Interview with President of Nicaragua, Comandante Daniel Ortega by Fernando Garea and Sabela Bello Fernández of the Spanish news Agency EFE.
September 3rd 2018
Fernando Garea
President, good afternoon. First I’ll read something, “This new tyranny faces an insurrection involving all social sectors. One is dealing with police forces and armed paramilitaries with military rifles acting together against an unarmed population. This unequal fight has had an excessive cost for such a small country of barely 6 million inhabitants : 400 dead in three months; hunted by snipers, executed with a shot in the back of the neck, strafed by paramilitaries from moving vehicles , burned alive in their homes, even nursing babies. The immense majority are young people, with at least 25 under 17 years old. As we were back then. And the wounded number 1500.” Sergio Ramirez has written this, who was Sandinista Vice President and not long ago won Spain’s Cervantes Prize. What do you think of him saying this?
President Daniel Ortega
What I’d recall are the Chronicles he used to write during the time he was Vice-President and he was first a member of the government and then Vice-President, that is to say, we are talking about the period from July 1979 until 1990 If we remember those Chronicles, if we look through those Chronicles, we will find that this very same discourse came from President Reagan reaching all his echo chambers in the Latin American and Caribbean region.
Fernando Garea
Is he right in saying this now?
President Daniel Ortega
He knows he is putting his skills as a story teller to work. He is a great story teller and there he is really making up a story, a very macabre story out of the tragedy this People is suffering. He is lying.
Fernando Garea
Who is responsible for what has happened over these months in Nicaragua and for the dead in the streets?
President Daniel Ortega
We have here a very well know and long history forever confronted by this power known as the United States of North America which has always been intervening in and occupying Nicaragua. Since the 1850s, Yankee expansionism was here in Nicaragua. Precisely this Patriotic Month looks towards the battle that resulted and defeated the Yankee expansionists in Nicaragua, back then in 1854-1856, in that period.
What brought them here? Gold fever. It was much easier, much safer than crossing North America from the east coast to the west coast. The transit companies had enough vision to find through here a safer, more practical route. The route was opened and along that route came North American expansionism and later their fixation with the Nicaraguan Canal.
Fernando Garea
And the United States is behind the incidents now?
President Daniel Ortega
It is the same history. Namely, here after we left the government in 1990, or rather, we held elections in 1990, we recognized the results of those elections, with a Supreme Electoral Council full of Sandinistas, we recognized the result. We handed over the government and from that very moment there began a policy to try and restore all the economic political and cultural power that had been imposed before by the United States. We had overthrown the Somoza dictatorship which was the most prolonged period during which they had managed to impose their project very deeply in Nicaragua. Then their priority was to stop the Sandinista Front winning elections.
Ever since the elections of 1990, elections here have suffered interference. They were not free elections because the United States, President Bush, was threatening that if the Sandinista Front won he would continue attacking Nicaragua, continue the war against Nicaragua, but that if the United Nicaraguan Opposition won then the United States would help that government. For Nicaragua’s people, logically enough, it was hard to vote freely in that moment when their lives were in play, given the war that had caused so many deaths.
After those elections, every time Nicaragua has had an election US government envoys appeared publicly with the President of the moment with the same message as always. One of the last envoys was General Colin Powell, no doubt the press or EFE will have covered it at the time.
If you go looking into that, the Ministers and high level US government functionaries who came to Nicaragua and the work the US embassy did together with other foreign embassies in Nicaragua, was to try and unite the right wing so the Sandinista Front would not win elections. In other words, not respecting the Nicaraguan People but rather carrying out a permanent policy of interference, obliging the People to vote for their candidate, for their intervention and interference.
So from our point of view they have never stopped their campaign of interference through the whole period from 1990 up until 2007 when we returned to government, when they could not avoid a win by the Sandinista Front. They couldn’t avoid it. The Sandinista Front returned but immediately they began a hostile policy of interference with the Sandinista government.
In other words, they interfered until 1990 and that took the form of the war, but then, well they tried to stop the Sandinista Front returning to government and the Supreme Electoral Council gave the election victory to Dr. Alemán, at that time the candidate of the Yankees, of the Right wing, of big capital. The same Supreme Electoral Council gave the election victory to Ing. Enrique Bolaños, candidate of big capital, candidate of the Right wing, of the same political party as Dr. Alemán, the Liberal Party. At that time the Supreme Electoral Council was applauded and recognized by the Yankee government. Its president Dr. Roberto Rivas was applauded by the Yankee government and by the Right wing and by the right wing Press here in Nicaragua and was not questioned by the International Press either. Then, when we won the elections, Dr. Roberto Rivas turned out to be a villain because the Sandinista Front won.
