XXVI Graduation of Officers from the Superior Center of Military Studies
Major General José Dolores Estrada Vado of the Nicaraguan Army
December 10, 2021
Address by Daniel
Beloved Nicaraguan Brothers and Sisters, beloved Families; Compañera Rosario, Vice President of the Republic; Commander in Chief of the Nicaraguan Army, Army General Julio César Avilés Castillo; Chief of the General Staff of the Nicaraguan Army, Major General Bayardo Ramón Rodríguez Ruiz; Inspector General of the Nicaraguan Army, Major General Marvin Elías Corrales Rodríguez; Minister of Defense of the Republic of Nicaragua, Compañera Rosa Adelina Barahona Castro; Director General of the National Police,
First Commissioner Francisco Javier Díaz Madriz; Director of the Superior Center for Military Studies "General de División José Dolores Estrada Vado", Colonel Manuel Geovanni Guevara Rocha.
Beloved Brothers, Comrades, Generals and Senior Officers, Members of the Military Council of the Army of Nicaragua; beloved Brothers, Members of the National Headquarters of the National Police; Defense, Military, Naval, Air and Deputy Defense Attachés accredited in the Republic of Nicaragua.
President of the National Council of Evaluation and Accreditation; Directors, Military and Civilian Faculty of the Superior Center of Military Studies "General de División José Dolores Estrada Vado".
Beloved young men and women Lieutenants, Lieutenant Commanders, Graduates, and your families; Special Guests. Greetings to all.
Today December 10, we have sung La Purísima, celebrated La Griteria, and now we are on our way to Bethlehem, and later to bid farewell to the year 2021 and welcome the year 2022.
On this day, beloved Brothers and Sisters, beloved Compañeros, we are graduating young people who come from working families, from peasant families, from families of the different towns and communities of our country. And they are graduating as Officers in the Army of Nicaragua, to fulfill the Sacred Duty of safeguarding the Sovereignty of the nation; to fulfill the Sacred Duty, even at the cost of their own Lives, to defend the Security, the Lives of Children, Youth, Adults, Elderly, of Nicaraguan Families; To safeguard and guarantee Security and Stability in our Country, so that children can go to school with Security, in Peace and with Joy, so that they can also go to the recreation centers, so that all Nicaraguans, women and men can work, and work in Peace.
That is to say, they are young people who graduate to serve Nicaragua's families, to serve the country, working to guarantee the peace and stability of our country. That is the enormous responsibility assumed by these young people who are graduating today, beloved Brothers and Sisters, beloved Nicaraguan Families.
And we congratulate all the Graduates; also the first placed graduate, the second and third placed graduates, and also those who have received Academic Distinctions that we have already presented, including a young man from the Sister Republic of El Salvador, who is part of the Exchange Program that CFAC has at the Regional Level, Cadet Jhony Eninger García García, and with him we greet the Salvadoran Youth, the Salvadoran People and its Authorities.
Which is a good example of the Integration, the Brotherhood between Central American Youth, who complete courses of study in this process of exchange that helps to nurture the principle of Brotherhood and Central American Unity.
Today is December 10th and on December 10 Camilo was born, here in a small room in a neighborhood of Managua Camilo was born, who would later fall fighting in Monimbó, during the Monimbó Insurrection. In other words, it is Camilo's birthday and I am sure he is with us at this moment and feels proud to see this Youth dedicated to the Nation, to the Values of being Nicaraguan.
Today is the day that has been dedicated by the United Nations to Human Rights, and today the old English Empire that colonized Africa, America, everywhere, its highest authorities, of course, rather than the English People, in collusion with the Yankee Empire and with the betrayal of the "turncoats" who took over the government in Ecuador, when Julian Assange was protected, after President Rafael Correa had given him protection, he spent 6, 7 years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Assange had taken refuge there, 6, 7 years, almost the same time some of us spent in prison, I spent 7 years and a few months, in prison. It was Assange's lot to be confined there in the Ecuadorian Embassy.
