Interview with President Comandante Daniel Ortega
by Marc Pereleman of France 24 news
September 7th 2018
Unoffical translation
Marc Perelman
Hello. Welcome to Managua. We are in the presidential residence for an exclusive interview with Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega. Mr President thank you.
President Daniel Ortega
Thank you, Marc.
Marc Perelman
Mr President, your country is going through a serious crisis, with violence over several months. A few days ago, for the first time, the United Nations Security Council debated the situation in Nicaragua on the initiative of the United States whose ambassador Nikki Haley said the following about you : “Daniel Ortega and Nicolas Maduro are cut from the same corrupt cloth. Both are dictators who live in fear of their own people.” What is your response?
President Daniel Ortega
Well it’s not unusual given the history of the United States with Latin America and the Caribbean. Bullying conduct has been permanent by the United States towards the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, and in this particular case with Nicaragua.
It’s worth noting that in the 19th Century in this month of September Nicaragua fought the first great battle against US expansionism here in Nicaragua. And we had a yankee president here in Nicaragua, William Walker, a tough conservative type, and he imposed himself as President here after being invited here by the right wing political parties who were competing for Washington’s support.
Marc Perelman
And this is the continuation?
President Daniel Ortega
It is the continuation...indeed, the continuation!
Marc Perelman
But it is an accusation against you : a corrupt dictator. That’s very serious, isn’t it? At the United Nations, before the whole world.
President Daniel Ortega
But with what authority does the United States speak? With what authority? A power noted for being a genocidal power.
Marc Perelman
Genocide? Here in Nicaragua?
President Daniel Ortega
In Nicaragua and in the world. It is the only power on the planet to have dropped the atomic bomb and here in Nicaragua it committed genocidal crimes between 1979 and 1990 and was condemned by the International Court of Justice for Terrorism.
Marc Perelman
But genocide is a very hard term and very specific.
President Daniel Ortega
Sure, but it was condemned for terrorism and for military acts against Nicaragua and the Court sentenced it to indemnify Nicaragua and to stop its aggression. And so what authority has it when, on top of maintaining the war against Nicaragua, it resorted to drugs traffickers and caused that scandal in the United States at the time of President Reagan and Colonel Oliver North who organized the network with drugs traffickers to get resources to the Contra.
Marc Perelman
But that’s in the past. Right now what is happening? Do you fear a military intervention by the United States in Nicaragua again? Is that a possibility?
President Daniel Ortega
Quite simply we are under threat.
Marc Perelman
A direct military threat from the United States?
President Daniel Ortega
I’d say that with the United States one can discount nothing, nothing at all. One cannot even discount a military aggression. With the United States one can discount nothing and even more so when US rulers make a show not just with words but with deeds.
Who destroyed Europe’s security zone in Africa? The United States with the complicity of European governments destroyed the Maghreb zone and now they are paying the consequences with wave after wave after wave of migrants heading to Europe. They have that major conflict, after they had a security zone there that contained Africa, the peoples from the south of Africa, from southern Africa migrating towards the north and there they found work. Who ruined that? How? By murdering, destroying governments.
Marc Perelman
But I want to return to the current situation in Nicaragua. Also there’s talk of more sanctions by the United States against you, against your family. This is a real possibility and happened with Maduro in Venezuela. Do you fear there will be tough sanctions against you personally?
President Daniel Ortega
Look, think about Sandino who resisted yankee troops. They called him a bandit, they called him a murderer. What didn’t they call Sandino! I am not disconcerted at the words of the US representative in the United Nations. It doesn’t surprise me. And the US has intervened in Nicaragua on various occasions with US troops occupying Nicaragua.
Marc Perelman
So I want to return to what happened since April. before talking about the deaths and all that, I want to understand your version. You say it is a coup, it was an attempted coup d’etat, a coup d’etat with a military dimension, so I want to know who did it. Were there attacks on strategic locations, against State personnel, against you, because I don’t see where there was a coup d’etat here?
President Daniel Ortega
Firstly, on our resuming government in 2007, that was not to the liking of US policy and they immediately began conspiring from the United States with a strong base in Florida and naturally from Florida lobbying in the US Congress and the State Department with a fixed line : Nicaragua does not have a democratic government. Why not? Because the Sandinista Front is in government. So then and there they began organizing military groups.
Marc Perelman
Military?
President Daniel Ortega
Yes of course, of course.
Marc Perelman
What does “military groups” mean? An army? Mercenaries? I’d like to know what kind of military group.