Fernando Garea
And now have you some evidence that the United States government is behind the people turning out to protest against your government in the streets?
President Daniel Ortega
Totally! It’s very clear! Namely, we return to government and again begins the enmity of the United States. First they withdrew us from the Millenium Challenge Account. Nicaragua was part of a project begun under the previous government. They called it the Millenium Challenge Account and placed funds throughout Central America. So there they punished Nicaragua and withdrew it from the Millenium Challenge Account. Why? Because the Sandinista Front is not democratic. Or rather, for the United States the Sandinista Front is not democratic and immediately they began organizing armed groups in our country.
Fernando Garea
And who gave weapons to those groups?
President Daniel Ortega
Well, in that regard there was activity originating from the US extreme right wing in Florida which has been a permanent umbilical cord and has been there since the time of the Contra war. That is to say, the relationship between the US politicians in Florida and the Contra forces became a friendship, they shared a lot, they travel there...they became godfathers, as we say.
And that US right wing based in Florida, with great political power, with great influence in Congress, were really hurt when the Sandinista Front returned to government and so they installed a spearhead that nurtured and continues to nourish those armed groups and at that time they began to organize and then develop links too with drugs dealing activities. In some operations organized against them activity was found linked to growing marijuana.
Fernando Garea
In other words, those protesting in the street against your government were funded and supported in part by the United States and secondly by groups linked to drugs trafficking?
President Daniel Ortega
Exactly. This is a continuation, or put another way, there has been no break here in the interventionist policy of the United States towards Nicaragua as regards the Sandinista Front.
So from that moment they kept up the pressure and the Press, you see the Press in Nicaragua and logically enough the international Press that recycles the Nicaraguan Press, giving prominence to these groups that were murdering rural workers families, murdering Sandinista activists, you see them in the photographs armed, equipped with the caption “Patriots”, “Freedom fighters”.
Fernando Garea
Are there paramilitary groups linked to the Sandinista movement?
President Daniel Ortega
No... Theirs are the paramilitary groups, the only paramilitary groups that have existed in Nicaragua are those that have been formed after 2007 and have committed a number of crimes and continue to do so. For our part, as you would expect, we have fought them with the police and the army and the police officers and soldiers who have died in that fighting don’t exist for the Right wing, nor do they exist for the human rights organizations. When a criminal dies they are treated as victims of the army or a victim of the police
Fernando Garea
For example on May 30th, who ordered the police to fire on a peaceful demonstration?
President Daniel Ortega
Firstly, that is a big lie. I watched the demonstration on television because it was being transmitted live and what happened there was an attack by the demonstrators against another march that day heading towards the Bolivar Avenue. There was an armed attack by the protesters. Here we have 22 dead police officers, for example. How do you explain those 22 police officers killed by peaceful protesters? Or the hundreds of dead Sandinistas that we have, those who were kidnapped from their homes and then murdered, those who were set on fire...How do you explain all that?
Fernando Garea
Are human rights respected in Nicaragua?
President Daniel Ortega
We have respected them, of course!
Fernando Garea
¿So why do the international associations say they are not?
President Daniel Ortega
Because here unfortunately we are talking about a political project not to the liking of the United States and the United States has enormous influence in international organizations, in the Human Rights Commission, in the Organization of American States for example. Even while they do not accept and have not ratified the Inter American Commission for Human Rights, they appear as the great spokespersons for the Inter American Commission for Human Rights. The same happens with the Geneva Human Rights Commission, indeed, they have withdrawn from it...ah, but they are the great upholders of the struggle for human rights in Geneva!
Fernando Garea
Are there political prisoners in Nicaragua?
President Daniel Ortega
We do not have political prisoners. Here, those under arrest are detained for crimes they have committed against the people and they are subject to the corresponding trials. Nobody is under arrest for their ideas or for their political activism.
Fernando Garea
Is there a free Press in Nicaragua?
President Daniel Ortega
Well, just turn on the television channels and you’ll see the news and read the newspapers and you’ll see whether or not there is a free Press in Nicaragua. There is so much freedom of the press in Nicaragua that you even have a program where over the last few days they’ve been interviewing masked paramilitaries, armed by the Right wing and where these paramilitaries over the last few days have been saying “more deaths are needed here”. Just so, with complete tranquility. I don’t know what would happen in another country where an interviewer interviews people like that and they say more deaths are needed at a time when blood is being spilled in the country.
Fernando Garea
As Nicaragua’s President, what do you say to the relatives of the people who have died over these months in the protests?