Then came the "turncoat", the traitor, to assume the Presidency of Ecuador and the first thing he did was to eject Assange, violating the Right of Asylum, violating International Laws, handing him over to the repressive forces of the United Kingdom, of England.
The United Kingdom still has a Queen there, remember, even in this era they have a Queen. And who elected the Queen? Who voted for the Queen? But yes, they have a Queen. Well, at the end of the day it is not the Queen's fault she is a Queen, a woman already 90-something years old, incredible the vitality she has had; it is after all simply the system installed in that Country that agrees to have Kings and Queens, as happens in many European countries that call themselves "democratic".
So, they handed Assange over because the Yankees were after Assange. And what is Julian Assange's crime? To have denounced the human rights violations, the crimes committed by the United States rulers, the assassinations, the bombings. In other words, that was Assange's crime, to have denounced before the world those crimes carried out, as they continue to be carried out by the United States in the name of Democracy, mind; in the name of Democracy they have committed and continue to commit the gravest crimes, in the name of Democracy they dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki... See for yourselves!
And in Europe, in the name of Democracy Adolf Hitler came to the government of Germany in his time, and still there are Nazis in those European countries, in Germany itself there are Nazi Movements and claiming Democratic rights, and there are racist Nazi Movements in the United States as well.
And, after Assange was handed over, the trials started in England following criminal law procedures, but the thing is that the British Government has imprisoned someone whose main role has been to denounce crimes committed by the United States, after which he enjoyed political asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador; and the British have been quietly detaining him, they have been trying him, working out whether or not to send him to the United States of America where they are asking for the death penalty, and if not, more than 100 years of imprisonment, today on Human Rights Day.
And what do the United Nations Human Rights Organizations say? I say United Nations because, after all, the United Nations is there and it has a Human Rights Agency, and after all we should expect that Agency to condemn the British Government for having detained a Citizen whose only crime has been to denounce the crimes, the tortures, the massacres, the murders of the Yankee Government.
And the United Nations Agency should in fact set out to pursue the world's leading criminals of the world, those great criminals who have the luxury of invading and bombing any country on our planet. And that Power is called the United States of America, which speaks in the name of Democracy while in the name of Democracy the United States are committing yet one more crime today, because in England they have ruled to send Assange there, to hand him over to the executioners in the United States.
There is still one last appeal open for Assange, but it is difficult for that appeal to prosper, I hope it does prosper. Why? Because among these Powers there is an affinity, they all have the same history of conquests, of oppression, of domination, of taking over other countries. They have their own Peoples, yes, rebellious Peoples who are against those policies, the British People are a People who do not share those policies, although of course, there will be British citizens who are fascists; just as, on the other hand, in the United States there are Citizens who condemn the terrorist policy of the United States around the World.
But what is happening to Assange looks like a mockery today. Assange has already earned, from the very moment he made those courageous denunciations, knowing that he could be assassinated by the US and European intelligence and security agencies, Assange has already earned the recognition of the world's Peoples and so in effect he has earned the Peace Prize of the Peoples of the World; not the Nobel Prize which gets awarded to people who destroy, invade, assassinate, bomb.
Assange is indeed recognized and we recognize him as the winner of the Peace Prize, for his courage, for his Dignity, for his Steadfastness. And we are in solidarity on this day with this man who has acted with enormous Conscience and with great Courage, and now he face going to the gallows in the United States of America.
Today, beloved Nicaraguan Brothers and Sisters, everyone is well aware now that Nicaragua has resumed relations with the People's Republic of China. And it is good to look at a little bit of history.
The Somoza tyranny had a very good relationship, during its long period of crimes, it had a good relationship with Taiwan. Taiwan is a territory that belongs to the People's Republic of China and this is approved by the United Nations, but at the time they still did not abide by what later became the United Nations Resolution which even the United States, take note, decided to establish relations with the People's Republic of China and cut off relations with Taiwan, because Taiwan is part of China, it is a territory of the People's Republic of China.
