© Royal House / EFE
Photo provided by the Royal House showing the King of Spain, Felipe VI, while he greets the new president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, after his investiture ceremony, in Valparaíso (Chile), on Friday, March 11, 2022.
The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, described as “unacceptable” a delay by the King of Spain, Felipe VI, which would have forced him to delay his investiture. From the Royal House, they deny it, while in recent years there have been frictions between leaders of Latin America and the Spanish monarchy.
On Friday, March 11, Chile invested the most leftist president since the Salvador Allende government. That day, the words of Gabriel Boric connected with those of the last speech of Allende, who committed suicide, before the military entered the Palacio de la Moneda in the midst of a coup in 1973.
“Much sooner than later, the great malls will open where free men pass,” Allende said that fateful September 11. Almost 50 years later, Boric picked up the witness to say: “We are opening the great malls again.”
But before opening the aforementioned alamedas, an incident would have taken place that annoyed the new Chilean president. This Monday, March 13, in an interview with the Chilean channel T13, Gabriel Boric blamed the Spanish crown for the delay in the investiture.
“It seemed quite unacceptable to me that the ceremony was delayed because the King of Spain had been late. But hey, these are things that happen. One has to respect, by the way, the established protocols,” said Gabriel Boric.
Felipe VI was the last to arrive of the 12 heads of state invited to Valparaíso, where the Congress is located. All traveled by road, from the capital, Santiago, since for security reasons the use of the Viña del Mar airport was prevented.
From the Spanish Royal House, in a statement, they responded that they had followed the instructions of the Chilean protocol services: “They (protocol) are the ones who set the pace of arrival of the caravans. In fact, the caravan with the Spanish delegation was waiting in line behind others until protocol and security gave the instruction that it was already possible to access”.
The monarchy is seen with lights and shadows in Latin America, among those who describe it as anachronistic and directly related to colonization; and the most Hispanic sectors that consider the arrival of the Spaniards to America, a way to expand cultural wealth.
Specifically, in Chile, in the year 2000, on October 12, it stopped being called ‘Day of the race’ and was renamed ‘Day of the encounter between two worlds’.
Also, as was seen in the social outbreak of 2019, other stories of history are gaining strength in society, especially the anti-colonial one, promulgated by minorities such as the indigenous Mapuche and Aymara.
Therefore, the interpretations that these statements are a gesture by President Gabriel Boric to these new narratives and a way of distancing himself from the Spanish monarchy are not strange. An increasingly common trend in Latin America.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador demands an apology from the kings of Spain
The most virulent, in recent times, against the crown and Spain, has been the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
In 2019, he sent a letter to King Felipe VI and Pope Francis, in which he demanded an apology from the monarchy and the Vatican for “atrocities” against indigenous peoples.
Something that he repeated on October 10, 2020: “(they must) offer a public apology to the native peoples who suffered the most disgraceful atrocities to loot their goods and lands and subjugate them from the conquest of 1521 until the recent past.” From Spain they have refused to apologize.
More recently, on February 10, there was again a breaking point between López Obrador and Spain. The Mexican president considered it opportune to publicly propose a “pause” to distance political-economic relations between the two countries. He later justified the statement by arguing that Spanish companies had abused Mexico since they see it “as a land of conquest.”
Although he denied that it was a diplomatic rupture, this did not please the Spanish Government. His foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, “flatly” rejected López Obrador’s “sudden” statements.
Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua, called the kings of Spain “thieves and murderers”
Last Thursday, March 10, the Nicaraguan government decided to remove its ambassador to Spain, Carlos Midence, from his duties due to “the continuous pressure and threats of interference.”
However, from Spain they assure that this decision is due to the refusal of their Government to accept the return to Managua of the Spanish ambassador, María del Mar Fernández-Palacios, who was called for consultation in August 2021.
In fact, on November 9, when the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, was celebrating his fifth term in office, after elections that the international community does not recognize, he sent a message to Spain: “The Spanish do not understand that these peoples have a conscience and conviction. They ceased to be a colony of Europe a long time ago. We are fighting the battles because they continue to act and behave like colonizers.”
And, also for its monarchy: “The Spanish kings decided to distribute land here. Thieves and murderers.”
Felipe VI claimed the legacy of Spain in Puerto Rico
Controversy was also the visit of the King of Spain, Felipe VI, to Puerto Rico, to celebrate the 500 years of the capital, San Juan.
His tour on the Caribbean island was questioned, and even the Libertarian Forces of Borikén group demolished a statue of the Spanish explorer and first governor of Puerto Rico, Juan Ponce de León.
“Given the supposed visit of the King of Spain, Felipe VI to Puerto Rico and the escalation of gringo invaders taking over our lands, we want to send a clear message: Neither kings nor gringo invaders,” the group wrote in a statement.
The King of Spain, in one of his speeches, defended the “Spanish model” in America and said that one should be “proud of the legacy”.
France 24 wanted to delve into the subject, in an interview with Manuel Natal Albelo, a Puerto Rican lawyer and politician, who questioned the monarch’s visit.
In his investiture, Pedro Castillo, president of Peru, went against the monarchy
Also at his investiture, on July 29, 2021, Pedro Castillo, the Peruvian president, had words against the King of Spain, who was present at the act. In a markedly anti-colonial speech, he complained about the weight of the crown in Latin America.
“Three centuries of exploitation when Peru belonged to the Spanish crown (…) The men of Castile arrived, who with the help of multiple ‘felipillos’ and taking advantage of a moment of chaos and disunity, managed to conquer the state that until now dominated much of the central Andes”.
About to turn 15 years of the mythical: “Why don’t you shut up?”
The reproaches of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, against the Spanish monarchy have also been common. For example, and similar to the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, last year, on March 11, he reproached the crown for never apologizing for colonization.
“They have not yet apologized to America, the Spanish monarchy has to kneel and apologize to the people for genocide, for barbarism, for the savagery of colonialism, one day they will have to do it, lower their chin and say: sorry America for genocide,” Maduro said in a televised speech.
Precisely, these complex relationships date back to the arrival of the ill-fated Hugo Chávez to power. On November 10, 2007, at the XVII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State, held in Santiago de Chile, a historic clash took place.
While the then President of the Spanish Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was speaking, Hugo Chávez tried to interrupt him, accusing his predecessor, José María Aznar, of being a “fascist”. It was when the then King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, ended up exploding with a “why don’t you shut up?”, and then left the summit and left a historic moment in the complex relations between Spain and Latin America.