By Sergio Rodriguez Gelfenstein
To General Augusto C. Sandino as we approach the 90th anniversary of his departure to immortality
Nicaragua has had to fight in defense of its sovereignty almost from the moment it was established as an independent republic. From the British invasion of 1847 on its Caribbean coast, and the following year to San Juan and the island of Tigre in the Gulf of Fonseca as an expression of the struggle with the United States to take over the strategic region, over the three filibuster expeditions of the American William Walker between 1855 and 1860 to establish a personal dictatorship in the national territory until the attempted coup d’état in 2018, Nicaragua has had to face a long list of invasions and threats to its sovereignty.
At the beginning of the 20th century, in 1909, within the framework of the “Big Stick” policy and “Dollar Diplomacy,” American President William Taft led a coup d’état against the nationalist leader José Santos Zelaya. In this context, the United States occupied Nicaragua in 1912, imposing the Bryan-Chamorro treaty four years later, which was an expression of a virtual protectorate over the Central American nation. The Yankee troops remained in the national territory for 21 years until the Nicaraguan people led by General Augusto C. Sandino defeated them militarily and expelled them from the country.
Sandino was betrayed and assassinated in 1934, after which Washington installed in Managua a brutal dynastic dictatorship headed by Anastasio Somoza and his sons that was defenestrated by the struggle of the Nicaraguan people led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) on July 19. of 1979.
Before, during the first days of July of that year, the “democratic” president of the United States Jimmy Carter tried to steal the victory from the FSLN, first by landing troops in the city of Liberia north of Costa Rica, just 75 km away from the combat zone, to later promote OAS support for a military intervention in the country and finally, after Somoza’s flight on July 17, trying to install a “Somoza without Somoza” regime led by Francisco Urcuyo.
Already in power, the Sandinista revolution was forced to face a war that cost it the loss of more than 50,000 citizens as a result of direct and indirect actions by the United States during 1979 and 1990. The economic damage caused by the United States war against Nicaragua was estimated at 17 billion dollars.
It is worth repeating that the history of Nicaragua is a history of struggle for its survival as an independent nation. And in that long epic they have learned to know the enemy – both internally and externally – generating a feeling, honor and pride in being Nicaraguan that has allowed them in recent years to successfully confront the new forms of imperialist intervention.
In the recent past, Washington again attempted to overthrow the country’s democratic government. Or have we not been told for 200 years that democracy is that system that emerges from elections? The Nicaraguan people, led by the FSLN, have learned to win the elections of representative democracy and, making use of the prerogatives granted to them by the authority of the State inserted in the National Constitution, are defending the legitimate power acquired.
The new imperial onslaught occurred in April 2018. An alliance of juvenile delinquents brought from El Salvador together with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), union institutions and businessmen, all under the leadership of the Embassy of the United States, those of the European Union and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute, all institutions at the service of the United States government, managed to attract a sector of the population to carry out violent actions aimed at overthrowing the government in a country that showed outstanding economic results and the best security indices in the entire region.
Once the incidents that caused the death of 253 citizens, hundreds of tortured and injured Sandinista militants and billions of dollars in damage to the economy were controlled, President Daniel Ortega called for a dialogue that, within the framework of democracy, would allow recover (once again) political stability, democratic governance and economic security brutally destroyed in a few weeks after a long road of recovery that had begun in 2007. The vast majority accepted the president’s demand for dialogue, but those who did not had to face the weight of the State, the laws and the firm institutions of the country. Its fundamental pillars are the Nicaraguan National Army, the security and public order forces that, emerging from the 1979 revolution, guarantee, like a firm backbone, the body of the new Nicaragua.
The transnational media made a huge scandal when in February of last year the Sandinista government decided to release and expel from the country 222 people who were detained for having received money directly or indirectly from United States government agencies through non-profit institutions or via companies, which were in charge of administering the US aggressions against Nicaragua. Another 92, most living abroad, were deprived of their citizenship. Among them are many of the leaders and activists of the April 2018 coup attempt who, at the time of their arrest, were planning new terrorist actions to try to affect the 2021 electoral process.