Well, at the time of the Somoza tyranny, relations with Taiwan were very good, so when the Revolution triumphed in 1979 we found ourselves with those relations, Nicaragua with Taiwan. Then during the '80s, the Sandinista People's Revolution had a political and ideological affinity, with the Chinese Revolution, with its great leader, Mao Tse Tung, our brothers in the time of the struggle against Somoza visited the People's Republic of China; that is to say, the Sandinista Front established relations with the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China before the Triumph of the Revolution.
So, after the Triumph of the Revolution, Nicaragua opened relations with the People's Republic of China, established relations with the People's Republic of China and naturally relations with Taiwan were suspended, it was a period of great changes, of great initiatives in the People's Republic of China. And back then we had the opportunity to visit, invited by Deng Xiaoping, who promoted the new stage of the Great Chinese Revolution, giving continuity to the battles fought by the Chinese people led by Mao Tse Tung.
When we went to the People's Republic of China, I remember that we went with Compañera Rosario, a delegation of the Government, of the Sandinista Front, we were there, in the various meetings that take place when there is a State visit, and we got to know what they were beginning to develop. In other words, today's China has nothing to do with the China we found in the 1980s when we visited the People's Republic of China.
Of course, China was already a Power, but it was not the Power it is today. It became an Economic Power and a Power that attacked poverty, attacked hunger, developed the Economy, developed Science, Technology, and at this moment the People's Republic of China is already a Leading Great Power. It is even taken for granted that in a few years the principal World Economy will cease to be the United States of America, as noted by American and other economists and analysts around the world
Currently, the principal World Economy is the United States, and the second leading World Economy is the People's Republic of China, but the growth of that Economy, the strength of that Economy, the social content of that Economy has been to eradicate poverty, to eradicate hunger, to improve the living conditions of China's Youth and its People and to cooperate with the other Peoples of the World.
The People's Republic of China has practically twinned with Africa, and has been making progress in its relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, and there is already a forum uniting the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, with the People's Republic of China.
And as I was telling you, we established relations with the People's Republic of China, and time went by. We were in the middle of the war when we established those relations, the war imposed on us once again by the North American Empire. Then we had the 1990 elections and people who could not understand what those relations with a powerful country like the People's Republic of China, meant, came to power. And what did they do? They broke off relations with the People's Republic of China and reopened relations with Taiwan, and subsequently we spent 17 years on that basis.
Then we came to the Government and we looked for the appropriate moment, working so that we could re-establish our former relations with the People's Republic of China. We even started working on projects that are still active, projects still alive, with a large company of the People's Republic of China, the Grand Canal Project, you all remember it; and a number of other projects, through the trade relations we had with Chinese businesses, Chinese companies came here to work, Chinese technicians came, more than 200 Chinese technicians who were worked on storage centers for oil, diesel, fuels, and suchlike.
Several Chinese missions came here, in the meantime we were establishing very close links, we always had that link as a political party, and then internationally, striving together for Peace, fighting against intervention, against aggression, together with the People's Republic of China, with the Russian Federation, with Venezuela, with Cuba, with the fraternal Peoples who have fought those struggle via ALBA, in our region and also with the Peoples of Africa, of Asia, we maintained that relationship, that link.
Now today the Agreements are signed by which Nicaragua and the People's Republic of China have reestablished the relations severed in 1990. This is possible because we are both Revolutions, and here you have a Yankee spokesman protesting because we have opened relations with the People's Republic of China. This is completely absurd, ridiculous, because Yankee spokesmen constantly rant wheneverra country, one of those they call their backyard, opens relations with the People's Republic of China. And of course, it hurts them even more, it burns them even more when it comes to Nicaragua, which is a Revolution, joining again with another Revolution.
And I say it is absurd because, all the while, the United States has relations with the People's Republic of China? Indeed it does! In other words, they think they have the right to have relations with the People's Republic of China because they know it is an Economic Power, because they know it is a Market and an Economy that they cannot dismiss, and so they have to accept the reality, that it is the world's most populous Country with an Economy of unprecedented strength and growth.
