The Democratic Military Union (UMD) has been the starting point for the awards granted by the Militia and Democracy Forum (FMD), held this Monday in Madrid, at the headquarters of the Center for Political and Constitutional Studies. "The recognition of the military democrats came late, as did the recognition of the victims of Franco's regime," said the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez..

The Secretary of State has stressed that this recognition finally came with the Democratic Memory Act approved in October 2022, and that, in its article 3, included among the victims "the people repressed and expelled from the Armed Forces for belonging to the Democratic Military Union".

The Bernardo Vidal Award for Constitutional Values and Armed Forces, has been created to recognize personalities of proven merit for the whole of their trajectory in the defense of these values. During his speech, the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory praised the role "of social movements" in the advent of democracy, among which he cited student organizations, military democrats, worker priests or women. "Memory is democracy," he said.

The Militia and Democracy Forum (FMD), which defends "democratic values" within the Armed Forces and which has among other objectives to disseminate the activities carried out at the time by the UMD, also awarded three other awards, called "captains of democracy", to Rosa Laviña, widow of one of the military members who formed part of the UMD; to the director of Public, Manuel Rico, and the socialist senator Luis Tudanca.