Address by Comandante Daniel, Co-President of Nicaragua, at the XXV ALBA-TCP Summit
December 14th 2025
Remarks by President Nicolás Maduro Moros
We are going to give the floor to the Heir to the Legacy of Augusto César Sandino, Co-President Daniel Ortega, who is there with our Beloved Sister, Co-President Rosario Murillo. Go ahead, Nicaragua!
Address by Daniel
How are you Nicolas? We have seen you with the People there, marching, Always Further On!
It is true that we have faced, throughout our history, powerful enemies who seemed invincible. And these powerful enemies ended up being defeated, they ended up being defeated firmly, with courage, without making us stop. As Don Quixote said to Sancho, when the dogs were barking and wanted to bite them, and Sancho was worried, “Don't listen to them, Sancho; if they bark it's because we're making our way.
They want to paralyze our Peoples with threats, with barks, with bites; that is, sanctions are bites, biting Peoples in order to terrorize them, and really the contribution, throughout history, of the liberating feat led by Bolivar, had an impact on all of Our America and after the defeats suffered by the Spanish Empire, resulted in the Independence of Central America from the Spanish Empire being achieved.
At this time there were also those who wanted to annex the Central America that had declared its Independence, they wanted to annex it to the Iturbide Empire, which was still enthroned in Mexico. But that didn't happen. And then just a few years after the Independence of Central America, when the Central American Countries decreed the abolition of slavery, a slaveholder from the United States, William Walker, invaded our Territory, and this had to do with the Yankee plan to seize Nicaragua, seize Central America; by seizing Central America, seizing Mexico, and going over the United States later they would have recovered the area that the United States managed to defeat later in the war between the North and the South, when they managed to defeat the South that defended slavery.
Walker arrived in Nicaragua with a force of military men, headed by a Colonel, Colonel Byron Cole, they carried modern weaponry, which the Central American Armies did not have, and neither did the Nicaraguan Army, and by one of the political forces that was in contradiction with another political force in Nicaragua, taking a mercenary anti-patriotic policy, that political force gave Walker entry, invited Walker to arrive so as to help defend Nicaragua, and in exchange they guaranteed a US company of Cornelius Vanderbilt, guaranteed transit, free transit from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States, because the traffic of people in the US was overflowing, looking for a way to travel to the West Coast, because there was a hunger for Gold.
Thousands of families who traveled across North American territory ran into danger, because they were being assaulted, because there was some indigenous resistance, also there; so, Vanderbilt saw the maps and looked for crossings here in Central America and found that there was a natural passage here in Nicaragua.
We are talking about the years 1854, 1855, 1856, when William Walker's troops landed, and then Walker what he did was take over the country, take power from those who had brought him, even executing them, and, in those conditions, when the Nicaraguan population was a population that did not reach a million people, it was in fact much less, the population of Nicaragua, with armies, with weapons and rifles that did not have the capabilities, the effectiveness of those brought by Walker, but they did not surrender, they did not surrendered faced with Walker.
Because Walker advanced very fast, first to appoint a President and then he appointed himself President; he invented an election, and, elected himself William Walker as President of Nicaragua, recognized by the Government of the United States of that time.
And against that force of Walker’s, which was a powerful force compared to the Nicaraguan force, which was gathering under the command of General José Dolores Estrada and where the Indigenous people of Matagalpa, an area that is located in the north of Nicaragua, also joined; they joined, they set up barricades in a Hacienda, San Jacinto, where they barricaded themselves behind the stone walls that were there, to protect themselves as they fought the invaders. And the fight took place. And as a result of the combat, the US Colonel Byron Cole fell, and that was a very hard blow for them.
Meanwhile, the troops were running out of ammunition were resisting at the Hacienda San Jacinto, and they had no repeating weapons, and that's where the bravery, the courage, of our Hero Andrés Castro arose, such that when a Yankee soldier advanced on his trench, he had no ammunition and what he did was to take a stone and knock down the invading Yankee. And they were defeated!
