Luis Varese, July 17th 2021
Nicaragua is an obsession for the gringos. In addition to its geopolitical importance (the San Juan River and Lake Cocibolca for a possible interoceanic canal) Nicaragua is a thorn in the side of U.S. military and interventionist policy.
In 1933 the US Marines defeated by the Army for the Defense of National Sovereignty led by Augusto C. Sandino and his staff, Generals Pedro Altamirano, Gregorio Colindres, Colonel Santos Lopez, among the best known in popular memory, completed their withdrawal. Two great defeats have marked the US army, both at the hands of popular revolutionary forces, Nicaragua and Viet Nam in 1965. The filibustero William Walker had already been defeated in the 19th century, then Sandino made them retreat in 1933 and in 1979, on July 19, the FSLN took power defeating the Somocista national guard and Somoza, the last marine, fled. Subsequently, the war of aggression financed by the USA, for 10 years from 1980to 1990 failed to defeat the Sandinista Army, although in the end the FSLN lost the elections and handed over the government, in a serene act of democracy, to Violeta Barrios the widow of Pedro Chamorro.
Seventeen years later, in another election, the FSLN won the vote and Daniel was elected President. A long process of party consolidation and a cruel experience for the Nicaraguan people who for 17 long years suffered directly all that neoliberalism means. This brief review leads us to a better understanding of two issues of the current pre-electoral situation in Nicaragua. One is that the United States, in its latest imperial offensive against Latin America, considers the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as the main enemy to be defeated. The FSLN is an enemy that has gone from one triumph to another, politically, socially, economically and even militarily and this is inadmissible.
Our America is the objective. I repeat, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, besides being part of this continent, are a bad example, for the US, of what can and should be done with the resources of our peoples and nations. They are a bad ideological, political, economic, social and military example. If we lose sight of this, within the framework of the geopolitical battle that the U.S. has with China, Russia and even (although less obvious) with the European Union, we will not be able to see the whole picture that will allow us to understand the origin of so much bitterness. To this we must add that these most recent anti-imperialist battles have been won and are being won by electoral means and that electoral space, which used to be the private property of the oligarchs, has now been occupied by the continent's peoples, from the electoral triumph of Hugo Chavez onwards.
This also explains the deployment of so many resources and trickery against Evo Morales, against Bolivia, against Pedro Castillo in Peru. It explains the desperation to maintain an abject but useful character such as Luis Almagro in the OAS, who guarantees them manageable electoral interventions. It explains the violence in Colombia and also the resort to extremes such as the assassination of the President of Haiti at the hands of U.S. companies using Colombian mercenaries. The empire feels very strong and eager to triumph in Latin America. For our part, with firmness and serenity we say that now is the time of the peoples and we will continue going from victory to victory. Peru and Chile will recover; Ecuador and Uruguay will return. Brazil will recover. Colombia, with so much sacrifice and young blood shed, will enter the path of democracy. This is not voluntarism but the path ahead and the same will happen with the people of the United States who will find their way to social justice. The pandemic has opened new doors, but if they are not entered quickly and forcefully, they may close again leaving an irreversible path for our Planet.
July 19 is and will be Sandinista, Nicaragua is and will be Sandinista.
The attack against Cuba is not over, just as it is not over against Venezuela and Nicaragua will have to face the next blow of the imperial offensive. They can call the FSLN government whatever they want. They can call it a dictatorship, they can insult Comandante Daniel Ortega, they can criticize Vice President Rosario Murillo. They can contrive dark, clear or even tragic plots, what they cannot hide is that the government of Nicaragua, in the midst of the pandemic, is the only one in Central America that has managed to continue benefiting its people, with employment, health, education, low interest loans. The figures are from international organizations and are undeniable. But the main thing is that the Nicaraguan people, its youth, women and men, continue to trust the FSLN and despise the oligarchs that sell out their country.
This July 19, there will probably not be the usual crowds we are used to and we owe that to Covid, but the red and black hearts will continue beating in defense of the Nation and Sovereignty as they did when they joined the "crazy little army" of the General of Free Men and Women or as they did in the war against Somoza and today against the traitors who want to return the Nicaragua to misery and exploitation in alliance with the worst of the Yankee interventionist policy.
Let us prepare ourselves for new media and material offensives. The media and social networks are already engaged in attacks bordering on the absurd, but which find a place in susceptible weak or corrupt minds. This is what we have seen over the last few days against Cuba where all the media, from America and Europe, except for the handful of exceptions we know, has put on a shameful anti-Cuban show. This is what they have prepared for us and this is what they will continue to do.
But our peoples are discerning, the President of Peru Pedro Castillo is an example that it is not enough to lie and deceive to defeat the legitimate aspirations of a people. We have already seen it in Cuzco, Ayacucho and Junin. We saw it in Havana, in Caracas and we have seen it in Managua. Once again there will be confrontation, but on this occasion Comandante Ortega was a step ahead and has accurately foreseen where the attacks are coming from. Those clamoring for U.S. military intervention have been warned.
Sandino, the General of Free Men and Women walks our land, cheerful and vigilant, accompanied by Carlos Fonseca and Tomás Borge. A new electoral triumph is coming and our America is advancing towards popular democracies, whatever else anyone may want.