Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday apologized for a 1911 massacre in which more than 300 Chinese were slaughtered by revolutionary troops in the northern city of Torreon.
The apology is the latest in a series of ceremonies in which Lopez Obrador has sought to make amends for the mistreatment of ethnic minorities in Mexico in past centuries.
Lopez Obrador said the point of the apology was to ensure “that this never, ever happens again,” adding that the Chinese were mutilated or hung from telegraph poles.
Photo: Reuters
“The discrimination was based on the most vile and offensive” stereotypes, Lopez Obrador said, adding “these stupid ideas were transferred to Mexico, where extermination was added to exclusion and mistreatment.”
Many Chinese laborers had emigrated to Mexico in the 1800s, in some cases to work on the expansion of the nation’s rail network, but many set up businesses, farms and in Torreon, even a bank.
The 1911 killings of 303 Chinese men, women and children occurred during the chaotic period of the Mexican Revolution, when revolutionary troops overran Torreon, sealing the fate of longtime ruler Porfirio Diaz. The loss of the city led Diaz to resign and leave for exile.
Like most racial killings, it was fed by suspicion, hatred, fear, envy and lies.
Torreon was a booming railway town and control of it was key to rail lines north to the US. Some Mexicans grumbled that Chinese were taking jobs or depressing wage rates; others were envious of the Chinese community’s economic success.
Between May 13 and 15, 1911, revolutionary troops took control of the city from Diaz’s army and, once inside the city, slaughtered many of it Chinese inhabitants, though some others hid or were saved by local residents.
The victorious revolutionary government of Mexican president Francisco Madero agreed to pay reparations for the massacre, but Madero himself was overthrown in 1913 and the payment was never made.
“It is during the most convulsive moments of history when these [racist ideas] get twisted into genocidal killings,” Coahuila Governor Miguel Angel Riquelme said.
Lopez Obrador, who usually lavishes praise on the 1910-1917 revolutionary movement, said that the movement also expressed anti-Chinese sentiments.
Historian Monica Cinco Basurto said the massacre was far from the only anti-Chinese act in Mexico. Looting of Chinese-owned businesses and the expulsion or forced departure of Chinese — often without recognizing their Mexican citizenship or that of their families — extended throughout northern Mexico into the 1930s.
Lopez Obrador was accompanied during the apology by Chinese Ambassador to Mexico Zhu Qingqiao (祝青橋).
Mexico has relied on China for about 10.5 million of the 29.1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses received so far, or about 36 percent of all shots.
Zhu said the vaccines and medical equipment from China “have left a strong imprint on the history of relations between our two countries.”
Lopez Obrador said “we will never forget the brotherhood of the Chinese during the bitter and anguishing months of the pandemic.”
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