“They (the indigenous) resisted the Spanish invasion, Spanish colonialism. They came to take away our wealth, to rape women, to kill with blood and fire throughout America”
Nicholas Maduro has lashed out at him King Philip VI just days after launching a commission of historians with the mission of clarifying the “crimes” of the Spanish conquest to demand financial compensation. “It is unfortunate that the King of Spain in the XXI century endorses the genocide, crimes, rapes and murders of millions of men and women,” accused the revolutionary leader, taking advantage of the inauguration of a national high school, which bears the name of the indigenous chief Guaicaipuro.
“They (the indigenous) resisted the Spanish invasion, Spanish colonialism. They came to take our riches, to rape women, to kill with blood and fire throughout America,” the “son of Chvez” insisted before the children of a classroom of the school, located in Ciudad Caribia, near the airport.
The monarch visited last week Puerto Rico on his last Latin American tour and on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the founding of his capital, San Juan. In Caribbean lands, Felipe VI defended the Spanish presence on the continent during the conquest. “Spain brought with it its language, its culture and its beliefs. And with all this it contributed values and principles such as the foundations of International Law or the concept of universal human rights,” he stressed.
Maduro had already addressed a letter to the King last year to join “the voices that are raised in America to demand that rectify, reflect and ask for forgiveness against the native peoples. From the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) a commission for historical truth should be established.” The Bolivarian leader intends to deliver the results of the alleged investigation by historians related to the ruling party to CELAC, the organization created by Hugo Chavez to unsuccessfully replace the Organization of American States (OAS).
Maduro has thus joined the populist offensive led by the Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who opted for historical revisionism after coming to power.
“In Venezuela, this commission on colonialism seeks to tell us that they were an atrocious phenomenon, on whose felonies today’s justice must act. Now we must put Fernando El Catolico and Felipe II on the bench, and the soldiers and the friars they sent to America. And the monarchs of Portugal and England, to boot. Some atrabiliary processes, a disrespect for the values that dominated each historical time and a supine ignorance about the game of powers in each era of the past,” historian Elas Pino Iturreta, one of the most widely read in the country, told EL MUNDO.
According to the criteria of
