Matt M. Miller | Contributor
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent a letter Monday to King Felipe VI of Spain and Pope Francis requesting a formal apology for the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish Catholic conquistadors half-a-millennium ago.
During Lopez Obradors morning news conference, he presented the letter that he had sent to the King of Spain and the Vatican on the 500th anniversary of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, which lasted 1519-1521. Reuters reports that Lopez Obrador would like a group of historical experts to reexamine the events of the conquest and promote reconciliation between the nations.
“There were killings, impositions,” Lopez Obrador said in a video posted on Twitter. “The so-called conquest was carried out with the sword and the cross. They raised churches on top of temples.” (RELATED: Heres The Insane Footage Of A Volcano Erupting In Mexico)
“It is time to say we will reconcile but first let us apologize,” he continued. “I am going to, as well, because after the colonization there was much repression of the original peoples.”
Estamos en Comalcalco, vamos a Centla a conmemorar 500 años de la batalla de los españoles contra la resistencia de los mayas-chontales. pic.twitter.com/glYO0eAMtX
— Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) March 25, 2019
The president said that he would be willing to apologize for injustices committed against Chinese immigrants in Mexico during the rule of dictator Porfirio Diaz in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Politicians in Spain have retaliated against the proposition that Spain owes Mexico an apology, saying the letter is an “intolerable offense to the Spanish people.”
The Spanish government issued a rebuttal to Lopez Obradors request, saying, “The arrival, 500 years ago, of Spaniards to what is today Mexican territory cannot be judged in the light of contemporary considerations.”
It continued, “Our sibling peoples have always known how to read our shared past without anger and with a constructive perspective, as free peoples with a common inheritance and an Read More – Source
