López Obrador's trip to Cantabria, Spain, in 2017 to learn about his grandfather's country

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico, launched a controversy on social networks after revealing that he had sent a letter to the King of Spain and Pope Francis ask for excuses for the abuses committed during the conquest of Mexico 500 years ago

José Obrador Revuelta was born in the municipality of Ampuero, Cantabria, in 1893. He arrived in Mexico in 1917, where his brothers Manuel and Felix were already waiting, with whom he opened a store of fabrics and food products in Tabasco, according to the unauthorized biography "And who is AMLO?".

From the relationship with Úrsula González, a descendant of the Asturians, was born Manuela, the mother of López Obrador.

When Miguel Ángel Revilla, president of Cantabria (a Spanish autonomous community), discovered that López Obrador had a grandfather born there, invited him to know the country of his ancestors. That's whyin september 2017 The presidential candidate made a two-day stopover in the northern Spanish community.

"My grandfather always said with pride that he was from Ampuero"López Obrador said during his visit in accordance with The country. The mayor offered him a ceramic shield from Ampuero, which the current president had promised to place in his office at the National Palace.

From his visit to his grandfather's country, he emerged a close friendship between AMLO and Miguel Ángel Revilla, who went to Mexico in November 2018. A few days before taking office, López Obrador took advantage of the archeological zone of Palenque with Revilla and Silvio Rodríguez.

Faced with the recent request of the President to the King of SpainRevilla said that it was an "unacceptable imposition", although it considers "reasonable" to open a "reflection" of the two countries to ask forgiveness.

According to the newspaper The day, the president of Cantabria explained that "the approach is not the right one," although he understands that his friend is looking apologetically for "a kind of separation between the two" to commemorate in 2021 the fall of Tenochtitlan 500 years ago.

Gift of the Spanish Government

When Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, The President of the Spanish Government, visiting Mexico in January 2019, made a gift to López Obrador as a diplomatic courtesy: He handed her her grandfather's birth certificate.

The Spanish president revealed during an event organized at the Colegio de México that this gift was a form of justify the historical and economic links between Spain and Mexico.

In a note to the Efe News Agency, the government estimates that "the arrival, five hundred years ago, of Spaniards on current Mexican lands can not be judged in the light of contemporary considerations" .

They recalled that in July 2015, during his trip to Bolivia, Pope Francis had asked "with humble regret" not only for "the faults of the Church, but also for Crimes against indigenous peoples during the so-called conquest of America ".