President-Comandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario, Vice President of Nicaragua,
in a Special Act to Commemorate International Women's Day
March 8th 2021
Remarks by Rosario
Good afternoon to you, young women and men, Hope of our Blessed Nation. Good afternoon, Beloved Families there in your Houses, in your Homes, in your Communities, sometimes resting after the working day or, as often as not, especially us women, working the second part of the day, taking care of our families. This is our culture.
Women have the protagonism in all spaces, and in the home the protagonism and the responsibility to transmit values, to pass on Values, as we pass on our traditional values from generation to generation, as a People full of Love. Because if something distinguishes us it is the affection, the heart that we put into everything we do, and above all the Women. The young men who are here, or the grown men too, should not be resentful, but the truth is that we distinguish ourselves, because we put our heart and soul into everything we do.
And well, March 8th, and I greet especially the sisters who are presiding with us : the Vice President of the National Assembly, Maritza Espinales; the Minister for Health, Dr. Martha Reyes; the Minister for Education, Professor Miriam Raudez; Attorney General of the Republic, Professor Wendy Morales; Compañera Guiomar Irías, Director of INIFOM, attending all the Municipalities; and Compañera Minister for Women, Jessica Padilla.
And again I greet all the compañeras and families who are at home, and today, on a day like today, we know we are privileged because we have been made important achievements, reinforcing and strengthening our right to play a leading role in all the spaces of participation and power.
We Women have achieved 50% participation according to the Constitution, thanks to our efforts, our heroism, our work, and to a Solidarity oriented Government, a Government that respects the Rights of All, and the Right of Women, to live as we deserve, with recognition of our Dignity and our Talents.
Every March 8th, we review, reflect, consider, and say: Well, we have advanced, we have made our way, and we deserve those advances that are ours, recognized in the Magna Carta, but we also have a long way to go. But we also have a long way to go. It is cultural change that we have to achieve.
This is a very important aspect... The fact that the Constitution establishes equity and establishes that we must be in equity, precisely, in all the spaces of life. Of public life. Of life in terms of the positions and responsibilities involved in exercising Power, involved in decision making, and the ability to take decisions.
And that, we say, is a privilege in this world: to make progress, because we have achieved it, with our presence, with our heroism in the struggles that we have had to wage, such that Nicaragua, as Sandino says, "is free because it has sons and daughters who love her".
So then, what more do we need? A lot more, of course! But above all we need to work hard toward this change of culture. To guarantee in those same spaces where we now have a voice, where we now have a vote, where now we can decide, to guarantee respect for us as Women, and for our lives as Women. Respect in the home, in the family, in the community, and respect in our workplaces, in the markets, in the offices, in the countryside.... Respect ! Respect for our work, for our capacity, for our talent, and for our life, in physical terms.
There is still this backwardness for us, the manifestation of violence against women in its different forms: harassment, abuse, and even too ultimately taking our lives, and this cannot continue. We have to work hard in every space, from government, from Youth, you young men, all of us, who are no longer young like you in chronological time, in age, but in eternal youth, because we see life with the hope of youth, and we work with decision, with the passion, with the enthusiasm of youth.
In terms of working, today we took an important step in the schools, because there are values that must be transformed, the values of a culture that alienates us, that humiliates us, that denigrates us, one that has a great deal to do with the poverty to which we have been subjected. But also making the effort to change ourselves, all of us, and for children, from the youngest, to learn respect and to value equity, learning that all of us are human beings and all of us are children of God.
And that does not mean we are absolutely equal, men have their own particularities, women have our particularities, but treating all of us with Love, which is what we should achieve. With affection, with Love, seeking harmony in life, at home, in the family, at work, in study, in schools. But above all, learning to grow with a different mentality, which will allow us to make progress in all that is holding us back, in all those things that attack us, that offend us, like violence against us women.
I believe that over the last few days we have shared different ideas, reflections and, above all, we have shared the need to commit ourselves more and more in different tasks that allow us to reach that objective of living without violence in all fields, and without violence against us Women.
Violence is a defeat for Humanity. Violence is an expression of hatred that we cannot permit in our Lives, in any way, in any form. How much Humanity suffers, the whole world, how much we have suffered in Nicaragua because of violence! And we have said: Hatred, Never Again! And we say it today too, because violence, attacks, mistreatment, harassment against women, sexual violence, all these are expressions of hatred, as well as social and political violence, they are expressions of hatred that we do not want in our Nicaragua anymore.
We are going to continue working. We have indeed been working to stop this epidemic. Because it is an epidemic, or is violence against women a pandemic? In any case, we are going to work hard, all of us together, based on values, and even out of affection.
Years ago we used to wonder if Women, gathered together, could make or carry out or undertake the necessary transformations for cultural change. Well, we women have the duty to promote, to work, to move things in that direction, but we must also work in the family, and we must also work with men, and we must also work with children. Because it is a problem for Society, it is not only a problem for Women.
