Maduro condemns Spain's celebration of 'the indigenous holocaust' of the Americas

VENEZUELAN president Nicolás Maduro has hit out at Spain's celebrating October 12 as a bank holiday with military processions – because it marks what he calls 'the greatest massacre in history'.

Likening it to the holocaust of World War II, the leader of the South American country says Spain's Día de la Hispanidad, which commemorates Christopher Colombus' finding of the New World and the subsequent colonisation of at least 19 countries by Spain, is a source of 'indignation and offence' to the people of Venezuela and neighbouring nations.

The 'indigenous holocaust' wiped out over 90 per cent of the native Latin American Indians – Mayans, Aztecs, Incas, mapuches, ilotas and many other tribes in the Caribbean, Central and South America, who 'previously lived in harmony and peace, untouched by war', Maduro recalls.

Within 50 years of Colombus' arrival, only three million of the 70 to 90 million indigenous inhabitants of the Americas remained.

Catholic priests were taught native languages such as quechua, aymara and guaraní in order to convert those remaining, and catholicism is now the predominant religion in Latin America with Spanish being the first official language in all of Spain's former colonies.

“Seeing public images [of Spain's military parades of this Saturday] I feel indignant and offended that in other places, they celebrate a day which marks the start of the indigenous holocaust of the Americas. Spain should reflect on this,” Maduro stated.

“And Europe should reflect on it, too. They cannot be celebrating a day which started the massacre, the holocaust, of 100 million men, women and children who were our grandfathers and grandmothers!” storms the Venezuelan leader.

“It causes us indignation that a televised military engagement celebrated in Spain and other parts of the world started with the greatest massacre in the history of humanity, because among the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas, without even counting those of the Caribbean, over 90 per cent of the native population were exterminated.

“There are hundreds of films about the detestable Jewish holocaust in Europe caused by the racism, the fascist Nazi ideologies, capitalism and right-wing extremism of Hitler, who massacred the entire Jewish population in Europe,” Maduro concludes.

October 12 sees a counter-movement every year in the Americas, particularly in Venezuela where it is known as Indigenous Resistance Day and starts with the hoisting of the national flag in the capital, Caracas.

This year, Maduro then moved onto the north-eastern state of Anzoátegui where he publicly condemned the Spanish national celebrations.

In Venezuela alone, between 300,000 and 500,000 inhabitants – 2.7 per cent, according to the census of 2011 – are indigenous and belong to 25 or so native races – 58 per cent being wayúu, seven per cent warao, five per cent kariña, two per cent yukpa and one per cent yanomami.

Of the rest of the population, 49.9 per cent are mulato, or mixed-race indigenous and 'modern-day' Venezuelan of Spanish-European origin, 3.5 per cent black, and 42.2 per cent white.

Other countries have a similar mix, but this varies.

In Bolivia, the president, Evo Morales, is of pure indigenous descent, as are the majority in his and neighbouring countries including Perú and Ecuador, whilst in Paraguay – although the population are largely of European blood – the indigenous language guaraní has equal status to that of Spanish and is used more frequently in non-official situations.