Granada, Spain - Controversy continued in Spain on Monday over the remains of poet Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), who was shot dead at the start of the Spanish Civil War and buried in a mass grave. Two weeks after experts started preparations to open the grave where Lorca and several other civil war victims are believed to be buried, the Lorca family told the Andalusian regional authorities it did not want his bones to be dug up.
Exhuming and identifying the remains would set the poet apart from other civil war victims, the family argued, suggesting instead that the grave site in Alfacar, near Granada, be "recognized historically and morally" by legalizing it as a burial site.
Most of the relatives of the others buried in the grave want their remains to be exhumed. The Lorca family, however, argued that recognizing the grave site would do them justice as well.
The author of Gipsy Ballads was shot dead by the right-wing supporters of dictator-to-be Francisco Franco at the start of Spain9s 1936-39 civil war. Francoists are believed to have targeted Lorca for being a leftist and a homosexual.
Many admirers of Spain's most beloved modern poet feel shocked over the likelihood that his remains lie in an unmarked mass grave.
