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Daniel Ortega

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Daniel Ortega (April 2008)

José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (born November 11, 1945) is a Nicaraguan politician and former revolutionary who served as leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, and is presently serving as President of Nicaragua since 2007.

Quotes

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  • We salute Venezuela that clearly fights for peace, in a commitment that has its foundations in the spirit and conviction of our Latin American and Caribbean peoples, and so we ratify it on the 85th anniversary of [Sandino] our ‘general of free men’ ... Beyond their political positions, countries have said that they are not in favor of intervention or war. There are some agreements that have to be worked on and initiatives to be developed to find a solution through peaceful means in Venezuela.

Nothing Will Hold Back Our Struggle for Liberation (1979)

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Speech before the Non-Aligned Conference, Havana, Cuba, September 1979
(Cited in Leiken and Rubin, Central American, 201)
  • Imperialism cannot conceive of a free people, a sovereign people, an independent people. Because, simply and plainly, for them the people is nothing more than an empty phrase.
  • The Nicaraguan people have won, with their blood, the right to be here today, in this way breaking with a historic past of servility towards imperialist policy. For the first time in their entire history the Nicaraguan people can officially express their sovereign will, joining this movement of the nonaligned barely forty-one days after their triumph.
  • We are Sandinistas; our people have been struggling against oppression and interventions for more than 150 years. That is why we have historically identified with the struggle of the Palestinian people and we recognize the PLO as their legitimate representative. And that is why we condemn Israeli occupation of the Arab territories and demand their unconditional return.
  • We are a poor country that wants to take the efforts and resources now being invested in defense of the revolution and invest it in tractors and plows. And we support general and complete disarmament, under strict international control. We are for an end to the arms race and we salute the SALT II accords as an important step in this direction. We demand respect for the territorial integrity of states and renunciation of the use of force in international relations. We condemn the existence of military bases.

Quotes about

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  • The Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has called for peace in Latin America and warned the United States against a war on Venezuela... during an official act commemorating the 85th anniversary of the death of Augusto C. Sandino, the nation’s national Hero.
  • "We salute Venezuela that clearly fights for peace, in a commitment that has its foundations in the spirit and conviction of our Latin American and Caribbean peoples, and so we ratify it on the 85th anniversary of [Sandino] our ‘general of free men’," said Ortega during the ceremony.
  • According to the Nicaraguan president, Latin America has spoken up against war and against intervention on its territory and called for a peaceful solution in Venezuela. "Beyond their political positions, countries have said that they are not in favor of intervention or war. There are some agreements that have to be worked on and initiatives to be developed to find a solution through peaceful means in Venezuela."
  • Finally, after moderating FSLN ideology and adopting more conservative views on some social issues, Daniel Ortega won the presidency in November 2006. His new administration enacted policies, such as free health care and more aid for low-income people, that significantly improved the lives of many. The FSLN hoped that the success of these policies would result in greater electoral support in coming elections, providing a more secure basis for future change. In 2011, Ortega and the FSLN won the presidency and control of the national legislature, receiving more than 62 percent of the popular vote. The Nicaraguan government in 2013 moved to fulfill the national dream of building an interocean canal that would significantly spur economic development.
    • James DeFronzo, Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements (2018), p. 240
  • For the past decade, the United States has been quietly assisting opposition groups in Nicaragua, helping them organize resistance to the country’s popular leftist president Daniel Ortega. U.S. officials hope the country’s opposition groups will create a new political movement that can defeat Ortega at the polls or pressure him into stepping down from power. They fear that without their support, Ortega’s opposition will remain weak and divided, making it impossible for anyone to mount a successful political campaign against the Nicaraguan president.
  • Currently, Nicaragua is the only country victimized by the US-backed Central American Wars which is not also a source of immigrants to the US. This is in no small part due to the Sandinistas’ effective social programs. As for the Sandinistas’ social programs, even the New York Times acknowledged that “many poor people who receive housing and other government benefits support” Sandinista President, Daniel Ortega.
  • During the 1980s, Nicaragua – a tiny country which remains the second poorest in the Hemisphere — inspired many of us, myself included, with its heroic resistance to violent US aggression. Nicaragua has remained a symbol of opposition to US imperialism, and that has galled the powers-that-be in this country – particularly Neo-Cons such as current National Security Adviser John Bolton.
  • We must stand with Nicaragua now, as many of us did before, in opposing continued US hostilities in the form of the NICA Act and interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs. Nicaragua deserves such solidarity.
  • Only last week, an official of the Soviet Union reiterated Brezhnev's threat to station nuclear missiles in this hemisphere, 5 minutes from the United States. Like an echo, Nicaragua's Commandante Daniel Ortega confirmed that, if asked, his country would consider accepting those missiles. I understand that today they may be having second thoughts.
  • (Has the post–Revolutionary leadership tried to re–write the history of the Revolution?)...If by post–Revolutionary leadership you mean the current dictatorship of Ortega and Murillo, they have tried not only to rewrite the history of the Revolution, but to adulterate it, falsify it, and accommodate it to their own interests of consolidating themselves in a family dynasty in power as pernicious or worse than that of the Somozas.

See Also

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Wikipedia
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