Mexico’s snub to King Felipe rekindles colonialism row with Spain

A festering diplomatic row between Mexico and Spain has been reopened after the Latin American country’s leftwing president-elect refused to invite King Felipe to her inauguration because of his failure to apologise for crimes committed against Mexico’s Indigenous people during the conquest 500 years ago.

In 2019, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote to King Felipe and Pope Francis, calling for them to apologise for the “abuses” of the conquest and the colonial period.

“I have sent a letter to the king of Spain and another to the pope calling for a full account of the abuses and urging them to apologise to the Indigenous peoples [of Mexico] for the violations of what we now call their human rights,” López Obrador said in a video, which he posted to his social media accounts.

At the time, the Spanish government refused to apologise, saying it “profoundly rejected” the letter and its content, adding: “The arrival of the Spanish on Mexican soil 500 years ago cannot be judged in the light of contemporary considerations. Our closely related peoples have always known how to view our shared history without anger and from a shared perspective, as free peoples with a common heritage and an extraordinary future.”

That response has failed to placate López Obrador’s successor and ally, Claudia Sheinbaum, who said her predecessor’s call had been roundly ignored.

“Unfortunately, the letter in question was never replied to directly, as best diplomatic practice requires,” she said in a statement.

“Instead, part of the letter was leaked to the media and the Spanish foreign ministry then released a press statement. The Mexican government has not received a direct clarification nor answer regarding this matter.”

Although Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been invited to the swearing-in ceremony on 1 October, King Felipe has not.

The snubbing of the king prompted Spain to announce that it would not participate in the inauguration “at any level”.

Speaking at a news conference at the UN general assembly on Wednesday, Sánchez lamented what he termed an “unacceptable and inexplicable decision” by the incoming Mexican government.

“Spain and Mexico are brother countries – and that’s why the exclusion of our head of state seems unacceptable,” he said. “Let’s not forget that this head of state has taken part in all the swearings-in – all of them – as a prince and then as a king and a head of state. That’s why we can’t accept his exclusion and that’s why we’ve told the Mexican government that there will be no Spanish diplomatic representation whatsoever.”

Sánchez said that his administration was also a “progressive” government and suggested the decision was down to political manoeuvring.

“Behind all this is an enormous sadness because we’re two brother countries – two brother countries that can’t enjoy the best political relations because of a certain person’s political interests,” he said.

Related: Spain hits back at Mexico in row over colonial rights abuses

López Obrador vowed to champion Mexico’s poor and Indigenous people. Unlike millions of mixed-race Mexicans he is almost entirely of Spanish descent, his grandparents having emigrated from Asturias and Cantabria in northern Spain.

Cortés led a small squadron of soldiers – equipped with horses, armed with diseases such as smallpox, and abetted by Indigenous groups at odds with the Aztecs – to Mexico City (then known as Tenochtitlán) in 1519.

The Spanish sacked the city two years later and proceeded to convert the Indigenous populations to Catholicism. Cortés has long occupied a controversial place in Mexican history. His indigenous mistress, La Malinche, is still seen as a traitorous figure – with her name forming the epithet malinchista , someone who prefers the foreign to the domestic.