SPAIN’S frosty relationship with Mexico could be set to thaw after a leading figure in Pedro Sanchez’s government expressed regret over the ‘pain and injustice’ suffered by its Indigenous population during Spain’s conquest of the Americas five hundred years ago.
Colonial-era abuses have long proven a source of contention between the two Spanish-speaking nations, inspiring a series of diplomatic spats that have stoked tensions.
In March 2019, former president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wrote to both King Felipe and Pope Francis, urging them to apologise for ‘the violations of what we now call human rights’ during Spain’s colonial expansion.
However, Spain refused to apologise, saying: “The arrival of the Spanish on Mexican soil five hundred years ago cannot be judged in the light of contemporary considerations.”
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Last year, current left-wing president Claudia Sheinbaum revived the issue by refusing to invite King Felipe to her inauguration, blaming the monarch’s lack of an apology over crimes committed by Spanish forces half a millennium ago.
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez hit back, describing the snub as ‘unacceptable’ before confirming that the ceremony would go ahead without any Spanish diplomatic representation at all.
But it appears that the Spanish government has decided to shift its tone following comments made last week by foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares.
Speaking at the inauguration of an exhibition in Madrid dedicated to the Indigenous women of Mexico, Albares said: “It’s a very human history and, like every human history, it’s had its light and its shadows.”
He added: “And there has also been pain – pain and injustice towards the Indigenous people to whom this exhibition is dedicated. There was injustice and it’s right to recognise that today and to be sorry for that, because it is also part of our shared history, and we can neither deny nor forget it.”
The remarks were welcomed by Sheinbaum, who said: “It’s a first step and it speaks to the importance of what we’ve always said: that apologies ennoble governments and peoples.
“It’s not humiliating, it’s just the opposite. Congratulations to the foreign minister of the Spanish government, particularly in this Year of the Indigenous Woman.”
Just four days earlier, Sheinbaum renewed calls for a formal apology, saying that a letter sent by her predecessor Lopez Obrador was still awaiting a reply.
Mexico was conquered by Spanish forces in 1519, with many of the new arrivals, led by Hernan Cortes, carrying European diseases such as smallpox.
Hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people were killed with the remainder forcibly converted to Catholicism.
The nation was freed from Spanish colonial control following the Mexican War of Independence between 1810 and 1821.
