MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela to seek reparations from Spain's colonialism

Maduro used his broadcast show to target Spain's colonialism in the past as well as Elon Musk's 21st Century activities

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said his country would be seeking reparations from Spain for what happened during the colonialism years. In the Chavista leader's view, the European kingdom has never “asked for forgiveness” and instead took shelter “in the ideology of negationism.”

In the case of Spain, Venezuela's approach targeting the looting, plundering, and slavery against the country's native peoples replicates the stance of Mexico's government under newly inaugurated President Claudia Scheinbaum and her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). It also follows in on the process undertaken by various Caribbean countries against Britain, The Netherlands, or France.

During his “Con Maduro +” broadcast show, the controversial Bolivarian leader outlined his position and congratulated the Caribbean countries for their move. He then insisted that Venezuela's initiative would trigger other nations to adopt similar measures.

”532 years ago there was a process of resistance against colonialism and slavery, which left Nazism and fascism as a legacy (...) None of them have asked for forgiveness, they take refuge in the ideology of negationism (...) From Spain this barbaric event is endorsed and vindicated as a process of civilization,” Maduro claimed. He described Christopher Columbus' voyages as a criminal act of abuse against the native peoples.

Maduro also accused tycoon Elon Musk of spending at least US$ 1 billion to start an uprising against him after allegedly winning the July 28 elections despite producing no evidence as to the actual vote count, unlike opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia of the Unitarian Democratic Platform (PUD) who published alongside disenfranchised leader María Corina Machado over 83% of the minutes which would make his victory unsurmountable even if the incumbent got 100% of the vote in the remaining polling stations.

In his show, Maduro claimed that Musk spent “no less than US$ 1 billion” on “the coup d’etat, the fascist outbreak, the violence against the electoral process in Venezuela” and said Machado was in charge of distributing those funds among the South American country's “fascist” groups.

Musk accused Maduro of “major election fraud,” while the Venezuelan president declared the South African-born billionaire his “arch enemy” who “controls the virtual reality” created by social media. Maduro also banned Musk's social media platform X from the country.