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Sandino [1], hoping to gain the support of some delegations, sent the following message on January 2, 1928:
Today Havana is serving as the site for this Sixth Summit, and the peoples and governments that are represented in this assembly are motivated by common interests.
A free and hospitable people, filled with solidarity, is receiving these delegations. And the leader of the revolution carried out by this people is presiding over the Non-Aligned for this period. The tyrant Machado no longer governs Cuba. It is the people of Cuba who determine their own destiny.
The Government of National Reconstruction of Nicaragua and the Sandinista National Liberation Front salute the people of Cuba, their government, and the President of the Council of State, Comandante and Comrade Fidel Castro.
We also salute the peoples of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia for the solidarity they demonstrated in support of our cause.
On Saturday, September 1, in a Mexican newspaper, we read a dispatch datelined Havana that made reference to Nicaragua's position regarding the "problem" of Kampuchea [2]. And we say "problem" because it is a problem for imperialism for a people to be free.
The dispatch in question noted that Nicaragua's delegation had aligned itself with the Soviet bloc by recognizing the government of people's Kampuchea. We all know what interests motivate the international press agencies of the so-called free world, so the deed does not surprise us.
We know that many of these press agencies, and with them the most reactionary sectors of the United States government and of Latin America, are waiting to pounce on our declarations at this meeting.
These are the same forces that gave rise to the Somozist dictatorship. They are the same forces that defamed and assassinated Lumumba [3], that defamed and assassinated Che. These are the same forces that slandered and assassinated Van Troi [4], the same forces that slandered and assassinated Sandino.
Imperialism cannot conceive of a free people, a sovereign people, an independent people. Because, simple and plainly, for them the people is nothing more than an empty phrase. We just saw reconfirmation of this when our final offensive was launched.
They examined the war in mathematical terms. Somoza had a regular army. Somoza had more soldiers than the Sandinistas. Somoza had tanks, planes, artillery, while the Sandinistas didn't. Somoza had more soldiers, more rifles, more communications than the Sandinistas. Therefore, Somoza had to win the war agains tthe Sandinistas. But what was left out was that Somoza did not have the people, and that we Sandinistas were the people.
And when Somoza was losing the war, they were talking about Costa Rican intervention, Panamanian intervention, Cuban intervention, Soviet intervention, simply because they have never been able to understand, and are never going to understand, that people are capable of achieving their liberation, that people are able to solidarize themselves with people, and that therefore the free and sovereign people of Nicaragua today recognizes the right of Kampuchea to occupy this seat.
I repeat, imperialism cannot understand it because 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 toward imperialist policy.
For the first time in their entire history, the Nicaraguan people can officially express their sovereign will, joining this movement of the Non-Aligned barely forty-one days after their triumph.
We are entering the Non-Aligned movement because in this movement we see the broadest organization of Third World states that are playing an important role and exercising a growing influence in the international sphere, in the struggle of peoples against imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, apartheid, racism, including Zionism and every form of oppression. Because they are for active peaceful coexistence, against the existence of military blocs and alliances, for restructing international arrangements on an honorable basis, and are for the establishment of a new international economic order.
In the Sandinista revolution there is no alignment; there is an absolute and consistent commitment to the aspirations of the peoples who have achieved their independence and to those who are struggling to win it. That is why we are among the Non-Aligned.
This transcendental step is part of the process of liberation that peoples are going through, peoples such as those in Grenada, Iran, Kampuchea and Uganda, who won beautiful victories this year.
In 1855 a certain William Walker arrived from the southern slave states of the United States with a gang of mercenaries, to make himself master of our country and of all Central America.
The individual in question named himself President of Nicaragua and his first decree was the re-establishment of slavery; the United States press and more than a few US legislators made William Walker into a hero.
In September 1856, after continual and bloody resistance, the people of Nicaragua and the peoples of Central America defeated the invader, who was obliged to flee to his country of origin, where he was received as a hero.
Some months later he again tried to invade our country. During his third attempt he was captured in Honduras, a country bordering on Nicaragua, and was shot. In 1909 a Liberal president named Jose Santos Zelaya, who tried to open new markets in Europe, was forced to resign by a note sent by the US Secretary of State of that time. But what Senor Zelaya lacked, the Nicaraguan people had plenty of, and they rose up against Yankee intervention.
Because we reject Yankee intervention we are in the Non-Aligned. For that reason, and because we are Sandinistas, we demand the reintegration, the unconditional return of the Guantanamo base to Cuba, and we recognize the heroic and unequal struggle waged by the Cuban people against the criminal blockade.