They were expelled from Nicaragua, they were of course picked up by a ship from the United States, which was sent to fetch them, and they were received as heroes back in the United States, and that was Nicaragua's first acid test in the face of the onslaughts of expansionist imperialism.
Then came a second battle, when a Liberal Government was in government, back then they could not call it Communist yet because there were no Communist Parties in these Countries then; so, Liberalism, when it came to government in elections, headed by General José Santos Zelaya, began to make reforms, profound reforms that the Yankee government did not approve of, that the Yankee government condemned and, in the end, the US Government, via its Foreign Minister, sent a note to President Zelaya telling him that he had to leave office, because US troops were already heading to Nicaragua, and if he didn’t leave they would capture him.
Zelaya did not have the mettle to step up and resist, but another Liberal leader, General Benjamin Zeledón, took over, and he organized a detachment that began fighting against the Yankee troops who landed in Corinto and headed to El Coyotepe, where General Zeledón was entrenched. That was a heroic battle.
Since they could not get Zeledón to surrender and he was causing them casualties, they proposed that he surrender and that they would spare his life... Zeledon said: I am not surrendering!, and he wrote a letter, and in this letter there he wrote to his wife, to his children, telling them he was going to give his life, because he could not surrender to the invaders.
He sent the letter on the days when he was already about to fall in combat, and it was in the Month of October, on October 4, 1912, that General Benjamín Zeledón, National Hero, staunch Anti-Imperialist, gave his life for the Sovereignty of Nicaragua.
The Yankees dragged around Zeledón's corpse everywhere, so as to instill fear in the population. And that's where a boy, Sandino who was a boy, saw this, as he related himself, how when he saw the humiliation being done to Nicaragua, being done to General Zeledón, he became angry and thus decided to confront the invaders.
And he faced the Yankee invaders and, for years, fought a long battle; the Yankees used aviation trying to defeat him, but every day more casualties were suffered by the Yankee troops, which Sandino faced with his Army of Peasants in the mountains of Nicaragua. In the end, the Yankees had no choice but to retreat, that is to say, they were defeated by General Sandino.
Then after the defeat came the Peace Agreements with President Sacasa and with Somoza who he was an agent of the Yankees who had left him at the head of the Nicaraguan Army, and he ambushed Sandino after a reception with President Sacasa who had invited him to dinner. At that point they had already signed the Peace Accords, so the dinner was for Sandino, Sandino accompanied by his father and Compañeros from the General Staff.
The dinner ended at night time, and when they come out of dinner and were going down an avenue that passed by the barracks used by the Yankees, occupied by Somoza, there Somoza's Guard stopped him, they surrounded him, and he protested.
The daughter of President Sacasa who had been at the dinner, who was also coming down saw that General Sandino is being detained and protested; but, simply, they shot all of them later and they thought that in that way Nicaragua would be subjected to the Yankee Empire, and therefore also to the self-same criminal the Yankees left here governing Nicaragua: Somoza. But when there is Consciousness, when there is Courage, when there is Love for the Patriotic Nation, the People simply waiting for the moment to put an end to the traitors, to put an end to the quislings.
And after Sandino, fighters of the Sandino’s Army in Defense of National Sovereignty continued raiding, fighting and there were several guerrilla incursions which were defeated. They were very small guerrilla forces, in difficult conditions, but they showed courage and endurance to fight the battle even in disadvantageous conditions.
In the end, young people, heirs of Sandino's vision, organized the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and the Front had to fight a long battle, with thousands of dead, against the Somoza Guard armed by the US, trained by the US, but in the end they achieved victory.
Also, inspired by the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution, that gave Nicaraguans more strength, more morale. Cuba had triumphed in 1959 and 20 years later the Nicaraguan Revolution triumphed; at a time when it was assured that the end had already arrived of Revolutions in Latin America and the Caribbean, but then the Nicaraguan Revolution triumphed.
Since then we have had a long journey, always confronting conspiracies, attempts to destroy the Revolutionary Process, but we have a People, a Youth incorporated into all activities that contribute to the Well-being of the People, the fight against Poverty, and developing Projects, because our main objective remains Peace.