It is a problem for Society, and it shows backwardness and shows backwardness that we no longer want and that we should neither admit nor accept, working together, with the tenderness that we know well, with that inspired heart, full of encouragement, in love with Life, that heart that we know very well. To work, to advance, and to dedicate ourselves to convincing those who are still not convinced that we Women have the Right to live free of violence, to live without attacks or outrages to our human dignity and to be recognized as the intelligent, talented and sensitive beings we are.
We have a lot of work ahead of us...! Today the Chief of the Police Centers for Women at the national level made a special presentation, talking about everything we are going to do to continue accompanying ourselves, accompanying Women. And then too, everything that needs to be done as well in terms of Justice, of the judicial system.
Also Dr. Alba Luz Ramos, President of the Supreme Court of Justice, made a presentation today of everything that needs to be done, so that the demand of our People, to condemn hate crimes, including crimes against women, with the maximum penalties is effectively fulfilled.
So today we have felt and lived this day with more privilege and more awareness, because we have been progressing with a Nicaraguan heart, passionate, proud and full of Love. And because we still have much to do, we are together to engage in any pending battles, and to win them, as we have in the past, by the hand of God, won so many battles, as a People, as families, without losing our tenderness, without losing our affection, but determined that the scourge that defeats us all must disappear: Violence against us Women!
And well, companeras, compañeros, in the coming days we will continue to publicize the particular, specific plans, appropriate to all these tasks that we have set ourselves and that we have integrated into the institutional life of the State and of government, and that we have encouraged in all the community networks, in tune with this struggle that commits us all to make progress and, God willing, day by day, to eradicate the humiliating reality of abuse against Women.
We have hope. We know that we are brave, that we are strong, that we are voices, that we are worthy, strong, hardworking, diligent, talented, and victorious Women.
Let us press forward, in Light and in Victories. Victories of Peace, of Concord, of Harmony, and Victories of the Dignified Life that Nicaraguan Women deserve.
Once again we want to greet all the companeras, compañeros who are at home now, watching television, resting a little, as we said to begin with, working hard, because we are still working, but happy. That is another essential element in our lives, Joy, which is a gift from God and which strengthens our ability to generate the healthiest, most well balanced and most loving family habits, to move forward, to press forward, building every day the small triumphs that generate great triumphs for us All.
Thank you, companeras, compañeros.
Remarks by Daniel
Beloved Women of this Nicaragua, blessed and free. Women of the countryside, rural Women, from the mountains; families along the banks of the Rio Coco or Wangki, and those along the Rio San Juan, our two borders, North and South.
Families found in the communities of the original peoples, also along the shores of the Caribbean Coast, in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region and in the South Atlantic Autonomous Region, or the North Caribbean and the South Caribbean, to be more exact.
Women also found along our other coasts, ranging from the Gulf of Fonseca, from where they go to the border area with Costa Rica, passing through so very many popular seaside resorts.
There is no region, there is no community, there is no town, no economic activity, no social activity in which women are absent. Women are present in all activities, in the productive activities in the countryside, in the families involved in productive activities, in commercial activities, in artisan crafts.
There are families developing those activities that today we call small enterprises, that they have been doing since the time of our ancestors, shaping clay, working clay, wood; also producing those rosquillas, rosquillas and other maize based sweet breads. All this is the fruit of the work of thousands and thousands of families where women are a determining factor.
And then too, the Women are in those activities, it's true, girls also accompany those productive activities with their families, in the cities of course, of the Nicaragua's Central Zone, of its Pacific Zone, but at the same time they are studying.
We must acknowledge the effort of the families and the young people who come from these humble households, with incomes that are really tight, some of them still in conditions of poverty or extreme poverty that we are striving against. But from there come young people who as boys, as children made it into high school and from high school to university.
And now this has really been a humanist, democratic Process, because the Revolution in this second stage, the first thing it did in 2007, was to break the chains of privatization, which had closed the doors of study to the poorest families.
Because the oligarchic governments, the neoliberal governments, which are the same as the ones that brought William Walker, the Yankee invader, they are the same. It's enough to read a little bit of history and we will see there the names of the parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, and in whose hands? In the hands of an oligarchy, a party serving the rich. They were times when the poor, stages of our history, in which the poor had no right to education, nor to health care, nor to aspire to public office.
All that was in the hands of the oligarchy, and when rebellions and resistance by the People took place, then that oligarchy went off, immediately went off to the rulers of the Empire, to ask them to send their troops to put the country in order, not only to send their troops and even turn the troops into criminal forces of intervention, murdering men, women and children, but also reaching the very extremes of lack of dignity, lack of patriotism.