That is why we support the struggle of the people of Puerto Rico for self-determination and independence, and why we are in solidarity with Lolita Lebron [5], and her companions in prison, who are authentic representatives of the struggle of the people of Puerto Rico.
That is why we stand behind the people of Panama in their struggle for sovereignty over the Canal Zone.
That is why we are with the people of Belize in their struggle for independence, for self-determination, and for territorial integrity.
Regular troops of the Yankee marines landed in our country in 1910 in an attempt to suppress our people's desire for independence. Bloody struggles were unleashed and this armed intervention was maintained until 1926, the year they withdrew, believing the situation to be under control.
Because we are Sandinistas and because just causes are our causes, we have, from the beginning, identified with the struggle of the heroic people of Vietnam, and we condemn all the aggressions that have taken place and are taking place against the people and government of Vietnam, which fought, and is fighting, against aggression and foreign occupation.
We also support the just struggle of the people of Western Sahara, and from this moment Nicaragua must be included among the countries that fully recognize the Democratic Arab Sahraoui Republic and the Polisario Front as the only and the legitimate representatives of the heroic people of Western Sahara.
That is why we recognize the legitimate rights of the people of Namibia, represented by SWAPO. We support the Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe, the sole representative of this people, and we condemn the imperialist manoeuvres in Rhodesia, the puppet regime of Muzorewa, and the so-called internal settlement.
We solidarize ourselves with the frontline countries and condemn the aggression by South Africa and Rhodesia against them. And we solidarize with the right of the people of East Timor to self-determination.
We support the reunification of Korea and we demand the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea.
Only a few months were to pass when in 1927 Yankee marines again landed on our soil.
Then the figure of Augusto Cesar Sandino vigorously rose up and, at the head of an army of workers and peasants, sought to militarily defeat the interventionist forces in an unequal campaign.
Sandino embodied the desire for liberty of a people who were systematically subjected to the attack of Yankee intervention and subjected to imperialist exploitation and domination. The same marines who murdered the Filipino people thousands of miles from our country, arrived to soak Nicaraguan territory in blood in those days.
This explains the existence of Sandinismo, which on May 4, 1927, gave rise to what Sandino called the "war of liberators to end the war of the oppressors".
The Yankees, who were unable to defeat Sandino's army militarily, who found themselves forced to withdraw in January 1932, again resorted to treachery, using as their instrument an army and an army chief named Anastasio Somoza Garcia, founder of the dynasty. This army and this army chief were created by the White House strategists to assassinate Sandino.
They thought that killing Sandino would solve the problem. They did not take into account that Sandino had initiated a process of liberation which, carried on by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, was to win one of its most important victories on July 19, 1979. On that day we both defeated the criminal Somozist National Guard and expelled the last Yankee marine, Anastasio Somoza, from Nicaragua.
Our country is a small country, a poor country.
A little more than 2.5 million Nicaraguans live in 128,000 square kilometres. It is a country that is basically dependent on agriculture, and its production was paralysed by the war. A country that had few factories, which were destroyed by the Somoza air forces.
A country with a small population that has had to sacrifice thousands of its best children to repel three armed Yankee interventions that have left more than 200,000 victims. A country that in its final offensive against the Somozist dictatorship suffering more than 50,000 deaths, a high percentage of whom, 90 per cent of the total, were youth from eight years of age to twenty.
A country with its schools and hospitals destroyed, with its cities levelled by 500-pound bombs given to Somoza by the United States and Israeli Zionism. But we were not alone in the struggle. We know that we had the backing of the peoples of the world. We know that this was what made it impossible for the Yankees to carry out a new armed intervention in our country before the tyrant was destroyed.
Among the files abandoned by Somozism we have found proof of the loans for arms that the government of Israel had given to the dictatorship. Israel was an accomplice to the crimes of Somoza. Israel was the instrument that imperialism used up to the last moment to arm Somoza's genocidal dictatorship. Rockets, rifles, howitzers, planes, gunboats, and even helmets and uniforms were sent to the dictator.
But the strength of the people was greater than that of the aggression. As we said at the time, we will not repay these loans, this debt that adds up to millions of dollars. Nor will we pay any debt contracted with other countries for armaments for the Somozist regime. On the contrary, it is Israel that owes a debt to our people.
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 countries and demand their unconditional return.
We support genuine efforts in the search for a just and true peace in the Middle East. But such a peace must take into account the interests of all the parties, and in the first place the rights of the Palestinian people.
On May 4, 1927, at the moment Sandino was rising up, a Nicaraguan traitor signed away the sovereignty of the people of Nicaragua to the Yankee government, in exchange for a dollar for each rifle turned in. We condemn the Camp David accords which, like the shameful treason of 1927 in Nicaragua, merit our energetic repudiation.
