This is part of a speech Daniel Ortega gave on Dec 17, 2020 in an event where he received the credentials of new ambassadors to Nicaragua. Given the current focus on the upcoming elections of Nov 2021, this is a translation of just that part of his speech that reflects his perspective on the elections Nicaragua has had in the past, the recent US elections, and his reading of the citizen uprising in April 2018 and the opposition who call into question the electoral apparatus known as the Supreme Electoral Council. In contrast to reports from the IAHCR and OHCHR Ortega claims the uprising was not peaceful but armed and accuses the opposition of the very things that international human rights organizations accuse the government of doing, thus, creating an “alternative reality”. Not unlike the confusion created around the US elections, the result is to immobilize any interest in joining movements for change, either through discrediting those actors, or lessening the severity of what the government did, since “both sides do it.” In any event, this speech is an important window into the Government´s perspective.
President Daniel Ortega on receiving Credential Letters from Ambassadors, Dec 17, 2020
…And as I was telling you, there we approved, in the midst of the war, the First Constitution. Elections in 1984, where they [US] did not want part of the Opposition to participate to take legitimacy away from the Elections, and then from those Elections the National Constituent Assembly was installed, the Population was consulted, and there the Principles of Political Pluralism, Mixed Economy and Non-Alignment were established in terms of International Policy. And then we had joined the Non-Aligned Nations Movement, right after the Triumph of the Revolution.
It has been an ongoing turmoil, the yankees do not accept, and I said it and I have said it to the US Emissaries who have come here, with whom we have conversed: for you the only good Election is the one that you win, be it cleanly, or cheating, the people who you are financing and backing: otherwise, that Election is not good. At least in the case of Nicaragua.
Because we, Sandinistas, an armed Revolution, that came to power through arms, in 1990 having the entire Electoral Branch in our hands, it was not the yankees, it was the People, and it was the Sandinista People who formed the Supreme Electoral Council, some of the Representatives of the Parties who were participating in the Elections were part of it. And we participated in those Elections of 1990.
On the one side was Nicaragua, the People with the Front; on the other side was the United States, President Bush, openly telling the Nicaraguan People, that if the Front continued in Government, he was going to continue the Policy of the United States against Nicaragua (President Bush was the Vice President of President Reagan, now in the Presidency) and the financing and that campaign of terror, where we had suffered more than 50,000 victims in that war, from 1979 to 1990.
We participated in the Elections and we found that the result was against us, and we understood why. There had been suffering in the People, very great suffering, and the threat of the continuity of the war, the very Families of Sandinista Youth who had fallen in combat, and with tears in their eyes, voted against the Front. Because the alternative that the yankee threat left was either Peace or the continuity of the war. If you went with the Front, the continuity of the war, if you went with the Opposition, fed by the yankees, financed by the yankees, at the service of the yankees, then there would be Peace.
That was what was decisive. They surpassed 51%, we stayed at 38% in those Elections, and we have no doubt, what we are seeing did not happen, and what has been seen in the United States of America in these days, and that has been seen in other moments as well, when the Election of Al Gore against Bush junior, that had to resort to the Judicial Branch so that the Judicial Branch, dominated by the Republicans, would give the victory to Bush.
Note how much time has passed in the United States since Election day, it is today and now there is an official result, that gives the Victory to the Democrats, to President Biden, and the President of the United States of America who continues being the President until January 20th is not recognizing that, and is making accusations of fraud. In contrast here, we the Sandinistas, are accused of being “anti-democratic”.
The Elections were February 25th, the results were already being made known by midnight, with some votes missing still from the deepest areas of the mountains, and there was already a tendency indicating that we were not winning the Elections. And we did not hesitate, at 5am we were in an event at the Olaf Palme Center, we there were making known that we recognized the results.
Now in the Opposition then, having the most powerful Party of the Country, we sought to carry out a constructive Opposition, and it never occurred to us to use our Force to overthrow the Governments that followed us, because for the first time in the History of this Country changes began to be made in the Government, and the Government that Ms Chamorro led, and later came the Candidacy of Dr. Alemán who received all the support of the Extreme Right, and received all the support of the US Government, and received all the support of the Communications Media, and today are ashamed of Dr. Alemán, and with all that backing, with all that support, he won the Elections.