They were, as these oligarchic, quisling groups continue to be, they were like snakes slithering to serve the Empire, and looking to the Empire to shield them them from the resistance of the Nicaraguan People, from the struggles that the Nicaraguan People have always undertaken, in all times, against what our General Sandino called "the oligarchs and the quislings".
Women who had not yet achieved their rights were already in those struggles, and those rights didn't even exist in the developed countries, in the rich countries. What it cost women in the United States of America, which claims to be the greatest "Democracy" in History, what it cost women to achieve the right to work in factories. They were not allowed to work in the factories, and they had to campaign to be able to work in the factories.
Women who were not willing to be slaves of the laws imposed by the rulers of the United States of America, they rebelled, and they rebelled again and again, and they were repressed, but in the end they managed, by fighting, to win the right to work alongside men.
They did not have the right to vote, in all these countries women did not have the right to vote. Yes, they present themselves as the great "democrats", but how women had to fight for to achieve the Right to Vote. Much less did they have the right to fight as soldiers, because they were denied the right to campaign, that was forbidden to them, the right to struggle, because when they resisted and engaged in struggle, they were killed immediately.
The slaves, there in the United States of America, the slaves, sisters and brothers who came in chains from Africa, in an operation that they called a business, as if they were moving cattle, they were concentrated together under the colonialists who were the owners at that time, they owned the oppressed slaves, the slaves, the sisters and brothers who came in chains from Africa, as part of an operation they called a business, as if they were trading cattle.
They had the African Peoples oppressed, they controlled their countries and they the Europeans, felt they were the owners of the African Peoples, who are just like the US.
The United States is nothing more than Europe stealing territories in Our America, murdering our ancestors, the true owners of these territories, from Canada, from Alaska to Patagonia, to the other extreme South of our Continent, passing through the dominion they also exercised in the Caribbean Islands, taking slaves. They did not even have the right to struggle, but they fought and fought, and finally they managed to obtain elementary rights.
They, who call themselves "defenders of human rights", are a Society where racism is still alive, and where Women are victims of racism and are victims of those systems that were developed that didn't recognize any Rights for Women.
Those countries, those rich, developed nations, which now present themselves as "great defenders of human rights", in fact enslaved Women; they are the ones now looking to see "the mote in the other's eye", that is, in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, in the countries of Africa, Asia and particularly in the nations where the Peoples have taken a dignified stand and taken the decision not to subordinate themselves to the Empire, ah, they are constantly bringing out reports where they qualify these countries, including ours, as countries where the human rights of Women are being violated, that here atrocious crimes are being committed against Women.
Let us see the statistics in Europe, and let us see the statistics in the United States, countries with great Wealth, with great Culture, but, what is the use of so much Wealth and so much Culture, if there the most serious crimes are committed against Women, against children. The same in Europe, women are murdered there every day.
But of course, as it is in Europe or as it is in the United States, they do not rend their vestments. More crimes are committed against women there than here in Nicaragua, for example. And these crimes against women have to do with that dominant, arrogant, macho culture that has developed in the world and has not yet been uprooted.
Horrendous crimes are committed here, and we are not going to be content just because fewer crimes are committed than in Europe or the United States. No, we are outraged! And we have to combat these crimes by raising consciousness, by becoming more aware, as men and women, not by fighting and setting Women against Men as enemies, because that is one way to get nowhere. Because the Family is formed from the union of men and women, or a Women and a Man. This fight must be fought with awareness.
I remember what my father used to tell us when we were boys, he used to tell us when we were in school, and as we grew up, he used to tell us a very common saying: "Women should not be mistreated even with a rose peta".
But there is still macho behavior, macho roots here in our country, in our nation, and we have to eradicate them. We have to eradicate them not by means of a war between Women against Men, or Men against against Women, because that is the way to go to hell, but by increasing awareness so that we Men do not forget, when we allow ourselves to be misled by machismo, that we are children of Women, that we are thanks to Women, that we exist thanks to Women, the farm worker, the industrial worker, the trading worker, the fisherman, we all exist thanks to Women.
This is the first thing we have to repeat to ourselves and to those who are continually succumbing to aggressive attitudes against Women, even going to the extreme of committing horrendous crimes.
That is why we have been forced to increase the maximum penalty in our country, because here the maximum penalty we had was of 30 years; in other countries there is even the death penalty. Here what we have done is, in the National Assembly, we approved, because we had to make the corresponding regulations, we approved the penalty of life imprisonment, that is to say, prison for life.
Those who commit horrendous crimes against women, against children, against men, yes, horrendous crimes, those who murder the mother, the son murdering the mother, those who murder young women, those who murder girls, those would deserve the death penalty, and not even with their life would they be paying for the damage they committed, the crime they committed. But, well, we have established life imprisonment, that is to say, they will remain in prison for life.
