Janus in the Metropole: Moroccan Soldiers and Sexual Violence Against Women in the Spanish Civil War

Gema Varona

doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.1997

Abstract

Approximately 80,000 Moroccan men fought on the side of Franco in the Spanish Civil War. When the colonial wars ended, those men were recruited from very poor villages (some of them at the age of 16). Although the core collective memory that remains about those Moroccan troops (‘the Regulars’) concerns absolute cruelty, particularly towards women, they also form part of the history of the Spanish colonisation. During the Civil War, Franco’s General Queipo de Llano promised that the ‘castrated’ Republican soldiers’ women would know about the ‘virility’ of those Moroccan troops. Departing from fragmented historical data, this contribution presents a brief critical victimological analysis of grey zones and ‘Janus’ characters to better understand the complexities of victim and victimiser that overlap in the contexts of victimhood, accountability, colonisation, war and violence against women.

Highlights

Having fought in the Republican army and been a prisoner during the Spanish Civil War, and later having suffered repression during the first years of Franco’s dictatorship (1939–1975), my grandfather did not talk much about those experiences during the rest of his life
Based on a literature review of the scarce historical and anthropological bibliography on this concrete matter, it presents an analysis of the Moroccan soldier as falling into a grey zone and taking on the role of a Janus character in relation to victimhood and accountability
Within a critical victimological approach, this paper aims to reopen part of this chapter of Spanish history to reflect on current global issues related to the cultural understanding of women’s victimisation during war, peace and colonisation

Summary

Introduction

Having fought in the Republican army and been a prisoner during the Spanish Civil War, and later having suffered repression during the first years of Franco’s dictatorship (1939–1975), my grandfather did not talk much about those experiences during the rest of his life. Unless conditioned by insurmountable fear or a state of need related to their own previous victimisation, all Moroccan (and Spanish) soldiers who raped women (and those officers who promoted them) should be considered accountable because, in ethical or legal terms, that violence cannot be justified by due obedience. Another different question regards their legal consideration and the possible prosecution, after so many decades, of their acts as international crimes.

From the Process of Recruitment to the Grey Zones

Discussion