Spain faces up to its past

The Spanish examining magistrate Baltasar Garzón has decided that his court will be responsible for investigating the murders carried out by the Franco regime during the civil war and the dictatorship that followed. Now he wants to open several graves. The daily El País comments that addressing Spain's past is long overdue: "After seventy years putting Franco on virtual trial is essential for the future of a country that has not managed to examine the misdeeds of its past as other countries have done with their traumatic experiences. The public abuse to which Garzón is being subjected shows how great the democratic deficit in Spain is. This is mainly due to the fact that [the country] did not face up to the ghosts [of its past] when the time came to do so."

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