Venezuelan authorities criticize the October 12 parade in Madrid and ask for an apology
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has reproached his Argentine counterpart, Javier Milei, for being “an accomplice to genocide” for a message broadcast this past Saturday, October 12, in which the Argentine Presidency celebrates Columbus Day.
“Did you see what Javier Milei published in Argentina hailing October 12 as the great day in which we were civilized?” said Maduro during an event held in Caracas on the occasion of the Day of Indigenous Resistance.
“It is a false account of the past to impose in the present a fascist project that denies the rights of the people and their independence. 532 years ago there was no civilization, but invasion and genocide,” he said.
The official Argentine message celebrates October 12 as “Columbus Day in commemoration of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America, a milestone that marked the beginning of civilization on the American continent.”
Columbus’s voyage “opened a new era of progress and civilization in the New World” that “laid the foundations of modernity in America, marking a cultural, linguistic and economic influence that has shaped our history and identity,” according to the Casa Rosada.
“The global paradigm shift, Columbus, as a symbol of expansion and progress, reminds us of the human being’s ability to overcome the unknown and seek new opportunities for development and civilization,” concludes the video message, in which you can see images of historical paintings about the Spanish presence in America.
The Argentine Foreign Minister, Diana Mondido, also congratulated this October 12 with a brief “Happy Columbus Day!” published on his account on the social network X.
CRITICISM OF THE PARADE IN MADRID
For his part, the president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez, has criticized the celebration of the parade on October 12 in Madrid and has celebrated the intense rain that fell during the event.
“How dare you celebrate such a crime? By the way, in the parade that they held today in Madrid with their Spanish majesties, our kids and Hugo Chávez threw a stick of water at them and their royal majesties had to be taken out soaked. At least they don’t get the flu because they are divine beings. We have to get out! Go away!” Rodríguez said during an event in Caracas.
“You have to be stupid to continue believing that a person, just because of his blood, has a divine right or has the right to govern any people!” he added.
In addition, he insisted on the need for the descendants of the “genocidaires” to apologize. “The descendants of those who exterminated 90 million inhabitants of this land with blood and fire are incapable of asking for forgiveness and offering forgiveness to the native peoples” and “persist in their desire for conquest and imperialism,” he said.
Rodríguez also referred to the posters praising the conquerors as “neither genocidal nor slavers, they were heroes and saints” that have been seen on bus shelters in the Spanish capital. With these messages, the Spanish conservatives are “again attacking our honor, our pride, our full life,” according to Jorge Rodríguez.
“Before their arrival, more than 100 million people lived in these lands with advanced cultures, advanced civilizations. In less than 50 years after their arrival, these ‘saints’ had exterminated 90 percent of the population of these lands,” in “the largest genocide that the history of humanity has ever known,” he argued. This image would be equivalent to “today in Germany they publish that (Adolf) Hitler was not a genocidal maniac, he was a saint. They dare to celebrate such a crime.”
Rodríguez has also denied that colonization brought civilization and language, since before the invasion there were about 1,200 languages in America. “We speak Spanish, but we speak better than them. The best linguists, the best writer, Gabriel García Márquez, the best poet, Pablo Neruda,” Rodríguez said.