President Daniel Ortega
The people responsible for these deaths here are the ones who incited these acts, the ones who have nurtured those acts, who have financed these acts and behind this all is, I repeat, US policy based in Florida that has influenced the US Congress and put pressure too on the US government.
What most upset the US Right wing is the alliance the Sandinista Front managed to build with workers and business people, business people who ideologically were not Sandinistas, have never been Sandinistas nor are they now Sandinistas but who accepted the proposal to try and make a government based on an understanding between business people, workers and government.
And this gave us very good results, of course, starting from the following principle, the level of stability and security that Nicaragua has where the security forces, basically the police, have done extraordinary work though all these years with the community, with the population. And that has turned Nicaragua into a retaining wall against drugs trafficking, organized crime, the maras that threaten from the north, from Mexico there is great pressure, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and here containing that and working together with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and of course with Mexico too.
So stability, security is fundamental. What for? So as to let that alliance work and with that alliance working that gave growth to Nicaragua’s economy, a growth that seemed incredible for the region’s countries, for their governments, even for Latin American business people who did not understand. Business people would come to events here and did not understand how that type of alliance could work in Nicaragua. So the United States set out to destroy that alliance.
Here you have to look at the departure point that created the conditions for the offensive in April. Why? Because in the US they began promoting a law called the Nica Act. naturally enough, that worried business people and that then divided business people, some in favor of the Nica Act and others against the Nica Act. In the US, they began campaigns against business people with Nicaraguans who think like Sergio Ramirez traveling to ask US Congress to act against business people to stop their alliance with the government.
So, to undermine that alliance! And then they threatened to apply that famous Magnitsky Law they used against the Russians and when they threaten to use it the threat is not just against Sandinistas...no, the threat is against business people. And when the threat is against business people, these have interests in the United States, they have investments in the United States so there and then they managed to fracture the alliance, creating conditions so they could begin to develop the offensive like the one that took place in April.
Their first attempt was with the Indio Maiz Reserve where they blamed the government and then of course all this has an international coverage via the social networks feeding that international coverage with finance from US organizations, different organizations in the United States that target youth, specializing in the use of social media precisely so as to use them with the objective of undermining a government, and going against a government. But combined, logically enough, with arms because if there have been deaths it is because there were weapons, without weapons there would have been no deaths.
And too, the first problem that happened when the decree for the reform of the Social Security was made known and here workers and business people were well aware that the reform was necessary, there was no alternative to it; the International Monetary Fund had been here and had discussed with them and they were clear there was no alternative, otherwise the Social Security was going to collapse.
So when the decree was approved, there were some protests, there were some incidents, there were no deaths but then they invented the death of a student when no one had died. I also saw those protests on television when they took place because they were transmitting protests from both sides and there were no weapons at that time, there were no weapons on one side or the other.
The weapons appeared on the night of the following day and the opposition combined marches without weapons during the day and at night the armed groups attacked local municipal offices, offices of the Sandinista Front, hospitals, they attacked institutions of the State seeking to destroy them, to burn them and to kill Sandinistas. So that was the start of the disturbances, the confrontations and that was the start of the deaths.
Sabela Bello
President, both the OAS and those human rights organizations have accused your government of serious human rights abuses….what do you think of this?
President Daniel Ortega
When I read the OAS report and when I read too the UN report I have been clear in pointing out that for them the only deaths have been deaths identified to them by the opposition political groups and human rights organizations. Those are the only dead, for them the 22 dead police officers do not exist, are of no interest to them; the civilian comrades set on fire, murdered don’t exist; the house burned down in which the child mentioned by Sergio died, distorting reality.
Or, more clearly, a house where a Sandinista comrade lived, of several floors, where he produced mattresses, a small business in fact, a small or medium sized family business in a working class district. But because he did not join the opposition lock out and was in a zone of conflict and the opposition were going around threatening people that if they didn’t close the business they would burn it down; this comrade did not join the lock out so they set the house on fire and the whole family died.
Sabela Bello
The same organizations also accuse the government of arbitrary arrests, of torture. Do such arrests take place in the country?
President Daniel Ortega
Event those same organizations have been allowed to enter where people are detained and on one occasion after a visit to the Judicial Support center or El Chipote as they call it, one of the representatives decided to say they had seen no evidence of torture and then immediately the Right wing and the Press attacked him, they attacked him.
So here there are simply tales, without any evidence, self-interested versions by people who for political reasons invent tortures. Here we do not practice torture, on principle.