President Daniel Ortega
We can say people who were in the Contra who refused to accept reconciliation and they saw the Sandinista Front in government again so it is them the US armed, got together and promoted via the news media here in Nicaragua, in Florida and in Costa Rica. Even in the US news media, the main US news media suddenly showed armed groups, well armed, well equipped with their uniforms.
Marc Perelman
Do you have proof of all that?
President Daniel Ortega
Oh yes. In the news media! Just look in Nicaraguan news outlets.
Marc Perelman
But, people with arms, trained by the United States?
President Daniel Ortega
Of course they had been trained by the United States. The Contra were trained by the United States.
Marc Perelman
By the government? By the CIA?
President Daniel Ortega
Yes, the US government trained these people.
Marc Perelman
Who came now?
President Daniel Ortega
Yes, yes, they were trained since the 1980s, since the period of the 1980s.
Marc Perelman
Because you mention the group in Florida. It’s not the same as the government, as the CIA. Are you talking about the CIA?
President Daniel Ortega
There you have intelligence bodies of the United States organizing them. The CIA, the intelligence bodies, serve to articulate what they do politically from Florida to Congress and the State Department, thus turning what they do into US government policy.
Marc Perelman
So let me be clear...Are you saying he CIA sent mercenaries from neighboring countries to carry out a coup d’etat here in April?
President Daniel Ortega
No. From 2007 when we came to government, they began organizing armed groups on Nicaraguan territory. These armed groups began to attack Sandinista municipal authorities, Sandinista rural families. They began attacking the police, police posts, the army, destroying construction machinery. In other words, repeating on a small scale what happened during the war of the 1980s, but on a much smaller scale, starting to make an impact.
This meant the deaths of comrades in the army, in the police, among rural families, farmers who refused to give them support...150 people murdered by these groups. And these groups were presented by the US media and by Nicaraguan media as “patriots”, they appear there very well equipped and then when the army deals them a blow they become “victims”, victims of the army, victims of the police.
So there they were accumulating strength, developing their plan and here in the cities too preparing people and trying to take advantage of every situation.
Marc Perelman
That is what happened in April, because in April obviously there was this explosion.
President Daniel Ortega
They had already tried various attempts, attempts to launch an offensive like that one. but they had been still, shall we say, working to accumulate their forces more, and then in April, as a result of the Social Security reforms, they took to the streets to protest. At that point there were no major incidents, there were no deaths but the following night they launched attacks on local municipal authority offices, police posts, setting fire to government offices and that’s where the shock began, the confrontation.
Marc Perelman
You said in a recent interview there are links between these groups and drugs trafficking. What do you mean?
President Daniel Ortega
Of course. For sure. Here it was proven and a drugs trafficker is under arrest who was located in one of the focal points of greatest tension that was established here in Managua in the precincts of a university called the UPOLI, where there were students, but the students were a minority. In the end the university was occupied by drugs traffickers, gang members and the students felt protected because these bore weapons and had financing. Worth noting is that a fellow called Maradiaga figured there whom they have now taken to the United Nations. People carrying arms appeared there and were photographed there, because they themselves put up their photographs since the social networks are now so popular. They themselves took the photographs and spread them in the networks.
Marc Perelman
But the drugs traffickers work with people sent by the United States? Are you saying that? is there proof?
President Daniel Ortega
Yes, of course they are linked. We have people under arrest. We have statements of people naming for example, US agents like this Maradiaga who is an agent of the United States, paid by the agencies of the United States. there is evidence for that.
Marc Perelman
Is there evidence? Will it be distributed?
President Daniel Ortega
Of course there is proof. The case will be heard in the courts, the evidence is there and the evidence is there of him in that place with people carrying arms.
Marc Perelman
I want to talk about what happened with the Mission of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Mission had to leave, they called it an expulsion because a few days earlier this office produced a very tough report on what the government did from April onwards. They talk about extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, torture, sexual violence and they say the majority of the dead were killed by the government or by paramilitary forces. So I imagine the decision to throw them out was because you didn’t like what was in that very, very tough report.
President Daniel Ortega
No. Quite simply, first, the report is false. False. False.
Marc Perelman
Why is it false? Did they not do investigative work?
President Daniel Ortega
How are they going to do a report of any depth in a matter of days with an issue as complex as this? Quite simply these are political reports, where the hand of the United States is there, the hand of the Unted States is always there, determined to present the government as one that attacks its population. That is the objective.