Expulsion from the country and deprivation of citizenship for criminal actions are measures applied by most Western countries, including the United States. Since 2010, the United Kingdom has deprived 767 people of their citizenship. It is not known that such measures have been repudiated by any NGO, nor is anything known about the denunciation by any transnational media or by any party of the traditional Latin American or European left.
While this was happening, a mission from the IMF – an organization that is known to be neither an appendix of international communism nor has its headquarters in Beijing or Moscow – visited Managua from November 6 to 17, 2023 in order to carry out the Consultation of the Article IV of 2023. The IMF team reported: “Nicaragua’s economy has maintained its resilience in the face of multiple shocks thanks to appropriate economic policies, considerable buffers, and multilateral support.” The international organization noted that, after a strong rebound in 2021, economic growth has been stable thanks to private consumption and the performance of exports since 2022.
At the time of preparing its report, the organization predicted a growth of 4% for Nicaragua in 2023 as well as the slowdown in inflation, fiscal surplus and ample deposits. From this perspective, it considered that in 2024 and in the medium term, the country would continue its economic growth at around 3.5% annually supported mainly by private consumption.
In other respects, the IMF mission assured that the economic outlook was favorable and that risks were balanced. However, it warned that there could be positive surprises reflected in even higher GDP growth due to a more sustained recovery in domestic demand, including investment and a stronger than expected inflow of remittances, especially in the short term.
The IMF mission agreed with the government’s decision “to continue implementing prudent macroeconomic policies – necessary to preserve resilience and clear and predictable economic management – that support medium-term growth.”
Finally, it praised the authorities for their interest in strengthening and safeguarding the sustainability of public finances and for reinforcing adequate fiscal consolidation of the country. It was similarly satisfied with the stability shown by the private financial system, which is well capitalized and has liquidity, considering that it could be strengthened even further.
On another level, the IMF recognized “the efforts of the authorities to improve fiscal transparency”, urging that these be maintained to improve the supervision of public funds.
It has not been known that these results have been reported by any NGO, nor made known by any transnational media, nor celebrated by any party of the traditional Latin American or European left.
Several must be thinking how “dangerous” it is to be praised by an organization as “despicable” as the IMF, which is still “suspicious.” Others may affirm that this refers to macroeconomic figures that do not mean improvements for the humble people of Nicaragua.
But it must be known that Nicaragua’s economic successes have allowed the government to take measures to improve governance and anti-corruption frameworks while raising the population’s standard of living. In this area, theAttorney General’s Office of the Republic of Nicaragua has delivered more than 650,000 property titles to as many Nicaraguan families between 2007 and 2023. With this, the well-being of the humblest citizens has been guaranteed by safeguarding for them and their families the legal security of ownership of their homes and land for work. In an unprecedented effort, the FSLN government has titled almost 500 thousand hectares since its return to power in 2007, allocating 31 million dollars to this end, which allowed the process to be completely free for the beneficiaries, thus also contributing to stability. and peace of mind for families.
In another order, it is important to know that the Nicaraguan economy is in a “moderate but sustained” expansionary dynamic with solid growth in its GDP, even reaching 4.5% in 2023, a figure that exceeds the IMF’s own forecast for that anus.
In an interview for the Russian media Sputnik in Spanish, the president of the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN) Ovidio Reyes, and the deputy of the National Assembly Wálmaro Gutiérrez explained that after the setback caused by the 2018 coup attempt and the pandemic from 2020 to 2021, the country’s economy entered a dynamic of clear recovery and growth. This is manifested in three consecutive years of economic expansion, which has had a clear impact on “commerce, vehicular circulation and the movement of people.”
Reyes and Gutiérrez affirmed that in Nicaragua a positive economic dynamism was being observed in the commercial, hotel and restaurant sectors, as well as financial activities and the manufacturing industry. They assured that the country already has “consolidated economic growth and has the motor going on very well”. According to them, the key has been the reduction in inflation recorded at 5.65% last November, when at the end of 2022 it stood at 11%.
Other figures worth highlighting are the historical record in the accumulation ofinternational reserves, which closed the year 2023 with around 5.3 billion dollarsas well as the rising tourism industry. Likewise, Nicaragua ended the year with a budget surplus due to the increase in direct and indirect tax collection, making it possible to guarantee subsidies for fuel, energy and drinking water services, public transportation in Managua and the Caribbean, retirees and universities.
