Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during a government working meeting. Photo: RedRadioVE.
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has stated that October 12, Spain’s National Day, is a date that marks the beginning of genocide, extermination, slavery, and colonialism, and is nothing to celebrate in Latin America.
During a televised government program this Thursday, October 10, the head of state criticized Spain for celebrating October 12, given that this date in 1492 is when the infamous colonizer Christopher Columbus first landed in what later came to be called the Americas. He pointed out that what should be celebrated is resistance to this colonial invasion, of life over death and of freedom over slavery.
“The Kingdom of Spain says that it has nothing to apologize for to the indigenous peoples of America and that [the Spanish] are free to celebrate their arrival in these lands,” he explained, “but the truth is that this empire brought abhorrent plunder, genocide of indigenous peoples, and slavery,” he said.
The head of state added that for many Latin Americans, October 12 represents the oppressive notion of the monarchy, and criticized that the contribution of the Spanish Empire to history was tarnished in the blood of enslaved peoples from Africa and indigenous peoples of the Americas.
President Maduro took the opportunity to reiterate his support for the position of former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had asked Spain to apologize for the genocide they committed during the colonial period of invasion and conquest. However, the Spanish crown refused.
This exchange escalated, leading to Spain failing to attend the inauguration of the newly elected president of México, Claudia Sheinbaum.
Venezuela’s National Assembly Urges Severing Diplomatic Relations With Spain
Breaking of relations with Spain
On Tuesday, the National Assembly of Venezuela urged the Nicolás Maduro administration to break diplomatic, consular, and commercial relations with Spain.
The parliamentarians asked the government to evaluate, “with due immediacy, the breaking of relations” with Spain, as well as a “reciprocal action for the rude and interventionist proposition adopted in the Congress of Deputies” of the European country against “Venezuelan institutions.”
They also called on the Spanish government to abolish the monarchy, considering it an institution associated with corruption and an “expression of the far right,” as well as to contemplate resolutions calling for Catalonian independence.
(RedRadioVE) by Ana Perdigón with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/AU