Marc Perelman
It’s a very grave report.
President Daniel Ortega
Yes, I know it is a grave report and one totally lacking seriousness. Before the reports came out we challenged them to meet with the bodies specializing in these matters in Nicaragua so as to really check the information. Why? Because they simply receive people from the opposition, the people from the opposition make any accusations they please, invent what they like, the researchers take note and treat everything that’s said as if it were true, with no further proof.
Marc Perelman
They don’t work seriously. But they do so the world over...so then?
President Daniel Ortega
Here they do political work. It’s strictly political. They come to echo what the opposition say. Note too that here they presented lists. In the lists they presented people supposedly dead and it turned out they were in the United States. Quite simply it is a now well established practice so as to create a negative image of a government by inventing situations.
Marc Perelman
But this is the United Nations. This High Commissioner came out with very hard reports against the migration policy of Donald Trump, for example. So this is not an office working for the United States because sometimes it is very critical. So how can you say it is a political manipulation on the part of the United States?
President Daniel Ortega
I haven’t seen the United Nations, this High Commission, I haven’t seen it condemning the crimes the United States commits around the world. I have never seen it, Never.
Marc Perelman
The High Commissioner said Trump was racist.
President Daniel Ortega
Yes, but I have never seen it indicting, starting a process against the United States for the crimes they have committed around the world and continue committing around the world. I mean, they are institutions that in our case act politically and simply come, meet with the opposition, make accusations, declare them true without further investigation and then produce a report.
Marc Perelman
So it’s total invention because they give plenty of detail, don’t they?
President Daniel Ortega
It’s slander. Slander. Slander.
Marc Perelman
Why do they also talk about the role of mobs as they call those police. The ones you said don’t exist, that were voluntary police.
President Daniel Ortega
That’s right, voluntary police.
Marc Perelman
But there are images of those individuals with weapons, masked and clearly the law doesn’t say the voluntary police can do all that. They are an auxiliary police, but they cannot do what’s in this report that are very serious crimes. The report says they coordinate with the National Police at the highest level.
President Daniel Ortega
Firstly, the voluntary police have not committed any crimes. Not one!
Marc Perelman
Nor the national police?
President Daniel Ortega
No…..Quite simply they were attacked. Here, so you have an idea, when I called for the Dialogue, the Episcopal Conference which was part of this whole situation, some members of the Epsicopal Conference were party to this conspiracy, they put as a precondition to send the police to their stations. To stay off the streets. And so, to facilitate the dialogue, I agreed.
Then they took advantage of those two months to attack police stations every day, every night. Every night we already knew to expect attacks on the police stations, every night there were attacks on local municipal offices, every night there were attacks on government offices, every night there were murders of Sandinista Front activists. And crimes were taking place at the roadblocks, the whole country was blocked off and the country was their prisoner. So how could the police be committing murders if they were in their stations?
Marc Perelman
That’s what the United Nations say, the human rights organizations.
President Daniel Ortega
They were not here. They were not here when all this was happening.
Marc Perelman
But not even a single police officer is under investigation.
President Daniel Ortega
Quite simply, they were not here when these events took place. The best witnesses to these events are the Nicaraguans who suffered them, who were imprisoned for three months...a people imprisoned. Until we had no other choice, as anywhere else in the world, but to use the police, accompanied by the voluntary police, to free the roadblocks and end the criminal situation taking place in the country.
Marc Perelman
So these voluntary police as you call them committed no crime. Not one.
President Daniel Ortega
They committed no crime. The criminals are the paramilitaries organized by the right wing, financed by the United States, who went around masked and continue appearing masked.
Marc Perelman
But when there are photographs of masked people with Sandinista Front flags.
President Daniel Ortega
And how many photographs have you seen of the right wing masked people? Have you seen them? They publish them themselves! I would like the Foreign Ministry to show you all the ones they have, the photographs they themselves publish and not just photographs but videos where they, live, appear armed, appear firing their weapons, masked. Even just a few days ago they had a march, they were in vehicles, masked and armed. They had to be arrested! Thanks be to God nothing worse happened. There was no worse confrontation.
Marc Perelman
So you think the situation is getting back to normal.
President Daniel Ortega
Yes. Yes I think we have done so.
Marc Perelman
But why are there police everywhere if the situation is normal?