We made some challenges to the Electoral Process, because at that time they had changed the correlation of Forces in the Electoral Council, something that is normal, the Party that won seeks to change the correlation of forces in key Branches. They do that in the United States, and they do that in any Country, with the difference that here the Electoral Branch of Nicaragua was followed in 1990, the Sandinista Power abided by an Election that it could have stolen, and did not do so, it recognized the results.
And this stage of 17 years began; after the Government of Dr. Alemán came the Government of Engineer Bolaños, and we were a constructive Opposition. It never occurred to us, having the Force to mobilize the People and overthrow any of these Governments, it never occurred to us, even in the moment of tension with the Government that followed us in 1990, with the Government of Mrs. Chamorro, when they were trying to wrest away all the Conquests for the Peasants, the Workers, taking away their lands that we had given to the Peasants with the Agrarian Reform, homes to the Workers.
So, there were protests of the Workers, and we advised the Government. Well, there was no other option than negotiating, they should negotiate. They began the negotiations and the protest of the Workers continued.
A moment arrived in which the person who was the Prime Minister of the Government of Mrs. Chamorro, who managed all those situations, Engineer Antonio Lacayo, may he rest in peace, we would meet with them in a room, in another room where the Workers debating with their Ministers, debating the issues that had to do with their Rights, Workers of the City as well as Workers in the Country. And we with Engineer Lacayo and other Ministers, insisting, you have to look for how to reach an Agreement there, respecting the basic Conquests, basic Rights of the Workers, because they were not going to be able to get them [the workers] out of there.
So now in exhaustion Engineer Lacayo came and said to me, Daniel, Doña Violeta says to give you the keys to the Presidency, and that you take the Presidency because she is no longer going to continue in this. I replied to him, No, we are not going to take the keys of the Presidency, we are going to take the keys to the Presidency through Votes, here you are the ones who have the responsibility to provide a solution to this problem and negotiate. In the end the negotiation was successful and the Government of Mrs. Chamorro was able to conclude without bigger problems.
As I was telling you, Dr. Alemán came, then came Engineer Enrique Bolaños, and each time these Elections came we had here Representatives from the Government of the United States. I remember that one of the most well-known and powerful Representatives that the United States sent in the Elections of 2006 was General Colin Powell, who at that time was Secretary of Defense of the United States.
General Colin Powell came here, met with the President and gave declarations, making clear that the United States backed the “democratic” candidates, and that it did not support Sandinism, and that a return of Sandinism was going to be rejected by the US Policy. He said that calmly with the President at his side. That happened in those Elections.
Well, we were not in Government, we could not do more than protest, criticize that attitude of coming to humiliate; a shame for a Country that a yankee Emissary would come in, who is a High Official of the Government, to talk in that way. And in the end, we won the Elections. And winning the Elections, well, once again history is being repeated. They are not happy, they have not been happy in spite of the fact that here in Nicaragua, based on our experience and the lived experience also of the Business people, the Workers, the Middle Sectors, in all these vicious struggles, we are able to shape an Agreement, an Alliance among the Business people, that logically the Business people always voted for the Parties of the Right, they would finance the Parties of the Right, the Workers, the Producers of the City, of the Countryside, the Merchants, all, what for? To implement a Government practice where all Laws that could cause controversy had to be discussed at that table, be agreed upon, and then go on to the National Assembly.
We were negotiating at that time with International Aid Agencies, so to have a consensus to go to defend a Program that was sustainable for the Country, and that did not end up sinking the Country. And this provided a result that Nicaragua was able to reduce Poverty, Extreme Poverty, strengthen the Education System, the Health System, make progress in all Fields, and the Business people were earning, it was going well for the Business People, they were earning, but there were always groups, normal, groups that would condemn that Alliance.
The growth of the Country was the best indicator, the Country had sustainable growth since 2008, the first year of Government, until 2016; even, passing through the financial crisis of 2008 that shook the Economies of the World, the US Economy, the European Economy, we achieved, even under those conditions, a Growth rate, and not a decline, while other countries declined. We had achieved great strength in that Unity, without commitments in terms of the moment of Elections, that the Business people logically were going to vote for their Candidate, and to promote their Candidate.
That, logically, was a bad example for the Region and beyond the Central American Region. Because when Representatives of Latin American and Caribbean Governments would come here, they would ask us, what have you done to achieve this understanding, this Alliance with the Business people and the Workers, because we have tried that and it is not possible?