So, they can understand all that and maintain relations with the People's Republic of China, but in the midst of those relations they commit the absurdity of continuously applying sanctions against the People's Republic of China, believing that in this way they will stop the growth of the Economy of the People's Republic of China, as they do also with the Russian Federation as well, and as they do with many countries in the world.
This is good news, because recognizing the People's Republic of China strengthens Nicaragua's international relations in all fields. Why? Because China has such a strong economy that Chinese companies have invested here, even without Nicaragua having relations with the People's Republic of China. So now there are even better conditions, meaning good news for our People, and we are sure that what has been signed today is a matter of satisfaction for our People and also a matter of satisfaction to all the world's Peoples who have relations with the People's Republic of China.
We will now proceed to swear in the young graduates. Before taking the oath, first, General Aviles reminded us of that School Teacher, the Hero of Rivas, yes, he was teacher was from Rivas, he was not a frontline soldier, he was a Teacher, and he volunteered to go and set fire to the redoubt holding the the invaders. A Hero, who was later made a Second Lieutenant.
You, beloved young people, carry in your blood, it runs through your veins the blood of the Heroes who, in Rivas, in San Jacinto, confronted the slavery promoting invaders of the United States of America, who even dared to name the President here and whom the Yankee Government recognized as the President.
But the Heroism, the Courage, the Fortitude, the Dignity of the People were more powerful than the Power and the superiority in armament that the invaders had. And you have dedicated your Promotion Ceremony to Enmanuel Mongalo, that is to say, to that Heroic Deed of Resistance during the first defeat of Yankee expansionism in Nicaragua.
Of course, the courage of Enmanuel Mongalo, of José Dolores Estrada, of Andrés Castro, has to do with our Roots, because in them also flowed the blood, as it does in all of us, the blood of our Indigenous Ancestors, of Diriangén, who faced the invaders, that is to say, figures who did not surrender to the invaders, but confronted them.
That blood also runs through our veins, as Sandino said: Let us be proud that in our veins runs indigenous blood. And that rebellious blood, to defend the nation, to defend the land that belongs to a People, was the one that multiplied in those battles among which Enmanuel Mongalo stood out.
That is the pattern of our History, remember, and you are the Heirs, you are the Continuation, you carry in your Conscience, in your Heart, the Dignity, the Courage, the Fortitude of the Heroes who fought with Zeledón, against the Yankee troops in Coyotepe and La Barranca.
And remember how Zeledón influenced our General Sandino, who was a boy at the time, how our General Sandino, being a youth, like you, when he saw how they paraded Zeledón's corpse, instead of running away, instead of crying, what our General did, just a boy at that time, was to feel indignant. And thus our General Zeledón appeared in the Soul, in the Strength, in the Combativeness in the Spirit of our General Sandino.
That is the History of our Army, that is the History of our People, that is where the steel of a People and its Armed Forces, in this case of our Army, was being forged.
Then came the battles against the Somoza tyranny, armed by the Yankees, with Yankee Presidents embracing Somoza. And this should not be forgotten and I never tire of repeating it, because that is how the Yankee Imperialists think.
When they meet someone who crawls to them, who surrenders to them, who sells out to them, if someone asks, as they asked Roosevelt, President of the United States, who was a close friend of Somoza, when someone asked Roosevelt: Why such good relations with Somoza? Roosevelt answered, in English, he answered that "he was a 'son of a bitch', but he is our 'son of a bitch', I repeat that now without any insult to Women, although he did indeed say that, a chauvinist using an insult against Women. That is what happens to those who crawl to the Yankees and set about asking the Yankees to harm their own People, their Nation.
In the struggle of the Nicaraguan people fighting led by the Sandinista Front, with Carlos, and Tomas at the head, leading that battle, already in December 1977, and at the start of '78 and on the eve of the year of Triumph, '79, there the steel was being forged in those battles, the people participating in those combats, in that struggle, would later forge, develop, organize, the Sandinista Popular Army, today the Army of Nicaragua.