This law is already in force, and the first cases are already in force where the penalty is being applied beyond 30 years, it is already over 40 or 60 years, for people who are detained for horrendous crimes, such as torturing a person in public and then burning them, and before burning him, removing his clothes, painting him and making him run naked and tied up, and filming all of this. Only cowards and criminals.... that is called terrorism the world over.
That is why reforms have also been made in the law to punish, with higher penalties, this type of crime that we already know here and how these crimes have been committed. Ah, but because we legislate and pass laws in favor of families, in favor of Women, in favor of children, then they come and protest.
The Yankees protest, the Europeans protest, and they have much harsher Laws, because they even have the death penalty in countries like the United States, in some US states still. There it is, over these next few days they are going to apply the death sentence to a Mexican citizen, and there is a movement raising its voice so that they do not kill him and that they leave him there with life imprisonment.
In European countries we are seeing how they persecute, how they detain, how they beat those who go out to try and vindicate their rights. And they do not go out armed, they are not armed, they do not even carry mortars, much less rifles, shotguns, but they repress them and put them in jail, and they condemn them for terrorism.
And the most incredible thing, in one of these countries a singer of those who compose and at the same time interpret these modern songs, there with his guitar making songs, questioning in the lyrics of his songs the system that exists in his country. Well, he thinks that this system is not good and he says so in his songs. He does not go around with a gun, nor with a rifle, nor does he go around hitting anyone, just singing, but he has been imprisoned several times and now he has been accused of terrorism for singing and in the song he carries a message that questions the system that exists in that country.
Imagine if here we were to apply the same law that those countries have, ideay, all those who write, all those who make threats in the social media, all those who say that we must do this or that, those doing harm to the country? Here we do not fall into that. Here there is freedom of expression.
Ah, but the Yankees come and say that there is no freedom of expression here, and the Europeans say that there is no freedom of expression here, and they issue communiqués saying that there is no freedom of expression here. Here anyone says what they want on the social media, on their Internet pages.... They say anything however outrageous! Over there they put them in jail, over there all these people would be in jail, accused of being terrorists!
In the newspapers, on television, they say what they want, they speak what they want, we do not have here a policy where we are telling the newspapers what to publish, there are even digital newspapers that now circulate through the social media networks, the same newspapers that circulate in paper are also reproduced through the Internet, and what they do not say there against Nicaragua! Because they also go to the extreme of saying, they say it calmly, that they were meeting with Yankee officials, asking them for what? To apply more sanctions against Nicaragua.
And they take pictures! I remember when they met with the former Foreign Minister of the former President of the United States, they met with him, I don't know if it was in El Salvador, I don't know in which country, in Costa Rica, they met with him there, and the photo of all of them there, on their knees in front of the Yankee. Those are simply not Nicaraguans, the attitude they have adopted violates the basic principles of the Constitution for a Nicaraguan.
And those who spend their lives appealing for sanctions, those who receive money that is laundered through those organizations they call NGOs, which have been created for what? To launder money and then distribute it to develop terrorist and destabilizing activities. But we already have laws for that, we already have those laws, and we have information on how the laundering has been done for years, and still until recently thousands of thousands of dollars were flowing in that way to sow terror.
Meanwhile, the country is demanding, the people are demanding, I am sure that the peasants, the workers who are there are watching us, they are listening to us, even there in Bilwi, they are listening to us in that little town of Cabo Gracias a Dios, those who are also there on the banks of the Río San Juan, they know what the reality of this country is. Because they are the ones who, with their work, with their study, with their dedication, with their productive capacities give stability to this country, give security to this country.
And we have Armed Forces, Army and Police, that contribute decisively to ensure the defense of the sovereignty and the security of citizens as well, and the security of Women.
With the Police, a number of Police Centers for Women have been organized in different municipalities of our country, and we want to fill the country with Police Centers for Women headed by women police officers. Why? So that these Police Centers for Women before the offense occurs, manage to prevent the offense from happening. And if an offense does take place, the only thing left to do is to go with the Police to look for the person who committed the crime, and given the effectiveness of the Police, the arrests are prompt.
But we have to combine our work, as we were saying, in such a way that we become aware as Nicaraguans and as citizens of this Planet, because this is a date that commemorated around the World in homage to Women, and that homage to Women is one worth making every day.
The woman who is a father and mother and is raising children with on her own because she was abandoned, and those who are working in the Free Trade Zones, who are working for businesses, they know what the reality of the country is, not the one painted of us, but the reality of the country as recognized by International Organizations, Organizations that are very demanding, that always demand compliance in this, that and the other, in what is economic stability, in what is financial stability, in what is the security of the country, the conditions the country has for all this.
And Nicaragua, in the midst of the April 2018 failed coup terrorism, in the midst of the pandemic, we can say with much pride, that thanks to the Nicaraguan Woman who is an pillar in the home, Nicaragua is well placed economically, socially, and in terms of Security as well. And that is what the people want, the vast majority of Nicaraguans want security, they want stability so as to be able to work.
