Nicaragua at the 78th General Assembly (Speech)
Message of Comandante Daniel Ortega Saavedra and compañera Rosario Murillo President and Vice President of the Republic of Nicaragua to the 78th United Nations General Assembly, read by His Excellency Denis Ronaldo Moncada Colindres, Minister for Foreign Affairs on September 26, 2023.
Mr. President :
Brother and Sister Delegates:
The People of Nicaragua salute the Peoples represented in this 78th General Assembly of the United Nations, with our heads held high, as always, because we have managed to live overcoming all the tragedies and catastrophes imposed by the history of domination, cruelty, intervention, occupation and interference in all aspects of our life, including our electoral processes, intervened in by the empires and their economic and military might, with which have tried to destroy us, to dominate us.
We are living moments of the extinction of the imperialist, colonialist model, of looting and genocide whose greed has impacted Nature and our World, a World of many patrimonies, languages and steadfast Ways of Life.
In these times of decision and the conviction of the need for substantive change, in order to recover all our rights and values in the face of the overwhelming, criminal greed of colonialism and imperialism in all their manifestations, Nicaragua continues to engage in all the battles for genuine Freedom, for Light, and for Truth that cannot be concealed.
We are the immense and invincible force of a courageous new World, of Peoples who do not let themselves be separated from hope or faith, and from our growing spiritual strength, we demand respectful cooperation, solidarity and human fraternity, such that everything may change, everything may be transformed and we can live peacefully and securely, working and prospering, in our own sacred lands, in shared destiny and prosperity.
This World that has now stood up, that has started to make its way, claiming its own voice and identity, its ancestral and current knowledge, this World of a culture of Peace, has spoken in this 78th United Nations General Assembly, to continue, with more and more self-assurance and certainty, sowing, cultivating and harvesting the indispensable transformations, even in these very United Nations whose nature has been distorted, changing it, unfortunately, into a body servile to and dependent on the powers that be.
The New World that belongs to us all, demands respect. It demands Peace. It insists upon Peace. It demands Justice for everyone. It demands Remembrance, History, Reparation and Non-Repetition. That is why, from this podium of the 78th General Assembly, we demand that the United Nations enforce the mandate of the International Court of Justice of The Hague, which in 1986 sentenced the United States of America to indemnify Nicaragua, at least in part, the costs of the destruction, the permanent aggression, the pain and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of families, during the insane and vengeful war imposed on our Country and our People, in what was called the counterrevolution.
This, of course, does not restore lives; it does not alleviate the broken hearts of so many families and individuals, but at least it rebuilds, for all Nicaraguans, the economic, social, productive, cultural infrastructure, which those responsible shattered with their grotesque intervention, but which as always, every time, was defeated by the honor, integrity and glory of Nicaragua’s Spirit, by the Grace of God.
Sandino lives in each of these victories against nefarious and diabolical imperialism. And Sandino is in this room today, demanding that all of us comply and enforce the law and international law, to indemnify the Nicaraguan People with what they deserve in all Justice and Truth, after having asserted so much the Right to Peace and Life, claiming what belongs to us, Sovereignty, Freedom, Harmony, to make our way with our own destinies.
We demand that the United Nations pronounces in its own right, and orders the government of the United States of America to comply with the historic judgment that condemned them and obliged them to recognize Nicaragua, abiding by it, in all its commendable points.
Nicaragua, with the dignity and heroism of our Struggles, Races, Peoples, Cultures, of Living Well demands this closure and we also join the demand of all the Peoples and countries that have spoken from this place to denounce the aggressive, interventionist, arbitrary, unjust policies, whose coercive, unilateral measures are not only illegal and illegitimate, but constitute a destabilizing, destructive warlike modality, imposing changes of governments, through coups d’état, attempts to bring about coups and acts of vandalism known these days as “color revolutions”, causing grief to so many families among so many Peoples.
We stand in permanent solidarity with the Peoples and countries that experience this uncivilized barbarism, which indeed repeat the waves and echoes of the imperialist, colonialist, fascist models, which have caused the death of millions of human beings, imposing regimes of terror and deprivation, with shameful tides and unprecedented tsunamis of migration. These tragedies trace the desperation of injustice, and the neo-colonial pretense to silence, dominate and exclude, so as to continue plundering the wealth of the world’s Peoples.
Entire countries have been destroyed, in this brutal scorched earth policy, which seeks to satisfy the beastly appetites of the Earth’s imperialists… Entire countries have been occupied, and their peoples sacrificed and massacred, via the same atrocious policies and actions, violating all Rights, which reinforce what we know and denounce again here, as hate crimes.
Our permanent and combative Solidarity with the Palestinian People; the Syrian People; the Saharawi People; the Eritrean People; the People in all those place they have wanted to create fascist and neo-Nazi enclaves. Our permanent and combative Solidarity to all the Peoples in struggle in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We are Peoples and Countries that resist and fight the blockades, the economic warfare, the systematic and permanent intervention in the Social, Cultural, Economic and Political Life of all our institutions… As we see, more and more violations of all Rights!
Our combative Solidarity with the People of Cuba… of Martí, of Fidel, of Raúl, of Miguel Díaz-Canel, over 62 years of murderous blockade… Our combative Solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela where Chávez lives on, the struggle goes on, and where Nicolás has defeated all destructive attempts…
Our combative Solidarity with the Peoples and Governments of our Central American region that do not weaken in the struggle for Security, for Peace, so as to confront and conquer, the hell of Poverty. With Honduras, and its brave President Xiomara Castro; Honduras, our fraternal neighbor, where Morazán and Sandino prevail, our family, fraternal embrace always in Solidarity.
