Zapatistas set sail to Europe to mark 500 years of Indigenous resistance​​

Mexico City, May 5 (RHC)-- A group of Indigenous leaders and members of Mexico’s Zapatista movement have set sail on the Atlantic Ocean to Spain.  The group is marking 500 years of Indigenous resistance after Spanish colonizers arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, which later became Mexico City. 

The Zapatistas hope to arrive in Spain in August and will go on to tour Europe and share their plans to fight the inequities triggered by capitalism.

In related news, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has offered a formal apology to the Maya Indigenous community.  AMLO said: “We offer the most sincere apologies to the Mayan people for the terrible abuses committed by national and foreign authorities during the conquest, during the three centuries of colonial domination and two centuries of independent Mexico.”

AMLO was joined by Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei at the ceremony, which was held in the southern state of Quintana Roo. 

Political observers pointed out that in Guatemala, Indigenous land and water defenders continue to be brutalized, criminalized and displaced under Giammattei’s government.