President Daniel Ortega
Of course there have to be police! I would ask, what country in the world would accept taking their police off the streets? That’s where we got to here, with the police in their stations , these groups occupied two universities and one university was in the zone where the German and US embassies are located. They began shooting in that area and captured a vehicle of the US embassy and stole two hand guns from a US embassy official there. They stole the vehicle and the ambassador herself complained to us that in any country in the world the police ought to take action, that this could not be allowed to happen.
Marc Perelman
So you think there will be no more violence here.
President Daniel Ortega
That’s right. That’s right.
Marc Perelman
How can you say this, because the violence lasted for months.
President Daniel Ortega
Here in every case, whoever wants to protest can do so peacefully. There is no problem with peaceful protest.
Marc Perelman
But there is such polarization, one cannot see how it might...
President Daniel Ortega
Here we went eleven years and there were protests and everything and there was not a single death caused by the police against demonstrators. By contrast, opposition groups killed our supporters after Sandinista Front activities, when they were returning to their communities. There are the news reports. They didn’t kill just one, they killed seven to ten supporters in a vehicle they fired against, and there were children, women and men murdered.
Marc Perelman
So you say the situation is getting back to normal. What is not happening is the Dialogue. There was an attempt at Dialogue which failed with the Catholic church trying to mediate, but you accused them of being with the coup promoters. Now, you spoke recently about broadening the dialogue, perhaps via the United Nations, with the European Union. So in a concrete way, I’d like to know if you are n discussions with the United Nations, with the Secretary General Antonio Guterres, as a way of restarting a genuine Dialogue so as to get out of this crisis.
President Daniel Ortega
We have had exchanges with the United Nations’ Secretary General. Our Foreign Minister has gone there to talk with him. Our Foreign Minister has also been to the Vatican to talk to the High Authorities responsible for the Vatican’s foreign policy.
Marc Perelman
Not with the Pope?
President Daniel Ortega
No, with the Vice Minister, in a meeting there. We have had exchanges with representatives of European governments that have shown goodwill. The government of Germany has shown willingness to help, to accompany. The President of the Spanish government recently expressed that willingness.
We are grateful for all that goodwill and we have asked them right now to help us so the United States gets its hand off Nicaragua. Because the more the United States increasingly meddles in Nicaragua, then they are causing a much more tense situation and diminishing the possibility that Nicaraguans may be able to solve our own problems.
Marc Perelman
But it’s not the same to say we are discussing with the United Nations and with some European countries for them to ask the United States to get its hands off Nicaragua as to discuss restarting the dialogue with these countries or organizations. Is there a possibility that the United Nations might intervene more actively to mediate Dialogue here in Nicaragua. Would that be your wish?
President Daniel Ortega
It’s necessary to create conditions. Why? Because until this moment, as one can see, it’s the United States that runs the OAS, that has the most powerful voice in the OAS such that the ambassadors follow US policy. In the OAS its the US ambassador that has the most powerful voice. He says what has to be done and he presents his country as the greatest defender of human rights when they have never recognized the OAS Human Rights Commission.
Marc Perelman
There is a Working Group on Nicaragua. You don’t want them here.
President Daniel Ortega
No, no. The United States, since the founding of the OAS, never signed the commitment to the Inter American Commission for Human Rights. Whereas we did. They did not. So with what authority does the United States talk abut human rights in the OAS?
Then, who has the most powerful voice in the United Nations? Who imposes the agenda in the United Nations on Nicaragua? Who brings it to the Security Council? The United States manages the agenda, taking advantage of having the Presidency of the Security Council. And the United States ambassador talking there about human rights when we know very well the United States has just left the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. It withdrew. Nicaragua has not withdrawn.
Nor has Nicaragua withdrawn from the OAS Human Rights Commission, whereas the United States was never even in the OAS Human Rights Commission. It never recognized it and recently withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights commission in Geneva. So it is necessary to remove the United States from seeking ways to destabilize Nicaragua and thus the region, and not give it space to create those conditions.
Marc Perelman
So you think the conditions for a Dialogue don’t exist now? The Catholic Church cannot play a mediating role? So it’s not happening then?
President Daniel Ortega
The conditions don’t exist. Why? Because the United States is meddling.
Marc Perelman
But you could say: United States I know the role you have but we have to have a dialogue so as to get out of this situation.
President Daniel Ortega
Yes, but I can’t accept a Dialogue with the United States involved. I cannot accept it.
Marc Perelman
No they are not. Who speaks for the United States?
President Daniel Ortega
There they are! They are the ones who want to direct the dialogue, they set the conditions.
Marc Perelman
With the Church too?