So many new business ventures in these times! Young people setting out, creative, and launching... what? Developing Enterprises. In other words, this is a People full, as Rubén used to say, "of Vigor and Glory".
I want to give these data that, even if some people may say that they are not true, the truth is that they are convincing enough to be recognized by the International Community, by the International Organizations, they are data that say a lot about the work that has been done in favor of Women's Rights in our country. Because after having been among the last placed, Nicaragua is today in fifth place, see for yourselves, in fifth place worldwide in terms of equity, in terms of spaces open for Women to participate.
Recognized worldwide, among the top five countries in the world, we are on a par with developed countries, which have great wealth, which have great culture, and a country with a small economy, which does not even compare with developed countries, is in fact on a par with and ahead of many developed countries, which says a lot about the commitment of this People. Because it is not a matter of simply passing laws. That is to say, laws must be passed, but they must also be enforced in practice, and to enforce them there must be accompaniment by the People and by the institutions of the Nicaraguan State, and we have been able to make progress in that sense.
I was telling you that, pay attention, because we are going to give you some data, since we have so much data. In the government cabinet there are a total of 9 women ministers out of a total of 16. This means that in the government cabinet, women occupy 56.25%, a little more than men do.
These compañeras are in the Ministry of Family, Community, Cooperative and Associative Economy; in the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources; in the Ministry of Defense; in the Ministry of the Interior; in the Ministry of Education; in the Ministry of Family, Adolescence and Childhood; in the Ministry of Women; in the Ministry of Health; in the Ministry of Labor.
Then, as Vice-Ministers we also have a high participation of female colleagues of is around 50%, which has grown and has now reached 50%.
Likewise, also in the Cabinet, where the decentralized institutions are located, we have women comrades leading them. For example, we have women heads in INTA, in INETER, in INATEC, in CORNAP, in INAFOR too there is another compañera. There we have 46%, that is to say, we are 4% short of 50%.
In the area of Education, where there are 50,974 teachers, 37,387 of these are female colleagues; this is equivalent to 73% of female colleagues working in the education of children and young people.
In Health Care, out of a total of 37,154 Health Workers, 23,746 are Women, Doctors, Nurses, Specialists, all the Personnel in the Health System are Women, which is equivalent to 64% in the Health Sector.
In Technical Education, in the Universities, the same, they are all women; the Rector of the UNAN is a compañera from Estelí; in INATEC as well.
In the National Police, 34.3% of the 16,399 police officers are women, which is a very high number for an institution such as the Police.
In the Army there is a presence of very outstanding female comrades, but it is a smaller number than in the Police.
In the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, 4 out of 8 members are women; that is to say, 50% are women.
In the Directorate of the National Assembly, here is the First Vice President of the National Assembly; Comrade Gustavo could not join us because he is with the vaccine.
We thank the sisters and brothers of India, the People of India, the Government of India, for the donation they have made of these vaccines, and they are organizing the way in which these vaccines will be applied, always taking into account the cases of the compañer@s who are undergoing hemodialysis three times a week, they are the compañer@s with a high degree of risk, the compañer@s who suffer from cancer; likewise, the compañer@s who suffer from acute cardiac problems; also those with acute diabetic problems, which are the cases that have been most vulnerable when the virus has attacked people. That is to say, those who have died have died because they had some of these conditions, they were already very advanced, so they were very vulnerable; those with hypertension as well.
I was telling you that in the Directorate of the National Assembly, out of the 7 sister and brother deputies composing the Directorate, 4 are women; that is, 57%, a majority of women.
In the Supreme Court of Justice, out of 16 Magistrates of the Court we still have a low number, 4 are women, that is, 25%. There we have to advance so that we reach 50%-50% in the Supreme Court of Justice.
In the Supreme Electoral Council, out of 10 Magistrates, Regular and Alternate, 4 are women, which is equivalent to 40%. There we are doing better, we are approaching 50%.
These data clearly indicate how women have been occupying positions.
And if we look at the background, the origins of our Women Officials, of our Ministers, of our Directors, there are no oligarchs, none of them come from the oligarchy, they all come from the low income People, from the working People. One of them once reminded us that she learned to read thanks to the Revolution. In other words, her family was in a situation of extreme poverty and could not afford to send her to school, and she learned to read with the Revolution.
In other words, this is a Government where the posts are held by Women, and of course by men too, who do not come from the oligarchy, do not come from big financial capital, do not come from big business. And not because we exclude them, because we do not exclude them; they simply do not like to mix with "the rabble". For them we are rabble, for them the People are rabble, for them the poor are rabble, and they do not understand that this is the People who decides, who rules, who governs in this Country. And that is why we say: The People-President, the Youth-President, the Women-President!
