Spain: right charges against the government for recognizing injustices of the Conquest
▲ José Manuel Albares, Minister of Foreign Affairs, yesterday “lamented” “the pain and injustice” that the indigenous peoples of Mexico suffered during the Conquest and the Colony, which unleashed an avalanche of criticism.Photo Europa Press
Armando G. Tejeda
Correspondent
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, November 2, 2025, p. 4
Madrid. The recognition by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, José Manuel Albares, of the “pain and injustice” suffered by the indigenous peoples of Mexico during the Conquest and the Colony, which he “regretted”, provoked an avalanche of criticism from the Spanish right, even with requests for resignation from the government of the Community of Madrid, which demanded that he immediately retract his statements.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the right-wing Popular Party (PP), assured: “I am not ashamed of the history of my country. I am ashamed of the current situation to which this government condemns us. Let them apologize for what they do now.”
The spokesperson for the Community of Madrid, Miguel Ángel García Martín, right-hand man of the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, from the hardest wing of the PP, said: “Minister Albares is the worst representative our country has ever had, the worst Foreign Minister our country has ever had. He is a disastrous minister who does not know the history of Spain or that of its alliance with Latin America, which is why he must present his resignation if he does not retract it automatically.”
“We do not deserve a government that discredits our country, a government that, whenever it has the opportunity, speaks ill of precisely what Spain has been, what Spain is, its history and the truth,” the spokesperson added.
Former Foreign Minister José Manuel García Margallo, who directed Spanish diplomacy during the government of Mariano Rajoy, of the PP, joined the controversy by describing Albares’ words as “nonsense” and a “strategic error.”
Furthermore, he warned that “there are those who resort to the past to divide, to guilt to justify their power and to resentment to perpetuate themselves. But a country’s foreign policy cannot be built on symbolic grievances or historical falsifications.”