There was an exceptional event, truly exceptional, where the Priest and Guerrilla Comandante, Gaspar Garcia Laviana, wrote a Message to the People of Nicaragua. He was a priest who came from Spain's Asturias and worked in the communities of the Department of Rivas, in Tola, San Juan del Sur, in all those communities.
I am going to quote here this part of Gaspar Garcia Laviana's letter: "And with my rifle in my hand, full of faith and full of love for my Nicaraguan people, I will fight until my last breath for the advent of the kingdom of justice in our country, that kingdom of justice in our nation, that kingdom of justice the Messiah announced to us under the light of the star of Bethlehem". Said by, written by, Gaspar García Laviana. On December 25, 1977, Father Gaspar wrote this Message.
What I am reading here is the Introduction of the Presidential Decree that we have sent to the National Assembly today, so that tomorrow December 11, the day in which Gaspar passes to another Plane of Life.
Our Presidential Decree is a Decree whereby we are naming Gaspar, recognizing Gaspar, a National Hero.
Gaspar wrote:
On the Nativity of the Lord,
December 25, 1977.
Somewhere in Nicaragua.
By that time he had already left the community where he exercised his Priesthood and had already joined the ranks of the Sandinista Front.
My Nicaraguan brothers and sisters:
On this Christmas holiday, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, Our Lord and Savior, who came into the world to announce to us the kingdom of justice, I have decided to address you, as my brothers in Christ that you are, to share with you my resolution to go into the clandestine struggle as a soldier of the Lord and as a soldier of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.
I came to Nicaragua from Spain, my native land, to exercise the priesthood as a missionary of the Sacred Heart, nine years ago. I gave myself with passion to my apostolic work and soon discovered that the hunger and thirst for justice of the oppressed and humiliated people I served as a priest, demanded more than the consolation of words, the consolation of action.
As an adopted Nicaraguan that I am, as a priest, I have seen in the flesh the wounds of my people; I have seen the iniquitous exploitation of the peasants, crushed under the boot of the landowners protected by the National Guard, instrument of injustice and repression; I have seen how a few become obscenely rich in the shadow of the Somocista dictatorship; I have witnessed the filthy carnal traffic to which humble young girls are subjected, delivered to prostitution by the powerful; and I have touched with my hands the vileness, the scorn, the deceit, the larceny represented by the Somoza family's dominance in power.
Corruption, merciless repression, have been deaf to words and will continue to be deaf, while my people groan in the closed night of bayonets and my brothers suffer torture and jail for claiming what is theirs: a free and just country, from which theft and murder disappear forever.
And since our honest young men, the best sons of Nicaragua are at war against oppressive tyranny, I have resolved to join as the most humble of the soldiers of the Sandinista Front in that war. Because it is a just war, a war that the sacred gospels show to be good, and that in my conscience as a Christian is good, because it represents the struggle against a state of affairs that is hateful to the Lord, Our God. And because, as the documents of Medellin, subscribed by the Bishops of Latin America, point out in the chapter on the Latin American Situation in Peace, "the revolutionary insurrection can be legitimate in the case of evident and prolonged tyranny that gravely threatens the fundamental rights of the person and dangerously damages the common good of the country, and that is a dangerous threat to the common good of the country, whether it comes from an individual or from obviously unjust structures".
I ask all my Nicaraguan brothers and sisters to support this struggle of the Sandinista Front out of their love for Christ, so that the day of redemption of our people will not be delayed any longer. And to those who out of fear or necessity still serve Somocismo, especially the honest officers and soldiers of the National Guard, I say that it is still time to take the side of justice, which is the side of Our Lord.
To the businessmen who have not participated in the corruption, to the decent farmers, to the professionals and technicians who reject the chaos and despotism represented by Somoza, I say that for each one there is a place to fight on the side of the Sandinista Front to dignify our country.
