The Venezuelan government has set up a “commission to clarify historical truth, justice and reparation regarding colonial rule and its consequences”.

President Nicolas Maduro, endorsing the 20-member investigative committee, said “it is a commission to dig into the truth of European colonialism, here, on this land: its crimes, its genocide, the looting that took place, and to demand justice and reparation”. of Spain, Portugal and all of Europe for Latin America”.

Maduro pointed out that the “historical commission” was an initiative scheduled for October 12, the day on which, each year, the Latin American nation commemorates the “indigenous resistance”.

The date is also observed as Columbus Day in the United States and elsewhere.

On the occasion last year, the Venezuelan president sent a letter to the King of Spain asking the people of the Americas to receive “pardon for the crimes and genocide committed and to initiate a process of reparation.”

The Venezuelan president stresses that, to achieve this objective, it is necessary to carry out “historical research” and “a great educational effort”.

The commission will be chaired by the Minister of Culture and composed of various politicians, historians, writers, researchers, anthropologists, philosophers and leaders of the Venezuelan cultural movement.

For centuries, the development of European countries has been at the expense of gold, silver and other wealth stolen from Latin American nations colonized by the West.

In return, experts say Latin Americans were enslaved and forced to work in atrocious conditions. Analysts say this enslavement and occupation continues in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean by the West.

Leaders of the anti-colonization movement say the commission is key to giving a voice to indigenous peoples in Latin America and understanding their identity, what the effects of colonization have done to them, and what they have become today. today.