RELEGATED TO INVISIBILITY. THE PLACE OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AGENDA OF THE FRANCOIST DIPLOMACY (1945-1955)

Between 1945 and 1955, the official policy of the Francoist Administration was to deny publicly the accusations made against the regime, considered in the post-war period as a persistence of the defeated Fascism. We sustain in this paper that - as regards the UN - the external actions were beyond the denial of facts, i.e., violations of rights in Spain; they attempted to relegate them to invisibility and, thus, make such subject go into oblivion. From the critical review of the diplomatic correspondence and of United Nations' official documents, we reveal that the Francoist diplomacy resorted to two main paths of action: not to answer when asked to explain about violations of human rights in the Spanish territory; and obtain the silence of its closest allies in international forums about such issue.