¡VIVA LA REPUBLICA!

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Saturday April 17

REPUBLICANS marked the 79th anniversary of the Second Spanish Republic in the Canarian capital Santa Cruz on Saturday.

by JAMES TWEEDIE

Some 100 members and supporters of the Tenerife Platform for the Republic gathered in Plaza Weyler, before marching to Plaza del Príncipe to demand an end to the Borbón dynasty of King Juan Carlos I and and a return to the pre-fascist democracy of the Republic.

The demonstration was just one of many taking place across Spain as part of a week of action for the founding of a third republic.

Marchers waved red,yellow and purple Republican flags, shouted anti-fascist and anti-monarchist slogans and carried a banner reading: “Without the Republic there is no democracy.”

The Second Spanish Republic was born on April 14 1931 when Borbón King Alfonso XIII fled the country after Republican victory in municipal elections, and died on April 1 1939 when the last republican forces surrendered to General Francisco Franco's fascist 'Nationals' after three years of brutal civil war.

For much of the war General Franco had the material support of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, including the German Kondor Legion.

The Republic was aided by the Soviet Union and by volunteers from Britain, Ireland, the USA and other nations who formed the International Brigade.

The Spanish throne sat empty until Franco's death on November 20 1975. Juan Carlos Borbón, whom Franco had named Prince of Spain and heir to the throne in 1969, was crowned two days later in accordance with the dead dictator's decree of succession.

At Plaza del Príncipe – or Príncipe de Asturias, the title of the royal heir – young Platform for the Republic member Jaime Hernández Pérez read from the April 14 manifesto of the Canarian Republican Movement.

To shouts of “assassins!” from the crowd, Mr Hernández recalled the thousands of Canarians who were murdered by the fascists at the outset of the fascist revolt, which began in the archipelago.

He said: “Across Spain people are marching to reclaim the republic from the fascist coup.

"The Francoist monarchy is not a democracy. Long live the Republic!”

The demonstration departed for a motorized cavalcade around Santa Cruz and the neighbouring city of La Laguna.

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