The new Law of Democratic Memory has already managed to remove from his tomb, located in a prominent place in Seville’s Basílitica de La Macarena, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, the Francoist lieutenant colonel who filled Andalusia with terror, considered one of the bloodiest of the Civil War. Now, memory associations raise doubts about the legitimacy of the properties of the family of the genocide; both from his farmhouse, as well as from the marquisate held by one of his grandchildren and from the foundation that bears his name.
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One of the memory platforms that is fighting the hardest in Andalusia is called Gambogaz, and from this Thursday they celebrate the exhumation of the remains of Queipo de LLano. However, they complain about the lack of involvement of the institutions, including the Secretariat of Democratic Memory, to clarify the true origin of the properties and titles that the coup military man held, and that his family now manages.
Gambogaz is also the name of the farmhouse that is still in the hands of the Queipo de Llano family. In accordance with the new Law, the association wants the farm, located in the municipality of Camas next to the Guadalquivir river and has an aspect of semi-abandonment, to become part of the public heritage and become a place for historical memory.
Of course, they also want the government to withdraw the title of marquis, which now falls to one of the grandsons of the far-right military man, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano Mencos.
He was the Minister of Justice, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon who gave the order to renew that title after the death of the general’s son in 2012. That July 17, within the framework of the 76th anniversary of the military uprising that gave rise to the Civil War, the title was published in the BOE. from marquis to the grandson of one of the most bloodthirsty coup plotters during the Spanish war.
Doubtful origin of the Queipo money for the Cortijo
Scholars of memory, among whom are mainly lawyers and historians, who also want to investigate the formation and journey of the Fundación Benéfica Social Agraria Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, created in 1937 to buy the farm. They intend to investigate and denounce before the Justice how that 480-hectare farmhouse ended up in the hands of the military in December 1937, after paying 1.3 million of the old pesetas.
As published The Spanishin March 2021 the Gambogaz platform technicians verified that Queipo had not acquired the farmhouse with his own money, nor with the Sevillian popular collection in gratitude for his military achievements against the Second Republic: it was always believed that it had been the origin of the money.
According to Bonifacio Cañibano, spokesperson for the repair organization, the purchase of the farm was made “with public money from the Bank of Spain, without there being a clear answer about the origin of that capital”, and he assures that there is no evidence that this money has ever been returned. For the collective, it was the same general who disclosed the hoax of the collection to justify the purchase of the farmhouse from a rancher imprisoned at the time, who always claimed to have never charged for the property.
The foundation created for that purchase is now called ProInfancia Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, it is supposedly dedicated to the protection of underprivileged children, and is chaired by another grandson of the coup plotter and cousin of the current Marquis, Gonzalo Garcia Queipo de Llano.
When asked by the media, none of the relatives of the rebel soldier and right-hand man of Francisco Franco it details the activity of the foundation, nor does it provide the minutes book of the board of trustees, they do not define their own physical headquarters to go to, nor virtual, because they lack a website.
The groups that want to bring to light the truth of the events that occurred during the conflict and in the decades that followed want the Queipo de Llano to return everything; title, properties of doubtful legitimacy, and foundations that could only be a management screen.
The new Democratic Memory law includes the possibility of investigating seizures produced for political, ideological, conscientious or religious reasons during the Civil War and the Dictatorship and recognizes the right to compensation for seized assets.