In a meeting with the bishops, this is something I haven’t stated before, all the bishops were there. So one of the bishops, Monsignor Silvio Baez, who is very aggressive against us, told me he had to condemn torture. He said “I have seen young men with their fingernails torn out, not just one but four or five young men with the fingernails torn from their hands”
So I said in front of all the bishops. “Look, I assure you that that is not so and if you tell me you have seen them, then bring them along before everyone here. Bring them along and we will find who tore out this youth’s fingernails or these five youths, bring them to me and we will punish whoever did it and apply the maximum penalty that exists in this country. But what you are saying is not true.”
In other words, this bishop was lying to me in that way, carried along on the passion of the confrontation we were living through, by fanaticism. And I say right now and I say it publicly let him present those five youths with all their fingernails torn out.
Instead I told him, “You are confused because what I recall is that the one who practiced that was Somoza. I remember very well and there were cases mentioned in which Somoza had some prisoners fingernails torn out during his rule.
Sabela Bello
In July just gone, the European Union asked for free and fair elections in Nicaragua. I don’t know what you think of that. Likewise, the European Parliament condemned your government’s behavior. So there are critics in Europe. How do you respond?
President Daniel Ortega
Unfortunately in Europe too we have a conservative wave, with some exceptions, but a very conservative wave, where despite having differences with the United States there is still a tendency to share positions on Latin America. Because here we have to take into account that Latin America is a victim of the lack of a democratic stance from Right wing governments in Latin America who have provoked a polarization in Latin America and also have fractured the organizations for the integration of Latin America.
Never as at this moment, in which Right wing parties dominate in Latin America, has there been such a weakening of regional integration bodies, from the CELAC, a body born when we had a different correlation of forces in Latin America, where the tolerance of the Left wing forces in government, their maturity and their democratic attitude, in that when we were in a majority we did not act arrogantly trying to exclude, demolish and liquidate the Right wing forces in government, to the contrary we sought unity.
I well remember that process which culminated in the CELAC, the first step we took in a meeting in Brasil when Lula was President. The we passed to Mexico, with President Calderón a conservative Right wing President. There President Calderón proposed that we each write a note of the name we might put for the integration body that we wanted to create for the first time in Latin American and Caribbean history that we lacked. What we had was the OAS with the boss in charge.
So that was the start of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and then its first meeting in Caracas, with Chavez and a Left wing government. Then from Caracas it passed to the meeting in Chile, with Piñera, a Right wing government. And then that’s how it went, rotating from left wing governments to Right wing governments and there was integration.
That has been destroyed now through the intolerance of Right wing governments acting under the direction of US policy in a totally interventionist way that recalls the era when they used the OAS to invade countries like the Dominican Republic and where among the “liberating” troops led by Yankee soldiers were the troops of Somoza. They were part of the “liberating forces”to free Dominican Republic from the Communist menace. They included Yankee soldiers, troops from Brazil as well and soldiers from South American governments ruled by military regimes where there had been coup d’état. So unfortunately it’s as if we are repeating that history.
Sabela Bello
Has it been proposed at some point since the crisis began on April 18th, or at the beginning, I’m not sure, has the bringing forward of elections been proposed?
President Daniel Ortega
No, it doesn’t make sense to bring forward elections. This is the most absurd idea proposed, bringing forward the elections. It would set a totally negative precedent that would leave open at any moment being able to displace a government not favored by the opposition, if the opposition reacts strongly. That revives the history of some Latin American countries that have been unstable and were continually changing governments because people protested in the streets, causing confrontations and in the end the army steps in and ousts the President telling them, “You have to go”.
That does not give a country stability. And a country like Nicaragua which has had 11 years of economic growth, security, stability, progress in the social field, it really was an extraordinary task for an impoverished country. The most impoverished country n Latin America after Haiti continues to be Nicaragua, but making an extraordinary effort to follow that route, a route favoring the progress of its People and of Nicaraguan families.
So then they come with this criminal attempted coup and what they wanted was for the government to go. That is what is clear. What is clear is that this was a plan for the government to go. In other words, they bared their claws from the start, right from the beginning they showed them because it was an action accompanied by the demand for the immediate resignation of the government, not even bringing forward elections, but the ousting of the government.
Sabela Bello
However, I have heard you say “No elections because the solution is in the dialogue of the people with the people” In a dialogue there are always two sides, Who is one side and who is the other inside the people?
President Daniel Ortega
Here the most effective dialogue is the one we put into practice to achieve reconciliation. Because there can be peace but without reconciliation it is impossible to consolidate peace. Or put another way, one can decree peace but to make peace a reality there has to be reconciliation and that we achieved promoting dialogue between the families who faced each other during the war.