To my brother workers in the factories, schools and workshops, to the artisans, to the forgotten homeless and jobless in the slums, to my brother farmers, to the pickers crammed into camps, to the macheteros, to the hired hands, to all those who have been robbed of even the most miserable opportunity in this land, I say to you that it is time to close ranks around the Sandinista Front, to join hands and arms, because in the report of the rifle of justice in our mountains, in our cities and towns, is the sign of the redemption that is approaching. Because from the rebellion of all, from the insurrection that we will all carry forward, light will result and the darkness of Somocismo will be erased.
And to my brother combatants of the Sandinista Front in the Northern Front "Carlos Fonseca Amador"; in the Northeastern Front "Pablo Úbeda"; in the Southern Front "Benjamín Zeledón"; and in their barracks of the urban resistance in our cities, I transmit my firm conviction that the day of triumph we will build it with the sacrifice of our fallen heroes who embody the will of struggle of our people; with the revolutionary dedication of the people themselves organized for their struggle, and with the sacrifice that we are willing to make from the trenches, united around the National Directorate.
Somocismo is sin, and to free ourselves from oppression is to free ourselves from sin. And with rifle in hand, full of faith and full of love for my Nicaraguan people, I will fight until my last breath for the advent of the kingdom of justice in our country, that kingdom of justice in our country, that kingdom of justice that the Messiah announced to us under the light of the star of Bethlehem.
Your brother in Christ,
FREE NATION OR DEATH
Gaspar Garcia Laviana
Missionary Priest of the Sacred Heart.
What a message! Gaspar fell in combat and today he accompanies us, as he continued to accompany us after the Triumph of the Revolution, in the other war imposed on us by the Imperialists of the Earth. They imposed it on us! We wanted Peace, we wanted Education, we wanted Health, Literacy Campaigns, Roads? Everything we started to do, the Yankees headed by Ronald Reagan insisted on destroying it, violating the Human Rights of an entire People, devastating a whole decade, where only the Heroism of the People allowed us to resist and defeat the aggression.
Today we can tell Gaspar that after that painful transit of 17 years where Neoliberalism and Savage Capitalism were imposed, today we can tell Gaspar, and he knows it, because he accompanies us, that we are fulfilling, Gaspar, our commitment to Nicaragua's Families, we are fulfilling our commitment to the Workers, to the Peasants, giving land to those that when you, Gaspar, were in Rivas you knew that their land was stolen and they were exploited; And building houses, generating employment, building roads and highways, where never before there was a road and a highway; bringing health care to every last community.
Seeking how to achieve Reconciliation and a Process of Justice and Solidarity to eradicate Poverty, we made that Great Agreement starting in 2007, that Great Agreement improved enormously the Nicaraguan Economy, gave Stability and Peace to the Nicaraguan People until April 2018, when the sons of William Walker appeared again, when the Somocistas appeared, when the criminals appeared causing destruction, pain and death, believing that the People were going to surrender, believing that the People were going to collapse.
But the filibusters were defeated once again, because they are filibusters, they are sellouts, they are traitors. They were defeated and now they are asking the Yankee to rescue them. Many of them have Yankee citizenships.
So, if the Yankee wants to make arrangements for them, because the Yankees are making arrangements from the Embassy asking to see them; if they want to feel Yankee and want the Yankees to speak for them, then they should renounce their Nicaraguan citizenship, but they have dual citizenship and most of them were born here in Nicaragua.
But they are criminals, they are delinquents, they committed many more crimes, they did far more damage to their country than those who marched to take over the U.S. Congress in the United States of America. There were 2 or 3 dead there, here there were dozens of dead, hundreds of dead, burned, murdered, tortured.
And behind them, financing them, sending them the poisoned money that they send from outside to those who today are being prosecuted for their crimes. They are not prosecuted because they think differently to us, they are being prosecuted for their crimes. Here we should not forget how those who are there were shouting at us over the tables where we talked and talked, when we negotiated, when we sought understanding, and they were just shouted in defense of the roadblocks, defending the crimes being committed.
