Nicaragua Once Again Inaugurates the “People as Presidentâ€
NSCAG News |
on: Thursday, 13 January 2022
Nicaraguans celebrate the inauguration of the 'People as President'
"We will continue to fight with dignity, always defending the homeland, always defending sovereignty, because only with sovereignty, with dignity, with conscience, is it possible to achieve the great victories." - President Daniel Ortega, 10 January 2022
Nan McCurdy of the Alliance for Global Justice (www.afgj.org) covered the inauguration of Nicaraguan Presdient Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo on 10 January. She has written as follows:-
"On January 10 Daniel Ortega was inaugurated as President of Nicaragua and Rosario Murillo as Vice President. The central event in the Plaza of the Revolution was accompanied by Sandinistas celebrating in almost every town with big-screen displays of the inauguration. Once he had been sworn in with the presidential sash across his chest, Ortega repeated his action from 2007, 2012 and 2017: He took off his sash and then symbolically handed it to the people: “El Pueblo Presidente – the People as President.” The crowd broke out in wild cheers. He asked tens of thousands of Sandinistas gathered in the 153 municipalities of the country to swear to fight with all their strength to overthrow hunger, poverty and backwardness.
Nicaraguan families watching the inauguration swear to fight with all their strength to overthrow hunger, poverty and backwardness
"Let's go forward…building peace to fight poverty, building peace so that there can be roads and highways. Building peace so that families can feel secure; their children can feel secure in their work; they can feel secure in having a dignified life. That is our commitment, dear Nicaraguan brothers and sisters, we are all in this and that is why we say the people are president,” he exclaimed with emotion.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel accompanied the inauguration to the obvious delight of the crowd who cheered when each of them arrived. There were more than three hundred journalists and solidarity activists from dozens of nations in attendance at the inauguration. "Here are delegates from many governments that have been mentioned, brothers and sisters, friendly people from countries where the European governments or the Yankee government do not send delegates…. What greater pride than to have here as representatives of the North American people, of the European peoples, citizens, dignified men and women who fight in their homelands for true dignity, for the true independence of their own countries and for a true democracy to be installed in their own countries," said Ortega.
What better and more worthy representative can the American people have than Brian Willson. They [the US] threw the military train at him and it was filmed, and they destroyed his legs. Where were the human rights [organisations]… and who condemned that crime, who condemned it, if it is the same Yankee government that promoted those crimes?" he asked. Brian Willson wrote about the speech: “President Ortega spoke for more than an hour about the new silk road agreements with China, the continued history of US imperialism, and the continued advances of the Nicaraguan Sandinista Revolution. He needed no notes, no teleprompters - such a contrast with US Presidents. He spoke straight from his heart and experiences without any pauses.”
President Ortega indicated that Nicaragua and the People's Republic of China had a historic meeting where they signed four cooperation treaties, highlighting the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt. "The Chinese Revolution and the Sandinista Revolution have the same path, the same destiny, which is to end poverty," Ortega stressed.
The president demanded the end of the US blockade and sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela: "And if there is any respect for democracy when the immense majority of the peoples of the world are saying that the blockades should cease, then the Yankee government should comply if it has a shred of respect for international law and cease the blockade against Cuba and cease the blockade against the sister Republic of Venezuela. A criminal blockade where they persecute them, prosecute them, invent crimes against them, simply because they seek to guarantee food for Venezuelan families.
President Ortega made it clear that they will continue to carve out a new path of prosperity for the people with extraordinary advances and that they will do this specifically because they are no longer willing to be a colony of the United States."