President Daniel Ortega
Of course. Of course.
Marc Perelman
The Catholic Church obeys the United States?
President Daniel Ortega
There was a proposal made by the Episcopal Conference in a private meeting we had which had all the points. I have the document there. It has all the points and the points they present are the points presented by the opposition and by the United States. They present them. Who? The people who should have a neutral position. In other words, the mediators cannot place themselves on the side of one of the parties but have to seek how to find points of agreement between the parties. By contrast, they openly gave us an ultimatum to leave the government. So it’s a matter of complete madness!
Marc Perelman
I want to talk about the issue of early elections. You spoke about conditions. An opinion poll came out now saying 80% of Nicaraguans want early elections. You said no, no that’s not a good idea. Are you never going to accept that or is it not possible to say, Well if something can help re-establish Peace in the country it could be discussed?
President Daniel Ortega
Firstly,what has given some stability here to Nicaragua is that for the first time in history, in 1990, there was a change of power via elections, when the Sandinista Front had control of all the powers of State, including the electoral power. We recognized the results and handed the government over to the opposition.
Then, for 17 years in which the Right wing was in government assisted by the United States, the Sandinista Front was a constructive opposition. It never occurred to us, with the strength of the Sandinista Front, to overthrow a government. It never occurred to us! We simply made constructive opposition, we sought how to make alliances, policies of alliances, agreements and that’s how we were during that process of elections, elections. elections and changes of government by the electoral route.
And the Sandinista Front returned by the electoral route because that was our challenge, to return to power via elections. We had arrived by means of arms. So the big challenge we had in that new historical phase, and it took us 17 years in opposition, was to return to power via elections. Even when we knew that when there were elections, when an election came around, there also came a High Emissary of the United States here, among them came General Colin Powell to tell the Nicaraguan People : Don’t vote for the Sandinistas because that will bring a new conflict with the United States. So people were voting with a gun to their head.
So then the Sandinista Front arrives in power by the electoral route. So breaking that principle by bringing forward elections is to set a very grave precedent for Nicaragua. Very grave! Because we would be returning to the cycle we lived in the 19th Century, in the 1850s when we had that situation: Two parties, Liberals and Conservatives, some ruling from Granada and they said they were the country’s government and the others ruling from León who said they were the country’s government. And war, war, war.
Marc Perelman
But you could say for example, well in 2021, I’m not going to stand again, to show…
President Daniel Ortega
First I think we have to defend the principle of institutionality. I think that is a principle we have to defend. Otherwise would be to accept that any future government after 2021 has a strong protest against it and so gets overthrown and we would fall into the crisis that we used to have that has dogged us in Nicaragua since independence. So the law must be respected, institutional periods must be respected.
We will have elections in March next year for the Caribbean Region. We have two elections there. One in the north and one in the south, because we have an Autonomy regime for the indigenous peoples, for the original peoples. Then for 2021 are the national elections. In 2019, the elections on the Coast and in 2021 the national elections.
Marc Perelman
And will you be a candidate?
President Daniel Ortega
Now, can I be a candidate? Well, who knows? Here I am talking to you, but who knows? Who knows? Life is the first thing. Life comes and goes. We don’t know. Let’s see if I live until 2021 and if I do live until 2021, if the conditions are there for me to be a candidate or if the conditions exist for some other male or female comrade. These are situations that have to be appraised at the time. I think it is hasty to talk about 2021 already.
Marc Perelman
A very concrete question. You spoke a lot about tension with the United States. But there was cooperation and there still is cooperation between the United States and Nicaragua against drugs trafficking. I don’t know it if continues, you can say. Is this to be suspended,or reduced, or to be continued?
President Daniel Ortega
Firstly, the cooperation the United States has offered Nicaragua I make a point of saying that quite simply the United States with what it calls cooperation is paying off the enormous debt it has with Nicaragua following the sentence of the International Court of Justice where they had to indemnify Nicaragua for a sum amounting to billions. Back then they spoke of US$17 billion, by now for sure it certainly would be US $50 billion given the time that has passed.
But beyond that, the United States, barely with the small amount, because it is a very small amount the United States offers Nicaragua in the fight against drugs trafficking and organized crime. I’d say they are scarcely giving a few crumbs towards the service Nicaragua gives the United States. Because Nicaragua’s problem is not the consumption of drugs, that problem is in the United States and here we by struggling against drugs trafficking, against organized crime, against terrorism,we are protecting the United States.
