Full article The statue, erected three years after Franco's death in 1978, commemorated his role as commander of the Spanish Legion in the Rif War Spanish dictator Francisco Franco no longer guards the city gates of Melilla, a Spanish enclave and autonomous city on the northwest African coast. Without much fanfare, a group of workmen operated a mechanical digger and heavy drills to chip away at the brick platform on which the statue stood, lifted it off by a chain around its neck, and carted it away in bubble wrap on a pickup truck. The statue, erected three years after Franco's death in 1978, commemorated his role as commander of the Spanish Legion in the Rif War, a conflict fought in the 1920s by Spain and France against the Berber tribes of the Rif mountainous region of Morocco.