We are Defenders of Peace, Sandino fought for Peace and we want Peace; but we have, in the North, a North that feels it owns all Our America. And the famous Monroe Doctrine is nothing more than their determination to take over all of Latin America and the Caribbean.
I would say that there has been a fundamental axis that has strengthened the resistance and struggle of the Latin American Peoples, which is the one that our Elder Brother, Comandante Fidel Castro, and our Brother, Comandante Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, managed to install; those two, Fidel, the father, and Hugo, the son, managed to make a leap in what is the defense of the Rights and Identity of the Peoples of Our America.
And their first big step was the creation of ALBA and, despite all the ups and downs, despite all the threats, despite all the sanctions, ALBA is still alive, ALBA is making its way and, as Don Quixote said to Sancho: “Don't worry, the dogs bark because we are making our way, and the more they see us make our way, the more strength and steadfastness they see in us, the more they will bark, the more they will bite.
And with this siege, they are carrying out their project of militarily encircling the region, taking the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as a starting point with the story of drug trafficking, and they have been found out; it was already said that what they want is the oil of the Venezuelan people, and what have they done? They stole an oil tanker. It's robbery! They are thieves! Fancy thieves, yes, etiquette, because they feel they have the right to steal, steal the ship, and steal the oil that the ship was carrying
Of course, we have to condemn this aggression, which is aggression targeting all the CELAC Countries. Maybe there will be some governments that think that because they are "friends” of the US government and they will do well. But the US rulers, the US Empire, the Imperialists of the Earth have no friends.
What they did in Honduras was say who the President should be, the worse for that President, because we don't know how it will go, we don't see the US there, since it hates, really hates the Honduran people, hates the Central American Peoples, hates them for being migrants, we don't see any good outcome there, they are going to seek to impose themselves, and if the President who is finally elected there does not obey them, then he will no longer be a friend, he will be an enemy.
These are truly extraordinary moments in the struggle for peace in the World, because we see the European Union beating the drums of war, getting involved, as it has already done, supporting the Nazis in Ukraine, against the Republic of the Russian Federation.
This is a war, a struggle being waged by the Russian people against Nazis, Nazis in lands where millions of Russians live and they have discriminated against them, murdered them, and still we see the European Union beating drums of war.
And the Pope crying out for peace. The people want peace. We are sure that the People of Ukraine want Peace, just the same, we are sure that the People of Israel want Peace, but there is a Government and a Party also of a fascist nature; that is to say, after the Nazis rampaged through the People of Israel, now this ruling Party comes and rampages through the Palestinian People, when they are Fraternal Peoples, but it rampages through the Palestinian People trying to annihilate them, disappear them, wanting to deny the Rights that the Palestinians have in order to develop as a People. The destruction is terrible, whole cities with homes have been destroyed there; thousands of children have been murdered.
And in the United States, the persecution of migrants is an expression of the racism that exists among the US rulers, and I am sure that the majority of the US people do not agree with the persecution that there is against migrants, because those immigrants work for the US people.
In other words, they are waging war on migrants, they are expelling them and applying a racist policy, and that cannot work out well, the policy that has been implemented in the United States, where the US people are suffering the impact of the economic measures the United States Government has taken, against Social Programs, against Health Programs, against Programs that are essential for the US People.
There is a rejection of all the measures that the US government has been taking, and threatening to take, it lives threatening Mexico, threatening Colombia, threatening now to go against Colombia, to go against Mexico, to bring in troops; in other words, it says it with every sign of calm. The peoples will react, yes, and the US people will react, for Peace must be established in the World.
And the People of Bolívar, of Chávez, of Nicolás, the Bolivarian People, who have been subjected to an attempt at strangulation, that is a People that has in its Citizens, Men, Women, Young People, Workers, Peasants, all of them are Bolívar, all of them are Chávez, all of them have that strength and they are not fleeing because they are being encircled militarily with threats of ground invasion. No one is running away from these threats.
Instead, the People are cheerful, happy, steadfast, ready to face whatever these gentlemen may think of doing and with the conviction that they will defeat them. And the defeat is already there, because that is a People that at Peace. No one has managed to provoke any uprising of the People against the Government; on the contrary, there is total unity of the People with the Government Authorities and with President Nicolás, and with the Bolivarian Army.
