
Speaker 1: pact of forgetting? Do you know about this amnesty? You
Speaker 1: know in terms of the crimes that were committed under Franco,
Speaker 1: And it turns out that a lot of Spaniards don't
Speaker 1: even know. So how is that possible?
Speaker 3: Well, I think what's so fascinating about the fact that
Speaker 3: people don't know is that the pact of forgetting worked,
Speaker 3: and the pact of forgetting in a sense comes from
Speaker 3: Franco's discourse during forty years. If you look at many people,
Speaker 3: if you look at almotin his parents, for example, people
Speaker 3: spent their entire lives, they're born under dictatorship and lived
Speaker 3: under dictatorship, and so the discourse was we shouldn't talk
Speaker 3: about that. It's dangerous to talk about that. And as
Speaker 3: you reach the transition this idea to forget, the only
Speaker 3: way we can ave forward as a society is to
Speaker 3: put this behind us. Turn the page and move on
Speaker 3: was very convincing to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: The film starts with this really beautiful sequence of a
Speaker 1: quite elderly woman who's kind of wrapping her hair, and
Speaker 1: then she's getting her little walker, and she's in a small,
Speaker 1: little Spanish village, and then she gets to the side
Speaker 1: of a two lane highway and you know, she just
Speaker 1: lays flowers down and says, this is where her mother
Speaker 1: was murdered by the Franco regime.
Speaker 2: Know that this was a very powerful scene for us
Speaker 2: because it represented a lot of well, it's happened in Spain,
Speaker 2: and it has happened in Spain right, the fact that
Speaker 2: you could pave over a mass grave, tried to bury
Speaker 2: the past, try to do as though it didn't exist,
Speaker 2: this modern day democracy where the past has been buried,
Speaker 2: but where there are people, thousands and thousands of people
Speaker 2: who cannot forget and who go every day to the
Speaker 2: side of the roads to put flowers.
Speaker 1: So I think that something that a lot of people
Speaker 1: will remember is that it actually turns out that in
Speaker 1: Spain there is a judge who ends up indicting a
Speaker 1: former dictator happens to be the former dictator of Chile
Speaker 1: Agusto Pinochet, and that sets a precedent.
Speaker 4: In Spain. There's a judge who for more than a
Speaker 4: decade has been chasing drug lords and dictators, terrorists and
Speaker 4: corrupt politicians from across the globe. His name Baltasar Garzon.
Speaker 4: He is arrest warrant for the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet,
Speaker 4: set an international president.
Speaker 3: What's so fascinating is that Judge Garson was a pioneer
Speaker 3: and the Spanish courts were actually pioneers in using this
Speaker 3: principle called universal jurisdiction to pursue human rights crimes in Chile,
Speaker 3: in Argentina, and actually in many places around the world.
Speaker 3: And this put Spain at the forefront of seeking justice
Speaker 3: after dictatorial regimes. And after indicting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet,
Speaker 3: Garson started an investigation into the crimes of the Franco
Speaker 3: dictatorship and he really started to open this and he
Speaker 3: was put on trial in Spain for violating space means
Speaker 3: amnesty law, and that opened the way for victims of
Speaker 3: these crimes to go to Argentina to open the case
Speaker 3: there using that same principle universal jurisdiction to investigate the
Speaker 3: crimes of Francoism.
Speaker 2: You know, once the doors close in Spain, that's when
Speaker 2: the doors of justice can open somewhere else, and the
Speaker 2: case falls under Maria Levini the Kurria, which is a
Speaker 2: judge that has been following very closely. She's known to
Speaker 2: be the judge for the stolen children in Argentina. Between
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six and nineteen eighty three, during the dictatorship
Speaker 2: in Argentina, five hundred babies were stolen from their parents
Speaker 2: who were opponents of the regime. It's a curious thing because,
Speaker 2: as you were saying, you know, Spain became a model
Speaker 2: of how to do a transition, and in fact, many
Speaker 2: many years later in Spain we look to Latin American
Speaker 2: democracies to give us a lesson about memory.
Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino USA, the lawsuit moves forward and
Speaker 1: hundreds of victims join the cause. Stay with us. Yes, hey,
Speaker 1: we're back, and we're going to continue our conversation now
Speaker 1: with Almudena Carrasselo and Robert Bahar. They're the directors of
Speaker 1: the documentary The Silence of Others, which follows the development
Speaker 1: of a lawsuit filed in Argentina to address crimes committed
Speaker 1: during this Spanish dictatorship. So it turns out that it's
Speaker 1: actually went over six years that you were working on
Speaker 1: the film. There's an older gentleman who was tortured by
Speaker 1: members of the Franco regime, and he speaks very specifically
Speaker 1: about the kind of torture that he experienced. And the
Speaker 1: thing is is that he remembers who it was who
Speaker 1: was torturing him. And many years later, it turns out
Speaker 1: that this man ends up living blocks away from his torture.
Speaker 3: That was absolutely shocking to us. I think, for me,
Speaker 3: as someone who grew up in the United States, just
Speaker 3: as you said earlier, I don't think of Spain as
Speaker 3: a country where someone could be living a few hundred
Speaker 3: meters from his torturer. From a policeman nicknamed Billy the Kid,
Speaker 3: who actually everyone in Madrid knows the name Billy the Kid.
Speaker 3: There have been newspaper articles about Billy the Kid since
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy nine or nineteen eighty, and recently it was
Speaker 3: even discovered that in the days ear days of democracy,
Speaker 3: Billy the Kid was actually awarded various medals for excellent
Speaker 3: meritorious conduct, and thus the state pension that he receives
Speaker 3: has a fifty percent bump. And then there was even
Speaker 3: even more recent issue where there was a party held
Speaker 3: at a police station in the center of Madrid and
Speaker 3: someone took a photograph and they saw that Billy the
Speaker 3: kid was real named as Antonio Gonzales Pacheco, had been
Speaker 3: invited to that party, and so the present day National
Speaker 3: Police Force was still communicating with him and had welcomed
Speaker 3: him at an event.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you uncover in your film
Speaker 1: is kind of the crimes of the dictatorship of Franco
Speaker 1: really live on. Of course, there's legacy, there's impact, there's trauma,
Speaker 1: but then you talk about something that my jaw just
Speaker 1: dropped because it's a story that we know so well
Speaker 1: from Argentina and it's tatorship, which was the stolen children, right,
Speaker 1: children who were taken when their parents were disappeared and murdered,
Speaker 1: and it turns out that the same thing exists in Spain.
Speaker 1: You have the stolen children of Spain.
Speaker 3: Well, the story of the stolen children in Spain goes
Speaker 3: back to the very end of the Spanish Civil War.
Speaker 2: Laya mammos La Espanola Piro Comentho.
Speaker 3: And it started with a psychiatrist who was the head
Speaker 3: of military psychiatry under Franco and his name was Bijonahara,
Speaker 3: and he had written books and he had said eugenics
Speaker 3: theories under the Nazis, and he believed that by separating
Speaker 3: children of the Reds, children of Republican families, that you
Speaker 3: could cleanse the children of those ideas and a sort
Speaker 3: of a eugenics kind of idea. And so the idea
Speaker 3: of stealing children started by taking children from Republican mothers
Speaker 3: who were in jail, possibly about to be executed at
Speaker 3: the end of the Spanish Civil War, and giving those
Speaker 3: children to families that were loyal to the regime, in
Speaker 3: some cases perhaps military families. That was in the early years,
Speaker 3: and as you moved past the nineteen forties, the patterns
Speaker 3: seemed to change and instead of taking children from politically
Speaker 3: unfit or unacceptable families, they start to target morally unfit
Speaker 3: families to single mothers, families are very poor families with
Speaker 3: eleven children, and there are stories of deathbed confessions where
Speaker 3: parents have said, I must tell you you are not
Speaker 3: actually our child. We bought you, or every summer when
Speaker 3: we went, we had to actually make installment payments. And
Speaker 3: it is a terrible scandal. It's very difficult to know
Speaker 3: the scale. In Garson's investigation, he estimated that there have
Speaker 3: been thirty thousand potential cases up to about nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 3: There are some people who estimate into the hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands through today.
Speaker 1: So I'm watching the movie at my desk in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day, you know, prepping for the interview,
Speaker 1: and then I'm getting to the end of the film
Speaker 1: and I got to be honest with you, I mean,
Speaker 1: the tears just start streaming down my face because what
Speaker 1: ends up happening is that thanks to the Argentinian judge,
Speaker 1: one of the older women survivors, her name is Asencion,
Speaker 1: she's told that her father's remains are going to be exhumed.
