The self-chosen "political exile" to The Hague of investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzón has been unexpectedly approved by Spain's General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ)--albeit not as a formal leave of absence (excedencia). Garzón had requested a seven-month leave to serve as special advisor on crimes against humanity to the Chief Prosecutor of the...
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Scott Horton writes:
In the end, it is not Garzón but rather the judicial oversight body that emerges with its reputation in a tatters. Moreover, the entire affair serves to put the spotlight just where it belongs. The assumption that the horrors of Spain’s fascist past must remain forever covered...
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A Los Angeles Times editorial: From the beginning, the case against Garzon has seemed to be motivated by political and personal vendettas, and the timing of these decisions is no exception. The vehemence with which Garzon’s inquiry was rejected is not surprising given the bloody history of the period, yet the legal action...
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José Ricardo de Prada: (Translated from El País, May 16, 2010:) "I’ve gone from anger on Friday, to desolation. I am deeply demoralized, not just in terms of myself, but in terms of my profession, which has been pretty much my whole life over these last 25 years. This goes way...
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The Spanish and international media are filled with editorials, op-eds, and interviews criticizing the suspension of investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzón. An editorial in Le Monde, for instance, states that case reveals the institutions of democratic Spain to be "dysfunctional" and "sick", and that the "strategy of forgetting has not worked": "The Garzón...
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Graham Keeley reports:
It is remarkable for the way in which Cartier-Bresson managed to get away from the censors and document the daily life of volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, who fought for the Republican Government against General Franco’s Nationalist forces.
More here.Spain's Consejo General del Poder Judicial, or General Council of the Judiciary, has postponed its decision on Baltasar Garzón's request for a seven-month leave of absence to work for the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC while it awaits several additional reports, after suspending him this morning--a decision that threw the country
As the Consejo General del Poder Judicial meets to decide on Garzón's request for a seven-month leave of absence to work at the ICC, indignation about the Council's decision, this morning, to suspend the groundbreaking investigative magistrate, is spreading rapidly, with prominent jurists and intellectuals from Spain and elsewhere speaking out, and grassroot...
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From Ken Morgan at SocialistWorker.org: On this May Day, one of the several toasts that I drank to was to the memory of Clarence Kailin and the heroes of the International Brigades. ¡No Pasarán! More here.
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) is an educational non-profit dedicated to promoting social activism and the defense of human rights. ALBA’s work is inspired by the American volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Learn more at our website or
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To be, or not to to be, that is the question. / Are you now, or have you ever been, that is the question
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Few Americans know how integral Seattle has been to radical movements of the 20th century. In fact, it was Seattle-based Lincoln vets who played an important role in the installation of the first US monument to the International Brigades.
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In 1946, the leadership of Edward Barsky’s Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee stood up to the House Un-American Activities Committee. For Ernestina González and Manuel Magaña, the brave gesture of defiance was only one chapter in their activist lives.
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The iconic group portrait of raggedy Lincoln Brigade volunteers that’s become ALBA’s calling card over the years is now finally available in an uncropped, high-res print. When and where was it taken? And who exactly are these 29 men?
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Tina Modotti and Vittorio Vidali, who dedicated a major part of their lives to the Communist International, have long been surrounded by myth. New research by the historian David Jorge suggests that they consistently strove for broad leftist fronts—even when the leadership of the Comintern favored other tactics.
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Leon Bibel, a New-York-based painter, printmaker, and teacher who worked with the WPA and was only discovered by the public years after his death in 1995, was primed from birth to identify with the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War.
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Can conservation be a revolutionary practice? In his new book, The Monument of Tomorrow, Miguel Caballero shows that it certainly can. The story it tells is also the story of the Madrid that the Abraham Lincoln Brigade encountered—and helped shape—during the war.
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Few political leaders of modern Spain have been as maligned as Prime Minister Juan Negrín, who died in exile in 1956. But his personal papers, which have been only open to researchers since 2014, challenge long-standing portrayals of Negrín advanced by anti-Communist critics on both the left and right.
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The war in Spain was barely over, but the scramble to define the legacy of the International Brigades was on. Were they valiant antifascists, or had they been agents, victims, or dupes of world communism? In pre-1945 US popular culture, the brigadistas were often portrayed as heroic antifascists. At the same time, there were...
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China was entangled in multiple local and global crises when this image was published on the back cover of a Shanghai-based magazine.
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ALBA's project to provide a complete list of the more than 2,800 individuals who left from U.S. territory to fight with the Spanish Republic
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