Colombus tried and “executed,” 506 years later

 Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 13 October (ENI) - History finally caught up with Christopher
Colombus on October 12. After a Honduran jury found the Italian explorer guilty of a series of
crimes ranging from theft to genocide, he was executed by two Lenca indigenous warriors who
fired a dozen arrows into the controversial figure.
 The execution of Colombus took place on the 506th anniversary of his first landing in the
Americas.
 In Honduras, indigenous groups took advantage of the holiday to take over the remote
ruins of the ancient Mayan ceremonial center at Copan. Indigenous leaders said they wouldn't
allow public access to the ruins–an important tourist center and source of income for the
government–until authorities resolve several pending land disputes and arrest those responsible
for murdering 43 Honduran indigenous leaders during the last six years.
 Convened by the Committee of Popular and Indigenous Organizations, the “trial” of
Colombus took place in the country's capital city, in the courtyard of the national parliament,
which was in recess for the holiday.
 The prisoner, an eight-foot high painting of the explorer in handcuffs, was brought before
the jury and a crowd of about 2,000 protestors.
 Indigenous leaders read a lengthy series of charges against Colombus, citing descriptions
of the explorer's actions written by his son Hernando. In all, he faced ten charges, including
kidnaping, rape, slave trading, invasion, murder, torture and genocide against the hemisphere's
indigenous peoples.
 A defense attorney appointed by the court argued that the trial was “a ridiculous show,”
and blamed the poverty of Honduras on the country's “lazy Indians.”
 According to two religious leaders who were members of the ten-person jury, the original
plan had been to find Colombus guilty and then hold him in lieu of reparations from the Spanish
government. Yet as the jury was debating Colombus' fate, the crowd began yelling for him to be
executed.
 “In the end, it was the people who decided,” said Father Celso Sanchez, a Roman
Catholic priest who serves as pastor in San Juan Bautista, an indigenous community in the
province of Intibucá. Sanchez, himself a Lenca, was a member of the jury.
 “The trial was an important step in educating ourselves about how our peoples were
conquered,” Sanchez told ENI. “We've only been taught the positive aspects of colonization until
now. The people have a right to know the truth, to know their own history.”
 Instead of capital punishment, Sanchez said he preferred demanding reparations from
Spain “for the moral damage, the destruction of human dignity that accompanied the conquest of
our peoples and the plundering of our lands.”
 The other religious leader on the jury was Andres Thomas Conteris, a United Methodist
missionary from the United States who has worked closely with indigenous communities here.
Last year Thomas was named to head an independent committee of witnesses that monitored
government compliance with a treaty with indigenous groups.
 “Throughout the world in recent years,” Thomas told ENI, “truth commissions have been
created to help people emerging from repression to know the truth about what happened in their
past, and thus take a first step toward genuine reconciliation. This trial is a symbolic first step
toward investigating the high crimes perpetrated against millions of indigenous people, crimes
that continue today.”
 The trial of Colombus in Tegucigalpa culminated a three-month series of preliminary
hearings held in indigenous communities around this Central American country. Thomas was
also a jury member last month at a hearing in Rincon del Buey, when it was decided that there
was sufficient evidence to remand Colombus over to trial in Tegucigalpa.
 “It's unfortunate in a way that this is only symbolic,” commented Thomas, “that those
responsible for so much violence aren't actually brought to account for their actions. Yet simply
by telling the truth we're taking one more step towards justice for indigenous peoples.”
 Asked about the execution of Colombus, Thomas shrugged and said, “I oppose capital
punishment but I don't think the guy suffered too much.”

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