To be clear, the war that lasted 10 years in the time of President Reagan and then under President Bush. During that period there were more than 50,000 victims here in Nicaragua and the Nicaraguan family was totally polarized, so polarized it wanted to resolve everything by gunfire. And it was after the Peace Agreements, working on community relations, among the people, in the barrios, among the families, accompanied by Delegates of the Word, by Evangelical Pastors, community leaders and so on that the reconciliation process was achieved in which a segment always remained un-reconciled. But I’d say there was a very great advance in terms of the reconciliation process in Nicaragua.
So today we are promoting these kinds of encounters. Why? Because the dialogue we set up, I called it a Dialogue but unfortunately that Dialogue went nowhere because it was a reality show, as they say. That’s what it was. Why? Because they broadcast it on television.
No Dialogue gets broadcast on television. None. No peace process has been broadcast on television. The work is done simply in private, an agenda is prepared with this, that and the other and results are only made known when there are results. Here no, here this was a theater in which they dedicated themselves to insulting us, not to dialogue. It was going nowhere. To the contrary, it generated mistrust in the population, setting bad example to people because it was the way of confrontation. So here we think what we are trying to promote is the way ahead.
Sabela Bello
And in that context is any kind of mediation possible, dialogue between families as you put it, families that in reality are families opposed to each other? Is some kind of mediation possible in that dialogue?
President Daniel Ortega
But who exercises mediation in the community? Community leaders, local authorities, local religious leaders disposed to support reconciliation. They all help bringing people together. The doctor in the community. In other words we are talking at the base which is where this is most important, where who offers help are those who have most relation with people, whom the people trust most. In the case of doctors, they care as much for people of one political affiliation as another. So it’s easy for doctors to bring people together, you might say.
Fernando Garea
President, can you define Daniel Ortega in 2018? You started as a revolutionary and have a long history of political struggle of all kinds. Do you still feel yourself to be revolutionary or do you think you have been too long in power?
President Daniel Ortega
First, the question of time has been decided here by historical circumstances. It hasn’t been a matter of will but of historical circumstances. When we were fighting against the Somoza dictatorship, the question for us then was “Who will be gone tomorrow?” or perhaps, “Whose turn will it be to die tomorrow?” It never occurred to me that I would see the triumph of the Revolution. It never occurred to me.
I already had one brother dead, a brother who died in combat and well, we were in the struggle, we were certain the Revolution would triumph, but we were also sure that we were not going to see it. But the miracle happened that we survived the struggle and then the comrades decided that I was to coordinate the Government Junta In other words, it was not something I imposed. It was not a dictatorial act on my part but simply a decision of the comrades that I would coordinate the Government Junta. Then we went to the first elections in 1984 and it was the comrades of the Collegiate Directorate who decided I was to be the Presidential candidate.
Fernando Garea
And of that Revolutionary Marxist Sandinista Movement, what remains?
President Daniel Ortega
First, and I am not saying this just now but I have always said it, I have always started from the principle that Marxism is a guide for action. Here the first debates we had, I remember when I was a youth, the first debates were with the comrades of the Socialist Party and within the Sandinista Front itself about whether they thought it was right for the Front to call itself the Sandinista Front instead of the name of a classic Party, understood in its practical origins of Marxist thought transferred from Europe to America.
We stuck to the idea that we had a source of political and ideological values that was Sandino. Sandino made a synthesis of our values and struggles with an essence strictly and profoundly anti-imperialist.
So that has been my thinking, Marxism as a tool to develop ideas, to develop programs, to develop action. Or put another way, we never let ourselves be carried away by the dogmatic interpretation that Marx himself never prescribed, but rather we started from it as a principle and I continue to think in that way.
Here when we talk about a government which in this new stage from 2007 to 2018 has achieved an enormous advance as never before in our country’s history, in the field of economics, in the social field, in security, stability, it is breaking patterns. Why? Because it is an alliance with business people, that is to say an alliance with the bourgeoisie and there are comrades who don’t understand that.
Fernando Garea
In fact, in all these years many very important Sandinistas, well known around the world, like Sergio Ramirez, of whom we have spoken already, have dropped away from the Sandinista Movement and ended up being very critical of you.
President Daniel Ortega
They fell away thanks to the electoral defeat. Before that they were radicals...more radical than me! These people who today talk like right wing Democrats and who accompany the Right wing in the opposition coalition as well, they were more radical than me. They were the ones who opposed having priests in the Sandinista government, Catholic priests or evangelical pastors. They were the ones who preached atheism to a very religious people when it simply wasn’t part of our cultural or political reality.
