Mexican president calls 500-year-old Spanish conquest a 'failure'

President MexicoAnd Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said that the invasion of the Spaniards “was a complete failure”, recalling Friday (13) 500 years since the fall of the Aztec Empire.

“This catastrophe, catastrophe, catastrophe, whatever you want to call it, allows us to maintain that the conquest was a resounding failure,” said López Obrador, who presided over a celebration marking the five centuries since the fall of Grand Tenochtitlan, an Aztec city. .

The ceremony was held in the Zocalo, the central square that was the heart of the Aztec Empire, with representatives of the indigenous peoples from Mexico, Canada, the United States and descendants of Moctezuma II, the third emperor.

A ceremony in Mexico City on Friday (13) to commemorate 500 years of “indigenous resistance” against the Spanish invaders – Photo: Rodrigo Arangua / AFP

He added, “What civilization can we speak of if millions of human lives have been lost and the dominant nation, empire or monarchy has been unable, during three centuries of colonization, to restore the population that existed before the military occupation?” President.

López Obrador counted the diseases the Indians suffered with the arrival of the Spaniards and accused them of carrying large amounts of gold.

He said that “the gold they took from Mexico in the 300 years” that the Spanish colony lasted “was 182 tons”.

He emphasized that conquest and colonization were “signs of backwardness, not civilization, and less justice,” and his back was a monumental representation of the Temple of Templo, the center of religious life in the Mexican era.

“I hope that we will all commit ourselves not to repeat it, and never say invasion, occupation or invasion,” he added.

A ceremony in Mexico City on Friday (13) to commemorate 500 years of “indigenous resistance” against the Spanish invaders – Photo: Rodrigo Arangua / AFP

The leftist president has insisted on other occasions that Spain and the Catholic Church must apologize for abuses committed during the conquest.

Without obtaining a positive response to this complaint, Lopez Obrador this Friday asked for “a pardon for the victims of the catastrophe caused by the Spanish military occupation of Central America and the rest of the territory of the present Mexican Republic.”

Zócalo and its surrounding streets were closed off to the movement of people outside of the ceremony, including indigenous people who on Thursday celebrated Tenochtitlán’s last sovereign day with dance and prayer.

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