That is to say, there is unity, there is joy, which is to say they are not terrified because the Yankee ships are there nearby, they are not terrified, and a People which has that morality and has that strength, will always overcome, and you are already overcoming, Beloved Brothers and Sisters, you are an example of inspiration for the Latin American and Caribbean Peoples and for the Peoples of the World.
We completely share the approach that President Nicolás Maduro has suggested on how to organize ourselves, on how to work with greater performance and nowwith clear points to develop. This will naturally give us greater strength in all aspects, because we are going to unite even more than we have done, now moving forward on all these factors that President Nicolás Maduro has talked about.
And our solidarity, as always, with the Heroic People of Martí, Fidel, Raúl and our Brother President Miguel Díaz-Canel. Miguel Díaz-Canel was here in Nicaragua when we were confronting the Contras, and he was at Jinotega's side in the combat zones, in the war zones.
We greet the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit; the Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, Philip J. Pierre; the Minister of Foreign Relations, Trade and Business of Antigua and Barbuda, Paul Chet Greene.
We greet the Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade, Industry and Business, Consumer Affairs, Economic Development and Investment of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Denzil Douglas; the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Export Development of Grenada, Joseph Andall; the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, Foreign Investment and Diaspora Affairs of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, David Fitzgerald Bamberg.
To all of you, Brothers and Sisters, our greetings for your People and our commitment to keep getting closer so as to strengthen our relations in all fields. We know that all of us face greater or lesser difficulties, but we all face difficulties, and the way to overcome these difficulties was traced by Fidel, by Chávez: It is ALBA! And united, we are already overcoming.
Just the fact that we are gathered on this day, that we have this exchange, is a sign of the steadfastness, of the courage, of the loyalty of our Peoples, to Fidel and also to Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías.
Onward, Brothers and Sisters! Fraternal embraces from the people of Nicaragua.
Remarks by President Nicolás Maduro Moros
We all thank you for the historical reflection, the guidance and lessons this Extraordinary Trajectory leaves us. Everything that is told is a unique story, not science fiction, not Superman, these are our Heroes, Sandino there and Andrés Castro, like David against Goliath.
In the end, we bring David's Strength to confront today's Goliath, yesterday's Goliath, and whoever else may come. We carry the sling of David, the sling of the Peoples, Blessed by God. Because David said to Goliath: You can have that armor, you can have the biggest sword that has ever been seen, you can be 2 meters tall, and I’m skinny and tiny here, but you don't have what I have, David told him. And Goliath said to him, And what have you got then? I have the Power and the Blessings, the Power and the Blessings of my People. And güin, güin, güin, it's over for Goliath!
David, we are David in the XXI Century, and we are go onward with Sandino conquering, Sandino there forever. They thought they had shot and killed him, but Sandino sowed himself in the Blood, in the Soil, in the Heart of that People, and then resurrected in that beautiful Revolutionary Process of July 19, 1979. So, then, our greetings.
Always, Bolivar talked about Peace as our Goal, our Life, our Strength, our Struggle, and Bolivar, on June 23rd 1820, a year and a day before the Battle of Carabobo wrote a phrase that is a mantra for us: “Peace will be my Port, my Glory, my Reward, my Hope, my Joy and all that is precious in the World.” Peace, the Peace that triumphs every day and the Peace that we will build with solid and firm foundations in the effort that we are making.
Before giving the floor to the Caribbean Leader, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, I would like to inform the Delegations of our nine Countries of a Proposal that we have been working on, in the Spirit of the Mission Miracle, with Compañero President Miguel Diaz-Canel and the People of Cuba, in the Spirit of the Mission Miracle, to create an international Special ALBA Energy and Electricity Mission.
A Special Mission to support the People of Cuba in an extraordinary and special way in their struggle against the blockade and the effects of all the energy and electricity issues. It will be an International Energy and Electricity Mission of special support for the People of Cuba. It is submitted for consideration, and well, we will give news now about this Resolution.