Fernando Garea
In these last few months, three days after the disturbances began in April, your own brother Humberto, who was head of the army, made some declarations accusing the government of repressing the people. What do you think of that?
President Daniel Ortega
He too left the Sandinista Front after the electoral defeat. And unfortunately in 1990 after the change of government which was on April 25th the new government began to seek the violent restoration of the previous economy, the properties and all, of Somoza, to return them, properties that had been handed over to the workers, to families, to rural workers, land and so on.
So we proposed a struggle in rural areas, in the cities and we protested, the students also protested in that struggle, a struggle where we combined workers, rural families, students, all the people who had benefited from the revolution. And the slogan was to defend the conquests of the revolution, for the government to respect them, because it wasn’t the counter-revolution that had won, this wasn’t a counter-revolutionary triumph, it didn’t give them the right to sweep away what the revolution had bequeathed.
So, what happened. They sent in the army. The “democratic” government sent in the army and that army set out to do away with the points of protest, a few barricades as well and not just that, but to open fire with Humberto being the head of the army. Humberto who previously had said there wouldn’t be enough street posts from which to hang the bourgeoisie. And the other person who has spoken out recently too, Wheelock who was Minister for Agriculture during the revolutionary government, but after 1990 went to the United States, back then he had said it would be necessary to chop off the hands of the big landowners. That is why I say they were more radical than me.
So then they sent in the army and the workers who had benefited with some businesses were set upon by the army so as to hand the business over at gun point. And there were deaths!
Fernando Garea
You have clearly explained your view of the United States, of your relations with the United States but has the Administration of Donald Trump made any difference as regards Nicaragua?
President Daniel Ortega
President Donald Trump’s administration is marked by an agenda decided by the politicians based in Florida joined by some Congress persons who then presented initiatives to the US government like the Nica Act, later approved by Congress. The Nica Act has already been approved by the House and just awaits approval in the Senate and from the Senate it will go to the President. The Magnitsky Law has already been applied to various Nicaraguans on the initiative of the group in Miami and that is to be presented to the President.
Fernando Garea
How are your relations with Spain at the moment?
President Daniel Ortega
I’d say we have had normal relations with Spain, starting with the government of Felipe González, who was there in the period of the 1980s right up until the arrival of President Rajoy. Even with us in government we have dealt with PSOE governments and with the PP government in the case of President Rajoy and in both cases our relations have been stable and respectful.
Fernando Garea
The current government of Pedro Sanchez approved a note a little while ago asking for respect for human rights in Nicaragua. Are you concerned at this call from the government of Pedro Sanchez or not?
President Daniel Ortega
I hope that when President Sanchez asks for respect for human rights in Nicaragua that he is asking for it with regard to all Nicaraguans. Or rather, not that the government of Nicaragua should respect human rights but that all Nicaraguans’ human rights be respected and that the interventionist policy of the United States be the first to respect the Human Rights in the State of Nicaragua, the people of Nicaragua.
Fernando Garea
The President of Spain’s government Pedro Sánchez has been in several Latin American countries, and has not included Nicaragua. Do you think there’s a possibility of a rapprochement with his government. The current Spanish government has some possibility for example in the Iberoamerican Summit in November in Guatemala. I don’t know if you would be willing to take part in that summit?
President Daniel Ortega Ortega
Our position has been not just to maintain but to strengthen relations with all countries, including with the United States. That has been our permanent message to the United States. With Spain our position has been to strengthen relations, to make them deeper, naturally within a framework of respect. That is our position.
Fernando Garea
Will you go to the summit?
President Daniel Ortega
Well we are invited. President Jimmy Morales invited us to the summit and of course I am interested in going to the summit. I think the Iberoamerican summit is very important at the moment. I was thinking of the importance of the summit when the invitation arrived. Why? Because unfortunately at the moment we do not have a regional mechanism and in this case I see it as a regional mechanism even when we are in different continents.
But, yes, culturally and historically it is a regional body and we are interlaced with Spain so it is an opportunity for us to meet, to get together because if it were not for this chance we could not get together. There has not been a meeting of CELAC and in South America the integration bodies are disappearing.
Fernando Garea
What are your international supports right now? With which coutnries do you have the best relations?
President Daniel Ortega
Well we have relations with the whole international community and what we have sought to promote is trade, as our small economy can move in many directions and shift in many directions, we have sought to open up new markets. Naturally, the most important, the greatest dynamism is always here in the Central American region, in Central America and towards the United States as well.
Fernando Garea
And how do you see the situation in Venezuela
President Daniel Ortega
With venezuela we maintain a good relationship and maintain a very close relationship. And Venezuela continues to be the victim of the same interventionist policy of interference as countries that suffer from it like Cuba and as Nicaragua has also suffered. That is clear.
