No Cheers for Columbus, Says Venezuela's Chavez

Reuters ^ | October 11, 2003

[sarcasm]

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Latin Americans on Saturday not to celebrate Columbus Day, saying the 1492 discovery of the Americas triggered a 150-year ``genocide'' of native Indians by foreign conquerors who behaved ``worse than Hitler.''

``Christopher Columbus was the spearhead of the biggest invasion and genocide ever seen in the history of humanity,'' the populist president told a meeting in Caracas of representatives of Indian peoples from across the continent.

Columbus Day on Oct. 12 is celebrated as a holiday in the United States and several Latin American nations, but Chavez said it should be remembered as the ``Day of Indian Resistance.''

``We Venezuelans, we Latin Americans, have no reason to honor Columbus,'' he added.

The Venezuelan leader said Spanish, Portuguese and other foreign conquerors had massacred South America's Indian inhabitants at an average rate of roughly ``one every 10 minutes.'' He described Spanish conquistadors like Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro, as ``worse than Hitler.''

He said even the continent's geographical names, like America and Venezuela, were imposed by foreigners.

Chavez's opponents, who are seeking a referendum to try to vote him out of office, say his self-styled ``revolution'' in the world's No. 5 oil exporter is aimed at installing an anti-U.S. communist system like the one in Cuba. Chavez says his brand of left-wing nationalism will make Venezuela more independent.

The Venezuelan leader hailed as heroes Indian chiefs who had fought against the invaders, such as Guaicaipuro who resisted the Spanish founders of Caracas, and American Indian chief Sitting Bull, who defeated U.S. Gen. George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.

``Long live Sitting Bull!'' Chavez declared, drawing applause from his audience, many of whom wore traditional native clothes and head-dresses.

[MonroeDNA]

Communism by the book.

[xrp]

Aren't most people in Latin America more descended from the Spanish from the Iberian peninsula than Middle and South America?

[hedgetrimmer]

A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn.

Proudly taught in California public high schools.

[Support Free Republic]

---

GOD BLESS OUR MILITARY AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
	Keep Our Republic Free Or mail checks to FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794 or you can use PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER and say THANKS to Jim Robinson! IT'S IN THE BREAKING NEWS SIDEBAR THANKS!

[livius]

Ah, yes, the old indigenous ploy.

Maybe Hugo should just make an example of himself - since he clearly is not of pure indigenous blood (if any) - and leave Venezuela immediately, after first covering himself in sackcloth and ashes.

[Camel Joe]

What a sore loser!

[Jack Black]

Well the Spanish conquest of the South was pretty brutal. But in truth it was more disease than military strength that led to the defeat of the Indians. It is hard to go back in time and try to use our moral compass to judge events from 500 years ago.

[FITZ]

Maybe Chavez hates Italians since that's what Christopher Columbus was.

[FITZ]

If the Indians had been organized, they could have stopped the invasion of their lands by foreign groups. If the Indians had showed up in large numbers on Spain's or England's shores, they would have been sent packing. The Old World and the New World were going to meet one way or another.

[truth_seeker]

Even worse than the Moors in Spain?

Even worse than the Goths in Spain?

Even worse than the Romans in Spain?

[livius]

Actually, the Aztecs' earlier conquest of other "indigenous peoples" had been bloodier still, and was one of the reasons some of the other groups actually welcomed the arrival of the Spanish. At least the Spaniards didn't eat you after the captured you...

[John Beresford Tipton]

That's what I was thinking, at least in relation to Chavez.
If the invaders wacked all the natives, then Chavez most likely is descended at least in large part from what he describes as "Nazis"

[Coeur de Lion]

The world would not be what it is today without Christopher Columbus. The European explorers did not intentionally introduce diseases which wiped out 90% of the native populations. In fact Cortez could never have overwhelmed the Aztecs had they not been previously exposed to smallpox as as result of his original entry into the city. He was driven out of the city only to later conquer it after smallpox had decimated the population. They didn't intentionally introduce it, it's one of those accidents of history.

There're these concepts applied to the European conquest of the new world which are derivative of Western Civilization. The idea of genocide comes to mind. You can easily follow that with a plethora of concepts and views such as: the evils of slavery, the common man and individual liberty, democracy, equal rights and so on and so on, all a product of Western Civilization. Unfortunately the arguments these fools make, and it's common to most revisionist history is they resort to concepts which are a direct result of that Civilization that they're so intent on condemning. When the Aztecs set out to conquer and enslave a people; sacrifice their warriors on their bloody altars, does one think that court counselors ever said to Montezuma that perhaps we're violating these warriors civil rights and we shouldn't be enslaving the women and children. I doubt it.

In fact the uniqueness of what's come out of Western Civilization should represent ample evidence as to why its history should be studied instead of the revisitionist history, which is nothing more then pablum, myth and driven by the needs for multiculturalism and diversity.

In my book Christopher Columbus is a hero and he will remain so.

[Poohbah]

While MeChA was going bats**t over the 500th anniversary in 1992, a Chicano classmate of mine observed that, if Europe had never gone to the Western Hemisphere, he and his culture--all the things that he held dear, that he enjoyed and loved--would not exist.

And that all that stuff was, incidentally, what MeChA supposedly celebrated.

He candidly admitted that he couldn't figure it out.

[muawiyah]

The Spanish conquest wasn't particularly brutal as conquests go ~ although it was made to seem so in English and French anti-Spanish propaganda.

The deaths came almost entirely from Old World disease. Tens of millions of people suffered and died in Mexico alone.

It wasn't until the late 1640s that the great die-off hit the East Coast of North America, but when it did 90 to 95% of all the Indians died.

[muawiyah]

Come on now ~ it's "even worse than the Gallicians in Spain!"

You go back further than that and no one has any idea what was going on there.

[livius]

The point being, that everyone has been conquered at one time or another, and that none of us would be what we are now had it not been for what happened then.

After the Celtic and Iberian tribes of Spain were conquered by Rome, Spain became the colony that eventually inherited "romanitas," that is, the Roman way of being. Some of Rome's best known writers and philosophers, not to mention a number of emperors, came from Spain.

[SpookBrat]

You are correct. I've recently been reading a lot about this. Good point to bring up.