By 2024, even lower inflation is expected, as well as an increase in foreign direct investment that comes to the country confident in the good management of the economy and high levels of citizen and legal security for investments. As of October 2023, the country registered a 3% growth in exports valued at 3,449 million dollars, while family remittances reached more than 3,800 million dollars as of October. In the same way, a reduction in unemployment is also expected to bring it to 3-3.5%.
On another level, it is worth saying that the economic success and the surplus in the budget have allowed the decision to be made to allocate 56.3% of it for social investment: in health 21%, in education 21.7%, in housing and community services 9%, social protection 3.5% and recreation, culture and religion 1.1%.
With this, the FSLN government led by Commandante Daniel Ortega has managed to reverse the dark situation in which the neoliberal governments that led it for 17 years until 2007 left the country.
Of particular importance has been the investment that the Sandinista government has made in health. The public investment program multiplied by 5 in these years, reaching 97 million dollars in 2022 while the budget of the Ministry of Health increased by 6.5 times, reaching approximately 614 million dollars.
In this sense, the Sandinista government has undertaken its health program in three corners: the construction of a new hospital and primary care infrastructure, the modernization of the existing ones, and the community support network.
The Argentine journalist Alberto Más, in an article published on the portal “AcercNOS. Cultural Movement” stated that: “This new infrastructure includes digital connectivity programs between hospitals and health units, providing broadband internet connection to hospitals and health centers at the departmental and municipal level.”
Más pointed out that if the existing infrastructure in 2006 is compared with the current one, it can be seen that from 56 hospitals, there were 75 that have technology and permanent investment. Likewise, the country has “10 hospital beds, 9 doctors, 8 nurses and 9 nursing assistants for every ten thousand inhabitants.” This situation led to an abrupt drop in neonatal mortality, which fell from 18 per thousand live births at the beginning of this new stage of national reconstruction, to 9 in 2022.
None of this has been reported by any NGO, nor made known by any transnational media, nor celebrated by any party of the traditional Latin American or European left. For those who have doubts about these figures because they are official and provided by senior officials of the Nicaraguan State, you have the option of consulting the IMF, which can corroborate without a doubt all the information that is being offered.
Even easier, you can go to Nicaragua and talk to market workers, hoteliers, taxi drivers, restaurateurs, artisans, and if you want to go further, talk to soldiers and police and ask them what they think about your country and take advantage of asking them their opinion. opinion about the intellectuals who spread hatred from Miami, Los Angeles and Madrid, about the terrorists in cassocks and the traitors who prefer to plunge the country into death and destruction rather than contribute to the greatness of their country.
I conclude by announcing the decree of November 14, 1927 issued by the General of Free Men, Augusto C. Sandino from the General Headquarters of the Army in Defense of National Sovereignty in Chipote, department of Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua.
Decree
They are traitors to the country:
1. Any Nicaraguan who, for political purposes, traffics in the honor of the Nation, requesting official support from the conquerors of Nicaragua, as well as from the government of the House White and the one who leaves the country as a representative of the spurious government of the traitor Adolfo Díaz.
2. Anyone who has entered into secret pacts with the enemy, either as a military leader or as a civilian leader.
3. The one who provides help to the invaders and traitors to assassinate the Nicaraguan patriots who are defending National Sovereignty.
4. Anyone who provides reports, verbally or in writing, declaring against his fellow citizens.
5. He who requests protection from invaders with the pretext of defending their interests, whether national or foreign, the same penalty that the Political Constitution establishes for traitors to the Homeland will be applied.
At the same time, I make known to Nicaraguan society, to the people with whom the ties of spirituality bind me to defend their rights, as well as to foreigners residing in the country, that: the Army in Defense of the Sovereignty of Nicaragua is a perfectly organized institution. and disciplined, will give all kinds of effective guarantees to nationals and foreigners as long as they maintain strict neutrality.
Announced in El Chipote, on the fourteenth day of November of the year 1927.
Homeland and Freedom. AC Sandino.