Fernando Garea
I return to the beginning. You have just expelled a UN Human Rights Commission. Would you be willing to let into Nicaragua some kind of International Commission to oversee if human rights are being complied with or whether the accusations against the Nicaraguan government are true?
President Daniel Ortega
The problem is that our countries, the countries that have been in the US backyard usually get treated as if we were colonies or neo-colonies.
Because I don’t see these initiatives exist when there are serious conflicts in Europe...How many conflicts have there not been in Europe where there has been an initiative saying go there to Europe….to go to Catalonia and see what’s happening there or send some international observers to see what is going on?
Because the Catalans have their point of view, I listen to them. There was an election there followed by persecution and imprisonment. There are Catalans still in prison in Madrid and I haven’t heard any human rights body in Europe or the Unted Nations worried about what is happening in Catalonia. And no one says a Mission should visit there. Why? Because it is assumed that is a country that has grown up and thus its maturity is respected and it is not attacked. By contrast, in our case, yes, they constantly want to supervise us and intervene.
Or put another way, who would suggest in the case of the problem of migration into Europe, caused by the United States and some European countries who were the ones that destroyed the security in the area of the Maghreb? They destroyed it! It was not Bashar al Assad who destroyed it. Nor was it Muammar al Gaddhafi. The Europeans destroyed it making common cause with the United States to destroy that area that was so secure and which right there held back the migration from southern Africa because there they found work, there was strong economic activity, there was growth, there was respect for women’s rights, incredible in a countries with a culture where we know the weight of discrimination against women. But who suggests sending a Mission there
Fernando Garea
In the case of Catalonia there have been no deaths like there have here.
President Daniel Ortega
I’m referring to the case of the migrants
Fernando Garea
No I’m talking about that you mentioned also the case of Catalonia and that there has been lack of respect for human rights, I’d say in this case that’s not so.
President Daniel Ortega
But yes here in these countries if a politician of the opposition is imprisoned it turns into a case where the Europeans intervene or the United States. If a politician in these coutnries is put in jail it immediately becomes a major case with no need for the tragedy of a death, but simply that they are put in jail and then it immediately becomes a controversy and a campaign begins on behalf of political prisoners. Look at the campaigns on behalf of “political prisoners” in Venezuela, there is a very strong campaign. So it is a different treatment. I am referring to that, it is a double standard.
Sabela Bello
President, Nicaragua is ranked as the second poorest country, only behind Haiti. Do you consider this to be a failure of the economic policy of the government?
President Daniel Ortega
I think that the economic policy of the government was advancing very well, successfully during 11 years and recognized by all of the organizations, the most demanding organizations that could exist, such as the International Monetary Fund, recognizing the success of the economic policy of Nicaragua; putting it to the test. Because the economic policy has not failed, because what happened here was a planned coup that has broken the economic policy’s momentum—the rhythm that the economic development was bringing to our country, the economic growth of our country, and now we have to fight to find a way to recover what has been lost.
Sabela Bello
What economic achievements do you highlight?
President Daniel Ortega
I believe the most important is the creation of employment. Naturally, the population cannot be without work. Nicaragua is the country that has least migration, there is almost no migration from Nicaragua to the United States. The countries that have more migration in Central America are Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
Nicaragua doesn’t have much migration to the United States, and this is thanks to our policies here promoting national investment, from the small business, from the smallest business to the largest businesses, to the largest investments. This has permitted the creation of employment that has been affected by this situation.
Of course, if we have job creation, it means we have an economic activity that is giving resources to be able to cover the social programs: health, education, and then, all of this has allowed us to access financing from the organizations in order to also develop infrastructure, in this case with external resource and our own resources.
Sabela Bello
Okay, diverse sectors have pointed out about enrichment on the part of your family and nepotism by members of your family within the government, as is the case with your wife as vice president. What do you say to them?
President Daniel Ortega
It is completely false. let them present proof. They don’t have any proof.
Sabela Bello
About enrichment?
President Daniel Ortega
Yes
Sabela Bello
And members of the families in power, in the executive?
President Daniel Ortega
Here in the executive, the comrade who is the vice president is here as a Sandinista Front activist. I met her as a Sandinista activist, she grew up as a Sandinista activist and she serves as Vice President as much for being a Sandinista activist, as for her abilities, naturally.
Sabela Bello
How would you evaluate social development in Nicaragua?
President Daniel Ortega
I believe we have progressed, there is progress, but there is still much to be done.
Sabela Bello
Future plans in this realm?