Marc Perelman
Will it continue or will you say : Well is the United States treats us like this we’re going to ….?
President Daniel Ortega
No. I would say this is a problem of principle, an ethical issue, independently of all the contradictions we have had with the United States, we are always committed, even when they don’t help us at all, we are committed to the struggle against drugs trafficking and organized crime.
Marc Perelman
You spoke about the police. The European Union decided to suspend cooperation with the police, because they said the role of the police of repression would make them suspend that cooperation. Your response?
President Daniel Ortega
In the first place, European Union cooperation with the police has been minimal. The police here are maintained fundamentally by the budget, with our small national budget.
Marc Perelman
But it is symbolic that the European Union are saying : the police kill people, we’re not helping any more.
President Daniel Ortega
It’s politically symbolic of how the European Union seeks to be in good favor with the United States.
Marc Perelman
Is it not ethical? Does it only have to do with obeying the United States?
President Daniel Ortega
It’s simply political, if the United States says, “you have to do this” above all in these regions, immediately the European Union also says “we have to do this”. In other words, they string along, they appear subordinate. Despite our current times and that one assumes the European Union is a more independent body, more autonomous. Well, the truth is that the European Union is still under the tutelage of the United States.
Marc Perelman
To finish...the first question mentioned dictatorship, also corruption. Obviously there are many questions about the fact that you are President and your wife is Vice President. various of your children have important roles in the media, in oil, so there’s much talk of a dynasty, that Nicaragua is not a democracy but belongs to or is controlled by a single family.
President Daniel Ortega
Well I know of dynasties still in these days in Europe. There are dynasties there, systems of royalty or put another way, there are families there that have a status above the common population. And in the United States I know of various dynasties, the Kennedy dynasty, the Bush dynasty and, well, the current President has plenty of people around him from his family that have government posts there in the United States.
Here, the Compañera Rosario I got to know as a Sandinista Front activist and she is in her post as a Sandinista Front activist... and for her abilities. What’s going on is that always involved and active is first, disrespect for women and machismo. That weighs a lot in the denigration of Compañera Rosario,of her merits for being in that post with that responsibility. But that doesn’t mean we are setting up a dynasty.
My children don’t have government posts. One of them contributes and collaborates, but his work is with a foundation promoting singing among low income youngsters and children. The others studied sociology, journalism communications and, well, they like communications.
Marc Perelman
So the accusations of nepotism are completely false?
President Daniel Ortega
Totally false! Let them mention how many of my children are government functionaries, let them say how many and then they talk about oil, as if Nicaragua were a country with oil.
Marc Perelman
Well there was an oil agreement with Venezuela.
President Daniel Ortega
No, that’s something different. That is a relation we have as a State with Venezuela.
Marc Perelman
A final question as we have no more time now, Donald Trump….you said a few weeks ago that it would be a good thing to talk to him. We’ve talked a lot about the United States. Would you try to talk to him? Do you still want to talk to him? Because he has talked to one of his worst enemies, like the leader of North Korea, like Putin...so why not with Ortega?
President Daniel Ortega
I think the principle of exchange, of Dialogue between the United States and other countries, I’m not talking only about Nicaragua, I’d include all of Latin America, is something necessary and indispensable so that Latin America could at least make itself heard in the United States. But unfortunately, that communication with the whole region has not been able to get established, the region is even divided.
Marc Perelman
Did you try communicating with Trump?
President Daniel Ortega
No. I’ve said I am willing to talk to him, of course!
Marc Perelman
¿Could the General Assembly of the United Nations be an opportunity?
President Daniel Ortega
Yes, it could be an opportunity, of course.
Marc Perelman
¿Will you go?
President Daniel Ortega
I remember at the height of the war in the 1980s, in a session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, we were strongly against each other and Reagan treated me the same as that lady who spoke in the Security Council. And we met with Reagan at an activity to which they invited us and there we greeted each other, we shook hands, we said hello, exchanged a few words and I spoke to him about Peace.
The fact that we had deep contradictions, the fact that Nicaragua was a victim for so many years, for centuries it has been a victim of US interventionist policies and the fact that to this day it continues insisting on that policy, does not make us discount the possibility that at some point the United States will have to respect Nicaragua and respect the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Marc Perelman
So, you could go to New York to try that meeting?
President Daniel Ortega
I’d like to go. Yes, I’d like to.
Marc Perelman
Many thanks President Ortega for this interview. From Managua here in Nicaragua, many thanks to all of you watching.