How it burns them, how it hurts them that they are building houses for the poorest families, that even there in the Barrio we try to identify with the people of the barrio itself, a barrio of working, low income, industrious people, who have a little house in some shape or form, and we talk to them to see which houses are in the worst condition. The house is identified, and their new modest house is built for them. This happens every day, every day they receive their modest house in a ceremony, with funds from the State and also with the cooperation of the sisterly and brotherly People of Taiwan, every day they are there, every day you are going to see the inauguration of a house.
Then there are the programs that the municipal authorities have in each municipality, where they are delivering houses every day; and then there's a program that we have already launched, which is a program of greater scope at the national level and this does not eliminate the other programs but rather complements them, and therefore adds more houses for the poor, more houses for the so-called rabble.... Yes, more housing for "the rabble", the People deserve it! More housing for impoverished, hard working, dignified People, those they call "the rabble", are nothing less than the Dignity of Nicaragua.
Andres Castro, the one who threw the stone against the Yankee in San Jacinto, was no oligarch, he came from the People, and therefore had dignity. The oligarchs had no dignity. That's how it is.
The poor, the poor of the Earth, the poor of Nicaragua who have been coming out of poverty and who are great workers, know that no one is worth anything merely thanks to material wealth. What gives value to people is moral wealth, dignity, and in this way, people are also capable of producing material wealth for all the People, and not for a small group of exploiters.
In the years from 1979 to 1990, when the Revolution triumphed, in the midst of the blockade, in the midst of the war and with the usual sellouts serving as instruments of Empire, we did not stop building public works. Of course, the problem is that if we built a hospital they destroyed it, they set it on fire, if we built a bridge they blew it up, they dynamited it. If we developed projects for oil storage there in Corinto, then the same agents of the gringos, of the Yankee government terrorist apparatus, also came and blew it up and set it on fire. Because they have the means to launch terrorist aggression anywhere in the world, they have them, and here how much terrorism they inflicted, how many people murdered, more than 50,000 victims, just in the war from 79 to 90.
But in the midst of that war, we still delivered houses, we delivered plots of land, we delivered properties to the peasants, we did the agrarian reform; the large estates that belonged to the oligarchs, the quislings who made that wealth under the Somoza tyranny, they were turned into farms for peasants who had previously owned land and had their land stolen, and had been turned them into workers, into "hired help" as they say, on their farms.
Back then, for the "hired help" of the countryside, and the peasant sisters and brothers from Matagalpa, from Jinotega, from Chinandega, from Leon, from right here in Managua, from Carazo, from Chontales, from Rio San Juan, from all over the country, all over the country, Nueva Segovia, Madriz, Boaco, all over the country, for them the agrarian reform took place. And there was also the urban reform, which was that the small houses in which families lived and that they had been paying rent for who knows how many years, well, it remained in the hands of the family that had paid all that rent and then the State would come to an agreement with the owner of that property to compensate them. This allowed thousands of families to keep their small houses.
Of course, this measure did not please the owners of the rented houses because they were doing good business, but it benefited thousands of families in extreme conditions, because there were many families without decent housing, that is why housing lots were also given to them, and they got help to build houses. And farms were also given to the peasants, the peasants who had been "hired help" of those farms became owners of those farms. This was known as Agrarian Reform and Urban Reform.
Then in the 90's, when the quislings and traitors arrived, they immediately began to take away land and houses from the People, and we're talking about thousands, who according to the law, because laws had been approved, they were within their rights. The Law clearly stated that if it was demonstrated that the owner of the property had it in good condition and was renting it, or that the owner of that property had it in good use, then they would be compensated.
Then they started, also with factories that had been handed over to the Workers, and in that way, under persecution by terror, with the Courts prosecuting the people, and the people resisting, the people in struggle.... I remember we used to say to them: You have to resist, but if the Police arrive, because of course they sent in the Police, the Police had to arrive; then if the Police arrive, don't confront the Police, what you do is, you withdraw from the place, since the Police are not going to be there all their life guarding a thousand houses, there were not enough Police to guard 1,000 houses and farms and so on. Then later they returned to the house and so they were in that struggle until agreements were reached that gave a bit of stability.
But they still carried plundering the State, that is to say, the first measure was to find a way to take away from the poor, the peasants, the workers, their housing, their land, and what did they care if they became unemployment, in the street, since they wanted to accumulate again the wealth they had accumulated in the Somoza era. It was a painful situation.
And we said, we went from one place to another talking to the population and encouraging them so that they would resist, because wherever we went, whichever municipality we visited, we found terrible situations; the people were upset, naturally indignant, threatened with losing their properties. And some of them lost their property, many lost their property, and we told them: We have to resist and we have to keep up the struggle.
