Supporters of Spanish dictator remember Franco's death

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2005

MADRID (AFP) — More than 1,000 supporters of Spain's longtime fascist dictator General Francisco Franco gathered at his mausoleum near Madrid on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his death.

But no official ceremony was held in the country, now a constitutional democracy with a Socialist government.

The service was held at the Valley of the Fallen (Valle de los Caidos) on Sunday and marked the anniversary of the execution in 1936 of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder in 1933 of the Falange, the party that provided the ideological basis for the regime of Franco, who is buried in the basilica in the valley.

Another demonstration took place in Madrid, called by an association of former Franco-suppporting combattants from the 1936-39 civil war which...