And remember how some Religious Leaders and Priests of different municipalities that we all know, applauded and encouraged the crimes and advised them to throw the remains of the murdered people into latrines. The recordings are all there, they are criminals! They too are criminals, of course! That must not be forgotten and cannot be forgotten, for it is very recent, what took place in 2018.
But in spite of everything, later, they were even released because of the Pardon, because of the Amnesty and the Pardon, they went back to doing the verry same thing, to continue conspiring to kill, to cause damage to the Economy, to destroy power plants, to cause fires, and all of that was directed and financed by those who are being prosecuted.
Of course, those on trial were not going to go and plant a bomb themselves, nor were they going to go and get dirty at a roadblock, no, they were directing things, they are more criminal for being the ones ordering those crimes to be committed. This cannot be forgotten, it must not be forgotten. And it is not a matter of revenge, this is certainly not a matter of revenge, it is a matter of Justice, because here there are thousands and thousands and thousands of Nicaraguans who suffered in their own flesh the death of relatives, the damage to their Economy, the loss of properties, and all of them ask for Justice, everyone asks for Justice.
And on top of that the way in which these people laundered money and have continued laundering money, the competent authorities are working on all the relevant information, which makes the famous "huaca" look small compared to this "huaca" in which they mobilized millions of millions in order to harm the People, and to commit betrayal, because they betrayed the agreements they had with the Government and which gave them the opportunity to do good business. They betrayed it, there is no doubt of their treachery!
If they didn't want to continue the agreements, that's fine, but to go from that to conspiring, to go from that to provoking terrorism and they really are terrorists, of course, they are terrorists, terrorists who even set out to put four bullets into someone and then they go on television claiming that they are not terrorists? Idiots! What idiocy! They think people will swallow it, but they don't even chew at it! Their apologists don't even realize how willingly they were to shoot somone three or four times, yes, because those people are full of hatred, they carry hatred in their hearts. We are talking about is Justice!
And in the case of Gaspar, beloved Brothers and Sisters, beloved Young People, we have another of the Precursors of this Army.... Gaspar García Laviana, yes, he was a Priest, a Religious person who gave his life for the People, for the Peasants, for Peace. And this is the struggle we have now, Nicaraguan brothers and sisters. We were able to recover Peace after April, and we have to protect and defend this Peace, we cannot allow those who live conspiring from outside, and from within, to provoke more acts of terrorism, to commit more crimes, we cannot allow History to repeat itself. That History will not repeat itself, this People knows what it means to live in Peace, today more than ever the Nicaraguan People closes ranks in defense of Peace.
And today the Nicaraguan Army, which is a fundamental pillar in the Defense of the Country's Peace, Stability and Sovereignty, is handing over to you, Nicaraguan brothers and sisters, Nicaraguan families, this group of young men and women who have graduated as Officers and are ready to serve the nation. Let us swear them in.
Beloved Graduating Officers, do you solemnly swear before God, the nation, our National Heroes, and on your honor, to respect and obey the Constitution and the Laws, to defend at the cost of your own life, if necessary, the Rights, the Freedoms of the People, Independence, Self-Determination, the Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity of our Nation, as well as to serve with Honor and Loyalty to the Nation, to fulfill the orders emanating from the High Command, to respect the Laws and Regulations that govern the Military Career and Way of Life, and to fulfill faithfully and conscientiously the duties of the Positions conferred on you and the Missions that your Commanders assign to you?
Graduating Cadets
Yes, we swear!
President Daniel Ortega:
If you do so, may the Nation and the Institution reward you, and if not, may they call you to account.
With this Oath, before you, our Nicaraguan Sisters and Brothers, before the People of Nicaragua, we say that, today we make our own, more than ever, the Thought, the Word and the Work of our General of Free Men and Women, Augusto Calderón Sandino. And with him we say: In the face of obstacles, in the face of challenges, in the face of acts of terrorism, in the face of evil, in the face of hatred, Ever further on, ever further on, ever further on!
Long Live the Army of Nicaragua!