Tenerife to honour Francisco Muñoz Serrano, the first person killed by the dictatorship on the island

The Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica de Tenerife (ARMHT) will hold a tribute ceremony on 18 July at 17:00 for Francisco Muñoz Serrano, regarded as the first person killed by the Francoist dictatorship on the island. The event will take place at the corner of Calle del Castillo and Calle Cruz Verde in Santa Cruz de Tenerife — the spot where the Guardia de Asalto corporal was shot dead in the opening hours of the 1936 coup d'état.

According to the organisation, Muñoz Serrano lost his life on the afternoon of 18 July 1936 while attempting, alongside fellow officers, to free the provincial civil governor, who was being held by rebel troops following the outbreak of the coup against the Second Republic.

A memorial act on the 90th anniversary of the coup

The tribute is being held to mark the 90th anniversary of those events. The ARMHT considers it "necessary" to commemorate this episode as the starting point of "a period of violence and repression that resulted in dozens of executions, enforced disappearances, imprisonments and thousands of detentions" of people whose only connection was "their commitment to political, trade union, social or cultural organisations that defended the republican constitutional order."

The association stresses that the ceremony has been conceived as an exercise in democratic memory, not as a celebration. "We want to put a name and a face to this first victim of the violence unleashed by the military coup and assert society's right to know about the events that marked the beginning of the dictatorship in Tenerife," said the organisation's president, Mercedes Pérez Schwartz.

According to the account gathered by Diario de Avisos, the Canary Islands had no active front line, unlike mainland Spain, which meant that military control was imposed immediately and a period of systematic violence ensued.

Appeal to trace relatives

The ARMHT has issued a public appeal to locate the family of Francisco Muñoz Serrano. The association notes that research by historian Pedro Medina Sanabria has confirmed that his children remained in Tenerife, where they suffered the harsh consequences of their father's death.

Pérez Schwartz called on members of the public, as well as representatives of institutions and social, cultural and memory organisations, to attend the commemoration. "Francisco was the first of many, at a time when part of the political class advocates erasing the memory of victims and whitewashing the dictatorship; his image and memory will serve to honour all those who came after him and to demand greater empathy from the authorities towards this cause," she explained.

The president added that "democratic memory does not seek to reopen wounds, but to contribute to knowledge of our history, to recognise the dignity of those who suffered violence and repression, and to strengthen the values of freedom, justice and coexistence on which our democracy is founded."

Reclaiming 18 July

The choice of 18 July as the date for the tribute reflects the organisation's aim of reclaiming a date that for decades was associated with the glorification of the dictatorship and transforming it into "a day of remembrance for its victims."

For the association, recovering the story of Francisco Muñoz Serrano means "rescuing from oblivion someone who lost his life defending democratic legality" in the opening hours of the military coup, and paying tribute — through his story — to all those who suffered Francoist repression in Tenerife. Through this act, the ARMHT reaffirms its commitment to research, public awareness and the moral rehabilitation of the victims of the dictatorship.