And in Nicaragua, the Presidents who came in with all the backing of the Business people, were not able to do this type of Agreement, this type of Alliance…They were not able to do it! After they had promised this to the Business people, they could not go it!
So they asked themselves, how have you done it? What is it that you have done? And we would explain that, it is even established by Law, the obligation the Government of Nicaragua has, no matter who is in power, to promote this type of Understanding and this type of Alliance; it is no longer a matter that responds to the will of whoever is in power, but is within the Constitution of our Country. In this way we left it clear, it is written this way in the Reform that was done to the Constitution.
But then came the conspiracy and the non-peaceful protest; it is not the peaceful protest that we see in other Countries, where we do not see anyone with rifles, except in the United States, that those who back President Trump walk around with rifles, machine guns. They should not be walking around like that! And they walk around in battle dress!
Armed protest came here, with rifles, shotguns, attacks on State institutions, destruction of Hospitals and burning of Hospitals, destruction of Schools and burning of Schools, destruction of municipal government buildings and burning of those buildings. They were the objectives they had, look for how to tear apart everything that has been able to be built for the benefit of the Poor, for the benefit of the People. Because the people who go to a Public Hospital are poor people, working people, the people who go to a Public School as well. Because we established the Principle, which previous Governments had broken this Principle, of Free Education, Free Health Care.
We established these Principles, so Schools were multiplied, Hospitals were multiplied, Heath Centers, but they started to burn them, destroy them, and we refrained from bringing out the Police, the Police did not come out, something that was really difficult. Yes, the Police putting up with armed attacks in their Bases, every day.
We have a number of Police who were murdered. In the points of control of the coup supporters, the Police person who was in civilian clothing, who was going by and was discovered when they searched him, or the Sandinista whose party ID was found, they immediately began to torture them, and then set them on fire. And they themselves filmed the moment of their capture, they filmed the moment when they sprinkled gasoline on them, they filmed the moment when they set them on fire and were burning, and they put it on the Networks.
They themselves handled it, and everyone knows who they were, because they did not hide their names, social, economic or religious condition, they did not hide it. They felt that they had already overthrown the Revolution, a Revolution that was one of Reconciliation, Unity and that was providing extraordinary results.
Yes, and this is what they did with dozens of Police, hundreds of Police ended up seriously wounded, others lost an arm, lost a leg, were left maimed, many women Police were murdered, not even mentioning Students, Teachers who were identified as Sandinistas, murdered, and they went out marking the homes of Sandinista Families so that later they would go there and try to murder them.
And we waited, we waited, and we were putting up then with the cry of the People, while the International Campaign was ferocious. We “the murderers”, and they the “pacifists”. But there came a moment when the population, the very people that sympathized with hard opposition Parties against the Sandinsta Front, began to complain, where are the Police? Where is the State? Until finally, after months, after passing through countless Dialogues where we were proposing that they suspend those positions they had with armed people and the attacks against the Police, and the attacks against the Schools, and the attacks against the Health Posts, and the attacks against Families, the attacks against the Communications Media…
Here, joyfully transmitted when they set fire to a Radio, joyfully transmitted as a great Victory, and each time that they killed a Policeman and tortured him, they also joyfully transmitted it through the Networks and through some Communications Media. An aberrant situation!
And I was saying, well we have to have the patience of Job, meanwhile, yes, the responsibility for the deaths, so many deaths, dozens of deaths, the destruction of Public Property all over. Well, in the end there was no path left than, well, for the Police to restore order, which is the role of the Police.
And it reached the extreme that the US Ambassador, there was a US Ambassador here at that time, who logically was encouraging all this type of crimes; a moment arrived in which she was going to her residence and in one of those points heard bullets, and what happened is that they had stopped an escort vehicle of hers to take their weapons, and they also took over the vehicle of the US Ambassador. Two vehicles there.
So the Ambassador came and began to call and say to Compañera Rosario: But why are you not restoring order? What are the Police for? This is an obligation of the State. Oh, yes it is, but on the other hand they were saying that the Police should not come out, that they should stay in their bases, while they are committing crimes and destruction throughout the Country.
And then when the Police came out to restore order, then the campaign intensified again, and for the Human Rights Organizations, the ones from the United Nations as well as the OAS, simply put here no Sandinistas died, here no Policemen died. They have not been concerned about investigating, and what they did was to do interviews where they would accuse the Police, the Front, without any basis of having killed Citizens who had died in the Hospitals for other reasons.