Speaker 1: And there's this moment when you are there when they
Speaker 1: find the remains of Asencion's father, along with the remains
Speaker 1: of twenty one other people, and all we're seeing is
Speaker 1: a skull. But for us, since you know, who hasn't
Speaker 1: seen her father, who has disappeared and put into this
Speaker 1: mass grave. The moment when she sees this skull and
Speaker 1: we know that it's her father. She says, Oh, it
Speaker 1: was so dramatic.
Speaker 2: Your pay can do I right, she says, ay a
Speaker 2: whole life underground. That was one of the sort of
Speaker 2: most emotionally powerful moments for us as filmmakers. When the
Speaker 2: viewers crying, you really need to picture us crying there too.
Speaker 1: Where do things stand now? Where is the lawsuit? Does
Speaker 1: the story end with the lawsuit? What is the next
Speaker 1: chapter of Spain?
Speaker 3: In terms of what's happening in the Argentine lawsuit, the
Speaker 3: lawsuit continues. Despite many kind words from the government. There
Speaker 3: is still this amnesty law. There is still this impunity
Speaker 3: and it's actually fascinating. The lawyers told us that after
Speaker 3: watching the film there were some people who had been
Speaker 3: scared to become plaintiffs and to join the Argentine lawsuit,
Speaker 3: and they have now joined the lawsuit and have sent
Speaker 3: their stories to Judge Cervini in Buenos Aires. In terms
Speaker 3: of the impact that the film is having, just couple
Speaker 3: of weeks ago, the film was seen by more than
Speaker 3: a million people here that night. Ten minutes after the
Speaker 3: broadcast ended, many of the plaintiffs in the suit launched
Speaker 3: a petition asking that the government modify that amnesty laws
Speaker 3: so that it cannot be applied to crimes against humanity.
Speaker 3: There are now more than one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 3: signatures on that petition, and so there's a hope that
Speaker 3: the more visibility that this has, the more that through
Speaker 3: cultural means as well as through legal means, this pact
Speaker 3: of forgetting is broken and there is remembering that there
Speaker 3: can be change.
Speaker 2: We just launched actually something called our less Cone Memoria,
Speaker 2: so that every school and high school in the country
Speaker 2: can screen the film for free Our Les Memoria, meaning
Speaker 2: Classrooms with Memory, and it really is very beautiful and
Speaker 2: very powerful what films can do in terms of helping
Speaker 2: people understand, helping people empathize, helping people take action. And
Speaker 2: so their journey continues.
Speaker 3: But there was also just an election in Spain on Sunday,
Speaker 3: and on the one hand, spain Socialist Party won the
Speaker 3: most number of votes and will probably be able to
Speaker 3: lead the coalition government. But something very concerning also happened,
Speaker 3: which is that for the first time there's an ultra
Speaker 3: right party that has emerged in Spain, and twenty three
Speaker 3: or twenty four representatives in the Congress are now going
Speaker 3: to come from an ultra right, ultra nationalist, anti immigrant,
Speaker 3: anti abortion, anti women's rights party.
Speaker 1: I'm Mudena and Robert. Thank you so much for your
Speaker 1: work and thank you so much for joining us on
Speaker 1: Latino USA.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Miguel Marzias. It was edited
Speaker 1: by Marlon Bishop. It was mixed by Julia Caruso with
Speaker 1: engineering support from Jjkrubin. The Latino USA team also includes
Speaker 1: Jessica Ellis, Victoria Strada, Renaldo Leanoz Junior, Stephanie Lebou, Andrea
Speaker 1: Lopez Cruzado, Luis Luna, Glodi mad Marquez, Martin Martinez, Nor Saudi,
Speaker 1: and Nancy Trujillo. Pile Ramidez is our co executive producer.
Speaker 1: I'm your host and also co executive producer. Join us
Speaker 1: again on our next episode. In the meantime, look for
Speaker 1: us on all of your social media. That's where I'll
Speaker 1: see you, not Te bayas Baye.
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Speaker 5: the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the
Speaker 5: Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of
Speaker 5: social change worldwide.
Speaker 1: Perestan Locos, Burquees Madrid, Viamen de Las and pis La.
Speaker 1: Of course, boy, they're crazy to be doing an interviewed. Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. Ready,