We began to repeat that message after February 25th 1990 when they took over the Government, and we said: We are going to govern from below. What did governing from below mean? Well, to wage a struggle to defend the Rights of the People, of the Workers, of the Peasants, of the Impoverished. It was a long struggle.
And after that Government, among the first things it did, you see, was to dismantle the railroad, they stole the railroad, because here the train service was running, it covered the needs of the people, of the population, of the strader. And it was not enough for them to take a good part of the equipment, of the machinery, to sell later and to melt down for iron. They also went to tear out the sleepers, that is to say, the wood that is put where the rails go, where they put pieces of wood to give more support to the rails on which the trains run. They stole the sleepers, that was the last straw, they stole the sleepers and since that time we have been without a railroad.
In 1979 when we came to the Government there was a railroad, Somoza could not take the railroad and the railroad remained there, and we continued operating the railroad, and when they came to the Government we gave them the railroad in good order. And what did they do? They stole it, as they also stole a number of companies, which were companies that were called Patrimony of the People, they stole them; and they began to privatize education and to privatize health care, and the People with dignity fighting it all, the People naturally upset, irritated, fighting.
And when we went to the elections in 1996, they already managed the Supreme Electoral Council, and we denounced the fraud they had carried out, of course with the approval of the Yankees, of the OAS. And we denounced it, but we had no one to listen to us, because we were facing a machinery in the service of the oligarchy and the Empire, and well, I remember that they all got together for that election, or they all wanted to get together, as they had gotten together in the 1990 election.
In the end they all got together with one candidacy, that of Dr. Arnoldo Alemán, of the Liberal Party; the Liberal Party that came from the time when Walker arrived, an old Party. Then, with tricks and with the support of the OAS, which even the President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, who presided over the OAS Mission, told us when we met with them separately.... I began to talk to him, to tell him: You have seen what has happened here, a number of electoral offenses have been committed and this election should be annulled and a new election should be called.
Then Don Oscar said to me, there were a number of delegates from different organizations there, and Oscar said to me, we had a lot of trust because we had been working on the Peace Plan: You see Daniel, in Costa Rica or in any other country this election would be annulled (he said it in front of everyone) and a new election would called, but here that cannot be done. I did not say a word, what was I going to tell him? And he went out and said that the elections had been clean, that they had been fine. And we were there patiently; it didn't occur to us to attempt a coup d'état. So, well, there was nothing left to do but keep on fighting, we said, keep on fighting, keep on struggling. And we did keep fighting!
And more privatization measures were taken in other sectors, sectors that were key for the economy, such as telecommunications; you can see very well, those telecommunications produce multi-million profits, and they privatized them when what they should have done was, really, to enter in partnership with those big companies that had much more advanced technology, and then the country would have been left with an amount of money from the wealth generated by those companies; but no, they got their commission, they privatized them and Nicaragua stopped receiving millions and millions and millions that would have helped Nicaragua to build houses, hospitals.... but none of that happened.
We went to the next elections, as I was saying, and President Bolaños arrived. And we also had questions there. President Bolaños was put up by the Liberal Party, he is a Conservative, but that is how they are, he signed up to the Liberals to become their candidate, and he became President in the midst of our questions about the election; and then we sought how to contribute to the stability of the country, denouncing, questioning the problems that were taking place.
I remember that all that time there was a permanent struggle for the statutory 6% for the universities, it was every year, we accompanied that struggle, where there were students killed, murdered, youths who were unarmed.
Then President Bolaños ended his term, that is to say, three governments had already passed, and it did not occur to us, when we had the strength, as we have always had, to go to the streets, to make an insurrection. We said no. The insurrection had already lived its time, its moment, when the tyranny was overthrown; after that we had to look for a way to arrive in government through the electoral process.
That was our challenge, and we insisted on that when we used to travel around the country. And who received us? We were received by the humble people, peasants, some medium-sized producers, with a sense of patriotism, they attended us, we slept there in their modest houses, and we paid attention to the people there, listening to their problems, to see what the Frente Sandinista could do, so some help could reach them. Thousands of thousands of citizens like that.
Then we reached the third election... The first one we did not succeed, the second one neither, nor the third one, then we went to the fourth elections, they always say third time lucky, here it was fourth time lucky and we won those elections. Ah, but when a political force with dignity wins, one that will defend the sovereignty of its country, one that is not willing to submit to Empire? Who would like it if some neighbor, because he is wealthier, came and occupied their house and told them what to do? Who would like that? Who would like it if the rich landowner came and said, you are going to give me your land and also your house? Who would like it? No one! That is where people react, that is when people react.
So finally, as I was saying, we arrived to government in 2007, we won the elections, but of course, this was not to the liking of the Yankees or of the Europeans, because they always bet on the oligarchs who are part of the global elites. But they could not prevent it, and we managed to win, despite the fact that they did everything possible to prevent it and they could not. And here we are now in the last year of the third period of elections that we have won and that they have always questioned.
