Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday called Spanish conquistadors such as Rodrigo de Bastidas, who founded the city of Santa Marta 500 years ago,"genocidal," and said that this event cannot be celebrated as a heroic deed, but rather as the beginning of massacres.

"We cannot celebrate the genocidaires who brought blood," the president said during an official ceremony at the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino in Santa Marta, where he led the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the country's oldest city.

The president insisted that the Spanish conquistadors Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, founder of Bogotá, and Rodrigo de Bastidas, founder of Santa Marta,"did not found civilizations, they started massacres."

Petro was welcomed to the event by indigenous authorities, accompanied by his chief of staff, Alfredo Saade, and several ministers.

In his speech, he compared the Spanish conquest with contemporary tragedies, such as the war in the Middle East, and asserted that America was named"at the cost of the genocide of millions of people, whether by the sword or by the diseases they brought."

Santa Marta, founded on July 29, 1525 by Bastidas, celebrated five centuries since its founding this Tuesday, after a week full of cultural events, institutional visits and a serenade on the beach offered by Carlos Vives, one of the most famous artists born in this Caribbean city.

On July 20, Petro presided over a military parade in that city to commemorate Colombia's independence from the Spanish, something he also criticized because they placed him"under the statue of Bastidas," although that day "Bastidas is not commemorated, the opposite is commemorated."

"What we celebrate today is the resistance of the people who survived and escaped to the Sierra. Those are our true founders," he said.

The event took place at the emblematic Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino, a site full of historical symbolism as it is the place where the Liberator Simón Bolívar died in 1830.

In remembering Bolívar, the president contrasted his emancipatory legacy with the founding trauma left by the conquest.

During the event, the government launched the Santa Marta 500 Years newsletter, with announcements for the region, such as the construction of a train to the municipality of La Dorada, investments in water justice and energy transition, and the protection of the Sierra Nevada as a natural and historical heritage site for the country.

"We are older than the Egyptians and the Romans. There are traces on this land that are more than 20,000 years old," said Petro, calling for the eradication of the word"conquest" from the language when referring to war.