Another politician is attempting to scrub away the centuries-deep stain of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

Yesterday, a week after President López Obrador asked Spain for an apology, Mexico City state legislator Teresa Ramos Arreola called on the city government to take down statues of Cristopher Columbus and Hernán Cortés and rename streets dedicated to the two conquerors.

Ramos Arreola said the two figures were not worthy of commemoration because of the atrocities they committed against indigenous peoples.

“Christopher Columbus committed atrocities such as mutilating indigenous people that didn’t think like him. He also ordered the brutal killing of natives that dared to talk about his abuses, and he even ordered some of them dismembered and exhibited to inspire fear in other native peoples.”

The lawmaker said that Hernán Cortés had been even more ruthless during the conquest of Tenochtitlán.

“It is calculated that the number of Mexicas killed by the Spanish exceeded 100,000, including children, women and the elderly, in contrast with just 50 fallen Spaniards.”

She characterized the two men’s actions as a “desire to annihilate and erase their [indigenous peoples’] culture, institutions and languages from the face of the earth.”

Just over a week ago, the Spanish government “vigorously rejected” the president’s request for an apology and urged López Obrador to view the two nations not for the events of hundreds of years ago, but “as free people with a common legacy and an extraordinary future.”

Ramos Arreola’s proposal must go before legislative committees before it can be voted on by the Mexico City Congress.

Source: El Financiero (sp)