Daniel
We are already working on it, we are working! We are already working with the resources we have available and looking for ways to push forward in this field.
Sabela Bello
The programs of the government, for example, Zero Hunger, of 2007, what fruit did they give, well, these and many others, like the Glass of Milk?
President Daniel Ortega
Zero Hunger permitted the incorporation of more than 100,000 Nicaraguans, above all women, into activities as productive economic agents, because the program its first phase was given only to rural women. Women who counted on a parcel of land that the revolution had given them and which hadn’t already been snatched away, or parcels of land that we started to give out also starting in 2007.
So, for those women, here with their children and the husband that might leave to work in another place, or those who had a partner who carried out a subsistence economy right there on the land, it gave them the resources to be able to convert their parcel of land into a source of production, so she achieved, first, basic food for the family, and later taking some of these products to market.
If they were chicken, well, the eggs for food and also for the market, the pigs the same. The cow, lactose products, the same. It’s to say that it has permitted them to change from women who were there eking out a subsistence living to being economic agents, linking with the local, municipal productive activity
Sabela Bello
President, some business sectors talk about a loss of 70,000 jobs in the tourism sector since the crisis began. I don’t know if you can confirm this data, or refute it.
President Daniel Ortega
There are many statistics. Effectively, there has been loss of jobs, this is undeniable. From the moment the country was paralyzed with the famous roadblocks for so long, this affected employment. But well, this is our challenge now, how to reactivate activity, as they are reactivating now.
They are reactivating more rapidly, of course, in terms of national tourism. In national tourism they are also reactivating sources of work that were affected as well, of what are the national businesses, small, medium and other business people from other countries which has remained in Nicaragua and who have had investment in this field of tourism. Where there has been the most problem of course is in international tourism, where we had a good rhythm attracting international tourism and of course with this situation it was driven away and paralyzed income from tourism.
Sabela Bello
What is the situation with work on the canal with Chinese business people?
President Daniel Ortega
In the Environmental Impact Study, they did their first study, and this first study was subject to the Environmental Commission of the Nicaraguan State, accompanied by RAMSAR, which is an international organization, which looks at issues like wetlands more than anything. And this is an area with many wetlands, the Caribbean zone where the canal will pass through. And when the project that they worked on was submitted, they gave observations about the route, and they told them they had to modify the route, because this route that they had drawn up still would provoke impact in the areas where we still have living natural resources, therefore, we had to find a way to modify the route.
That is, they were told to modify the route and we are working on this now, waiting for them to finish this new Environmental Impact Study. They have been doing this work. They brought in specialists in this kind of study, not only from China, but also they brought expert people of this kind to take samples, from Canada, there was even an accident there. But well, the case right now is for them to present the Environmental Impact Study with the corrections, that is, what the commission suggested.
Sabela Bello
So you are waiting. I understand then it is not possible to say when it will be finished ?
President Daniel Ortega
No, while we don’t have…this is, this is the principle, you already know. Here the principle is, in order for the Canal to begin to be executed, there has to be a study of the canal route where the environment is protected, so that the impact will be minimal. This is a principle that we established since we spoke to the company, that they cannot begin without an environmental study being approved and not just by the company but by Nicaraguan envirnmentalists too. So, now we have to wait.
Sabela Bello
Without setting a date, which you have already said you can’t foresee, but, once completed, what will the Canal mean for the country.
President Daniel Ortega
Here in Nicaragua, first, the Canal has the backing of the majority of the population. Logically, there is always a sector that questions the Canal, and above all those groups that today are causing damage to our country also have closed ranks against the Canal, I mean against anything that might be useful to them.
Since it isn’t possible for them to mount an agenda against the policies that the government develops, in the field of education, in the field of health, in the field of tourism, in the field of investments, they don’t have any weapons…so what do they have left? To go seeking what to attack.
So, they went against the Canal, but it is a minority. The majority of the population wants the canal, because we are all convinced that it will allow Nicaragua to have a source of resources in order to take a step forward, and the same Canal will be giving the resources to improve and recover areas that have been affected over many years, areas that have been scorched by fires or by the felling of trees, etc. Areas that could be recovered by the Canal because it would provide the resources, the income to do so.
I mean, Nicaragua would stop being the second most impoverished country of Latin America having a source of resources, like that of the Canal. Meanwhile, we have to continue relying on our resources that are fundamentally the agricultural sector, there we have our main capacities, our main culture; we have a rural family population, very involved in the agricultural sector, and we have, above all, the source of food for our country, we have it ensured, and even enough to export.
Fernando Garea
President, many thanks. I think we have covered all of the possible topics and we thank you very much for your patience.