Our combative Solidarity with Bolivia, the great People of Túpac Katari, who are moving onward amidst the same threats as always… With the People of Argentina and their sovereign Right over the Malvinas Islands… With Puerto Rico, brave and unstoppable in their just struggle for Independence…
Our strength is with the People’s Republic of China, the power that today shows the World and the human family how Solidarity, respectful Cooperation, generous brother and sisterhood is practiced and lived, between older brothers and sisters, younger brothers and sisters, but all as one big family with a “common destiny”, such that we fight to overcome the actions of dispossession and economic stagnation and poverty, imposed on so many people.
Our active and combative Solidarity with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in its historical battles for Sovereignty and Rights…
To the People of Belarus, always dignified and in solidarity, our respect and recognition…
Our solidarity and combative force with the heroic struggles waged by the Russian Federation, for Peace and Security, for a World that we must all defend from the growing threats of Empires, and their neo-Nazi policies, their fascist emblems and contents, which intend to return us to the unwonted perversion of expansionist and wars of domination, which have left millions of dead and families destroyed all over the world. Our support for the Russian Federation is an unwavering support and an inescapable human alliance, for Security, Dialogue and Harmony, essential, irreplaceable, for the human community.
Our Solidarity and accompaniment with the Islamic Republic of Iran, another example of sharing and coexisting with Peoples ravaged by imperial greed. Despite the incessant, excessive and infernal arrogance of those who think they are superior, we reaffirm it: They do not separate us and together we travel along paths of Courage and Dignity.
Mr President :
Ladies and Gentlemen Delegates :
We demand from this place respect for the United Nations system in order to recover its founding values, in this other World where we learn, keep ourselves abreast, and continue, yes, defending just, sovereign, self-defined models, based on the maxim “Respect for the Rights of others is Peace”. Eternal Comandante Hugo Chávez Frías had already expressed it before the United Nations Assembly in 2005: The United Nations must be re-founded… And this was taken up by Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister of Dignity, Father Miguel d’Escoto, also President of the United Nations General Assembly, when in 2008 he raised the urgency of re-founding the United Nations to serve the world’s Peoples.
The United Nations has just held a Meeting of Heads of State and Government of the G77+China in Cuba, which reached agreements of fundamental importance for the World, agreements that must be taken into account and fulfilled, so that, with a consciousness of freedom and of the brother and sisterhood of the Human Family, we continue to break the chains of slavery and dependence, of submission and subordination, of servile obedience, which the selfish, ambitious and perfidious colonial and imperial interests intend, even at this point in history, to continue imposing on us.
We regard with hope the recent meeting and enlargement of the BRICS, which today, with Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, plus Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Ethiopia and Iran, represent new forces and strength in the struggles for our economic and financial Sovereignty, as free and capable Peoples.
In the face of all the advances in science, techniques and technologies, including those portentously called “Artificial Intelligence” (as if they were not the result of Human Intelligence), Nicaragua demands the full participation of the Peoples who have made possible with our blood and resources, these advances of the conquistadors. We demand what is ours, the Right to fully live this development, improving the conditions of work, study and life, by right, of our Peoples.
At the same time as we propose inclusion, from Nicaragua we also propose the rational, beneficial use of these resources of humanity, which in the hands of the malevolent ones of always, constitute weapons of mass destruction against countries, Peoples and communities.
Always Together and Always Further On as Sandino said, with proposals based on respect, consideration, brother and sisterhood, and a Nation for everyone, based on our countries’ Sovereignty, Nicaragua joins the intense search for and struggle to defend our inheritance of natural resources, our cultures, our languages and Ways of Life, our original communities, working daily, tirelessly, for Peace, which is not only a Right, but an urgent necessity for the survival of Humanity, that is, for Life as we all deserve it.
The aggressions that they arrogantly and haughtily call “sanctions” do not define us, nor do they intimidate us, nor do they disable us, nor do they bend us, nor do they lead us to sell out or surrender. We don’t know the word, surrender.
Life is made up of daily struggles to assert what belongs to us: A world free of wars, of chemical or nuclear weapons, of looting, ignorance, fraud, of new deceptions and brazen thefts, including the assault on our talents.
A world free of offenses, because war, looting, the poverty they generate, misery, pandemics, the lack of health, education, housing, the lack of favorable conditions for Life, all constitute an offensive, degrading, humiliating, cruel, degrading and immense prison, where human security is denied, promoting seas of exoduses bereft of dignity; cutting off Hope, Joy, Culture, Life for the majority of the Planet.
A World free of brutality, free of aggression. A World free of arrogance. A World free of supreme ignorance. A World free of hatred, evil, misery… A World free of sadness, of emotional poison.
A World free of the deformations, apathy and depression, intentionally created by drugs, which have become another form of terrorism, among so many other perversions and provocations that plague us.
A World free of impositions. A World of vigor, of Courage, of Values. A World committed to a simple, powerful, forceful, Common Good: the Love that is stronger than Hatred and that conquers everything and is capable of everything… The Love that we need so much to build Trust so as definitely to install New Horizons and Prodigious Futures. We want a World of Spiritual Beings who are also Human, who are not perfect, but who can and should close ranks to recover the Goodness and Strength of this Planet that we share.
Above and Beyond all the forms of Terrorism imposed upon us, there is the Spirit, the Flame, the Insignia and Axiom of our Human Condition. That’s what we’re fighting for. That’s why we win through. And because of this, we will overcome! Always Further On!
Managua, September 26th 2023
Daniel Ortega Saavedra
Rosario Murillo