Here we are and the public works are clear to see; we have not stopped working a single day defending the Rights of Children, Youth, Women, People with Disability, there is not a day that goes by without our youth delivering wheelchairs to people with disability at least once a week. When have we ever seen that here in Nicaragua? What Government has ever done that? Or delivering food to the most impoverished families.
The Ministry of Health taking the hospitals out into the barrios, and with modern equipment, there is ultrasound, there is modern equipment, and the people are content, they get their eyesight seen to, and they take their children. And that process travels all over the country, that is to say, not only are there the hospitals, the national and departmental hospital centers, but there are also these mobile clinics that travel all over the country. When has this ever been seen in Nicaragua? And they do not charge a cent.
Ah, but the shameless scoundrels would indeed be charging there and impoverished people would be looking for some money to be able to pay, the oligarchs, the traitors, that's what they would do.
So, we have not stopped building houses, even in the midst of the pandemic; we have not stopped inaugurating highways, we have not stopped producing, we have not stopped developing initiatives of all kinds, training.
I will close by giving these data: The Agrarian Reform that began in 1979 with the Triumph of the Revolution, I remember that we started it in Leon, that's where we gave the first land titles. This Agrarian Reform, which was badly affected, taken away by the oligarchs and the quislings, from 1990 until 2007, when we came again to government, we took it up again immediately, the Agrarian Reform and the Urban Reform.
And you can see very well, from 2007 to this date, and the sisters and brothers of the poor families who have received these titles, the peasants who have received these titles and are working the land, and the families who are living in their modest houses, may they contradict me if they can....
In 2007 we delivered 8,902 property titles; in 2008, 16,866; in 2009, 24,253; in 2010, 37,269 property titles. And the young people who distribute the property titles do so also with the compañeras and compañeros who work with Wendy in the Attorney General's Office. In 2011, 70,288 property titles; in 2012, 53,509 property titles; in 2013, 26,734 property titles; in 2014, 20,758 property titles; in 2015, 27,625 property titles; in 2016, 55,200 property titles; in 2017, 34,348 property titles; in 2018, 19,415 property titles; in 2019, 23,263 property titles; in 2020, 28,570 property titles, and from January 2021 to February and March 8, 2021, 4,250 property titles were delivered, that is, the delivery of property titles continues, and they are property titles for urban families for families in the countryside.
In terms of urban property titles, which include houses and housing lots in the urban centers of all the country's municipalities, 276,711 property titles have been delivered. And rural property titles for peasants, to their farms, 174,539 property titles have been delivered, and we are going to continue delivering property titles this year.
And in the Caribbean Coast, from 2007 to 2020, in 23 Original Peoples' Territories, comprising 304 ancestral communities of the Miskito, Mayagna and Afro-descendant communities, 39,531 families have benefited, for a total of 227,185 people. A total of 37,841 square kilometers have been titled in the entire Caribbean Coast, both in the North Caribbean Autonomous Region and in the South Caribbean Autonomous Region, equivalent to 31.16% of the National Territory.
Just so we have an idea, our sisters and brothers in El Salvador, where there are about 8 million inhabitants, they already have more population than us, in El Salvador they have a territory of 20,000 or 21,000 square kilometers. And here just for the Original Peoples' Communities that have been recognized, 37,841 square kilometers have been made legal. That is their territory, it belongs to those Communities, they cannot sell it, they can rent it, they can approve investments, investments that can be national, local or international, but first where the investment is going to be made has to be approved by the Community.
Then it goes to the Regional Council, that is, the Assembly of Deputies in the Northern Regio, if the Territory is in the North, or in the Southern Region, if it is in the South, and there the Assembly has to approve it prior to the presentation of the Investment Project, and not until the Regional Council approves it, either in the North or in the South, can it then be authorized at the National Level so that the investment can be developed; and the investor cannot become the owner neither of the land nor of the waters where the investment is going to be made, because they are fishing operations or sometimes explorations there on the coast, in the sea, but the investor does not become the owner, rather a lease is paid to the Community.
This is how it works, we have an Autonomy Regime that none of these other countries have, and yet they even dare to condemn us and say that here the Rights of the Communities are abused and not respected, when in fact we have set an example with the Autonomy Regime that we have here in this country.
So, beloved Nicaraguan Brothers and Sisters, that's what we have from 2007 to 2021, and in homage to Women on this day March 8th, we dedicate the handing over, all that we have done in these years, of 451,250 property titles. And we will continue with the same enthusiasm, with the same determination, with the same joy, with the same optimism with which we have fought through all these struggles, whether we are governing from on top or from underneath, we will never give up!
Long Live Nicaraguan Women!
Long Live the Women of the World!
Sandino Lives, the Struggle Continues!
A Free Nation, or Death!