The Catalan government has today paid homage to president Lluís Companys in Montevideo, Uruguay. On 15th October 1944, the fourth anniversary of his death, the city's Intendencia Municipal named a square in his honour, the first public site in the world to be named for the Catalan president executed by a Francoist court.
Since then, a annual ceremony has been held in his honour and today, Catalan foreign minister Alfred Bosch has taken advantage of his visit to the city to lay flowers at the monument in the centre of the square.
📸 El Conseller @AlfredBosch homenatja el president Lluís Companys a Montevideo durant el seu viatge oficial a l'Uruguai. #Catalunya #LluísCompanys pic.twitter.com/fq5rGziC8B
— Exteriors Catalunya (@exteriorscat) September 22, 2019
Bosch thanked Uruguay for having opened its doors to people fleeing the Spanish Civil War. "We will always be grateful because, at a difficult time, Uruguay made the grade, receiving many republican exiles. We should never stop being grateful for this generosity," he said. The monument to Companys, Bosch said, demonstrates that Uruguay has always shown solidarity to all the peoples of the world, "including Catalonia".
He also recalled the exiles themselves, saying "we should feel encouraged and strengthened by the example of that whole generation".