Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum recalled that apologizing for the "crimes" committed during the arrival of the Spaniards, as she has asked the crown of this country to do, is not shameful and, on the contrary, is something that makes people greater and brings them closer together.
“The arrival of the Spanish more than five centuries ago represented the subjugation and even elimination of the native peoples. Offering apologies for the crimes committed is not shameful; on the contrary, it makes people greater and brings them closer together,” the president said in a post on social media.
The Mexican leader recalled that October 12 “is not the day of the race or of Hispanic heritage” and noted that Christopher Columbus discovered America for the Europeans, “but in our continent and in particular in what we now call Mexico, there were already great civilizations and cultures of which we feel proud.”
Sheinbaum accompanied the brief text with the video she presented on Friday during her morning press conference, in which she presented examples of other countries that have offered apologies for historical events, reported EFE.
He recalled that Japan has since 1990 asked for forgiveness for abuses committed in Korea and China, and that in 2000 the then President of Germany, Johannes Rau, asked for forgiveness before the Israeli Parliament for the Jewish Holocaust.
In the video, he also included the case of Mexico, which, during the administration of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), apologized to the Mayan and Yaqui peoples and the Chinese community in the country for acts of violence and discrimination.
The tension between Mexico and Spain led Sheinbaum to refuse to invite the King of Spain, Felipe VI, to her inauguration last week, for not responding to the letter that López Obrador (2018-2024) sent her in 2019 to ask her to apologize to the indigenous peoples of Mexico.
