The number of victims from the actions of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés is comparable to the number of victims from the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said.
He also compared Cortes to Adolf Hitler, noting that their respective number of victims “is counted in the millions“.
“Hernán Cortés was a genocidal criminal, comparable to Netanyahu and even surpassing him. The number of people killed and massacred by Hitler and Cortes is in the millions“, he wrote on the social media platform X.
Hernán Cortés was a 16th-century Spanish conquistador. He led an expedition to Central America from 1519 to 1521. During the campaign, his forces captured the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, after which the region fell under the control of the Spanish crown.
This is not the first time that the Colombian president has criticized Netanyahu and compared his actions to the policies pursued by Hitler.
In 2023, he compared the blockade of Gaza to a concentration camp for Jews during World War II.