Nieves Lady Barreto defends democratic memory “without resentment or ideological bias”

The documentary “Los Pozos del Olvido”, promoted by the Association for Historical Memory of Arucas and funded by the regional government, was screened on Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. in the Insular Youth Center of Puerto del Rosario, in front of students from IES Puerto del Rosario.

It is an educational project focused on historical memory and the reparations owed to the victims of the 1936 coup and the Civil War in the Canary Islands, as explained by Councillor for the Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands, Nieves Lady Barreto, in an interview on the program La Voz de Fuerteventura on Radio Insular.

“We have not been able to speak clearly and calmly about that period of our history.”
Barreto warned that this failure explains why “young people look at the past with a nostalgia that should not be entertained.”

“Memory does not belong to any political party or ideology. It belongs to people.”
She emphasized that democratic memory must be approached “from calm, not from resentment.” The goal, she added, is “to bring peace where there was pain and to deliver justice to those who have been voiceless for decades.”

When questioned about the impact of Francoism in the Canary Islands, the councillor rejected the notion that the archipelago was one of the least affected territories.

“We are not among the communities that suffered the least, even though for a long time the opposite has been said.”

The Government of the Canary Islands is currently working on research and identification projects for people who disappeared during the Civil War and the dictatorship, with actions on islands such as Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and La Palma.

Regarding Fuerteventura, Barreto confirmed that there are no current projects to open mass graves, but she assured that the executive is ready to act “as soon as reliable information is available.”

She stressed the importance of bringing this content into schools so that young people “understand how things really were.”

“If they do not know the reality, they may think that the past was idyllic, which it was not for the vast majority.”