In other words, Citizens died in a Hospital because they had spent days there, they had a renal or cardiac disease, so they put them on the list and the Organizations casually took it to be true, but in addition they accused the Doctors of the hospitals of not have provided Medical Assistance to that person. It was a ferocious campaign that reached the extreme of calling on the Security Council to look to condemn Nicaragua. Logically that condemnation was not passed.
You, Dear Ambassadors, are on these Lands, on these Lands, and there you are going to have to deal with those who every day accuse us of not allowing Freedom of the Press. Well, look at the Television Channels and you are going to see that there is Television with Programs very critical of the Government, saying even any falsehood, but well, there no longer is freedom of expression, but licentiousness…Let them shout there! If you look at the Newspapers, the Dailies, the Newspapers that circulate in printed form, as well as the Newspapers now that circulate by the Networks and say whatever they want, make up anything.
Of course, this is not just a problem of Nicaragua, we know that this is a global problem, the way in which Communication is managed, and above all, how it is forcing many Governments of Countries that seem to be the most “democratic” of the World, which are the Europeans and which are the United States, to take Measures, to adopt Laws, so that this type of information is controlled.
Now it is England which is proposing, yesterday, the day before yesterday, England was proposing Laws to seek to regulate and immediately stop when news is being delivered when what they are doing is promoting hate, violence and instability, in any Country.
This is the reality of Nicaragua, dear Nicaraguan Brothers and Sisters, and dear Ambassadors. A reality which is part of the History of all our Peoples. All of our Peoples experience complex situations. There is no Country on the Planet that is perfect, it does not exist, and it has not even been possible to get the Principles implemented that were signed by all Nations, including by the United States, after the Second World War, the Charter of the United Nations. That Charter is there, but it is not fully applied, the Charter of the United Nations is not fully applied.
It is also clear that the World, apart from this pandemic that the virus caused, has a much bigger problem, which has to do with Mother Earth, with Nature, with the equilibrium that should exist in the Planet, where the Human Species is carried and led by elites who have Economic Power and who provide no place for sustainability in the economic-social field for Peoples who do not have the wealth that they accumulate, and from which some of these Countries continue thinking that they are going to save themselves. And this is what we all know as Climate Change.
With the Paris Agreement we have gone backwards. We hope, as the President elect of the United States announced, President Biden, that the United States joins the Paris Agreement and that we are able to really make progress around the Paris Agreement. Even though it is already said, and it was said when the Paris Agreement was signed, that the proposed goals were insufficient. This was said not by people who simply are waging the battle with a lot of Love, with a lot of feeling…No! Said by Scientists, by the Scientists of the Developed Countries, said by the Scientists who are working in NASA and are seeing what is happening at the speed with which these changes are happening, and that, therefore, the destruction will continue advancing, the destruction not of the Planet, in the end, the destruction of Life, the destruction of the Human Species. The Planet simply suffers and each day causes more continuously Natural Disasters.
Many of you have arrived in the midst of two hurricanes here in the Central American Region, two hurricanes that came through Nicaragua, two hurricanes, the first number 4, the second number 5 in strength. Well, hurricanes have hit Nicaragua, but they do not come so frequently and much less two hurricanes of that strength coming one after the other.
I want to recognize and thank, in the name our People, the Aid, Solidarity of People, Governments, that beyond political and ideological distances, have contributed to deal with the damages that these hurricanes have left, in Nicaragua, as well as in Honduras, Guatemala, more affected Countries, raining on what is already soaked, because, on the one hand is the pandemic, and then these hurricanes.
Thanking the International Organizations of the United Nations, we have received credentials from those who have also acted very quickly, they have even been present in the Caribbean Zone, some Ambassadors who have also been present in the Caribbean Zone, showing sensibility, concern, to look at how to bring a bit of relief to these Peoples, to these Zones where we really have disasters, loss of homes, home destruction, in the Caribbean and in the entire Country, because even the Southern Zone was affected. Here the Municipalities in the periphery were affected as well, in the Center, in the North and logically in the Caribbean.
I want to conclude, everyone celebrating, I am sure that we all celebrate, all Governments, all us Peoples celebrate the fair decision, which is a moral support, giving the Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Program. So it is that congratulations, dear Ambassador of the World Food Program. The delivery of her credentials were already formalized through the Video conference on December 10th, in other words, five days ago. Congratulations, Congratulations and Congratulations. Welcome all!