In June 1979, there were forces in the US government that wanted to propose an invasion of our soil to the seventeenth meeting of representatives of the Organization of American states. But there were also seventeen Latin American countries that said no to the imperialist proposal.
Here we must make special mention and take recognition of the Andean Pact countries.
We should mention the names of President Rodrigo Carazo of Costa Rica; ex-President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela; President Jose Lopez Portillo of Mexico; General Omar Torrijos of Panama; and Fidel Castro of Cuba - all of whom were and continue to be in solidarity with our struggle, despite the risks that such a solidarity implies.
We should make special mention of the militant solidarity that Latin American fighters gave our struggle. The blood of these fighters was shed along the road to victory. We can state that Latin America helped to make this victory possible.
We are a small country that has waged war in order to win peace. And we support the establishment of a just and lasting peace that extends to all countries and regions.
We recognize the right of peoples to win their freedom through the path that is best for them, whether armed or not.
We are a poor country that wants to take the efforts and resources now being invested in defence of the revolution and invest it in tractors and ploughs. And we support general anc omplete 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.
Sandinism is the incarnation of the nation. The Sandinista National Liberation Front, as the genuine vanguard of the great people's insurrection that defeated the dictatorship, is now pushing forward a process of national reconstruction whose first measures have been the massive expropriation of the property of Somoza and his civilian and military accomplices. So far more than 500,000 hectares, close to 50 per cent of the entire arable area of the country, has been recovered by the people.
More than 180 industrial and commercial enterprises have passed into the hands of the people.
More than 400 mansions and homes have been expropriated in the interests of the people.
The banks have been nationalized.
We have begun to put an Integral Agrarian Reform Plan into effect. Agricultural exports have been nationalized. The exploitation of natural resources has been nationalized.
By eliminating the 500 and 1,000 cordoba bills and retiring them from circulation, we are hindering the manoeuvres of the defeated Somozists to destabilize our country financially.
A real social thrust is being given to education, health and housing. A foreign policy of relations with all countries of the world has been established. We have become part of the movement of the Non-Aligned.
Sandinista Defence Committees have been organized as bodies of people's participation.
The Sandinista People's Army has been set up to fulfill the pressing need to guarantee the defence and advance of the revolution.
And this revolution has been expansive and generous towards its enemies. Thousands of captured soldiers have had their lives protected. Groups such as the International Red Cross were authorized to set up centres of refuge to give shelter to the Somozist criminals who were fleeing.
The revolution is marching forward. The difficulties are great. Counterrevolution is a potential threat.
There are some who assert that we are assassinating the prisoners. There are some who are trying to put conditions on international aid. The conspiracy is powerful and the most reactionary sectors of the US government have already succeeded in stopping a small grant of $8 million that the US government was going to give our country.
The most reactionary sectors of the Central American region are observing our process with trepidation. We have detected concentrations of Somozist soldiers in neighbouring countries. But just as we have been generous in victory, we will be inflexible in defence of the revolution.
To what has already been described, we must add the economic legacy of imperialist domination and the Somozist war of aggression.
We find ourselves with a foreign debt of more than $1.53 billion. Of this amount, $596 million falls due this year, having been incurred as short-term loans at very high interest rates. The foreign debt is equivalent to three times the total annual exports of the country.
The loans obtained by Somozism were misspent, squandered, and sent out of the country to personal accounts in the United States and Europe.
A study published on August 14th by the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) maintained that Somozist bombing resulted in $580 million in material damage to the physical and social infrastructure in the agricultural, industrial and commercial sectors. At present $741 million is needed to reactivate production.
To the losses cited above, we have to add the losses to the system of production that stem from the paralysis of economic activities. In addition we must add the resources required for restoring the country's economic apparatus at a time when it is also being transformed.
To give us a more graphic representation of the problem, CEPAL estimates that the situation we have described means that the Gross Domestic Product has declined 25 per cent this year, 1979. In per capita terms, this puts the GDP back to the level that Nicaragua was at in 1962, meaning we have slid back seventeen years.
And to top it all off, our revolution found only $3.5 million in the state coffers. That is all that Somozism was unable to loot.
Nicaragua's situation has provoked interest in the countries of Latin America and the rest of the world. Regional bodies have expressed their decision to aid us. Bilaterally we have close relations with many countries.
But we must be frank: The oppressive financial problem that confronts our process, which is directly related to restructuring the foreign debt and receiving financing in order to allow our economy to start up again, does not seem to seriously interest the developed countries.
The government of Mexico, which has aided us to the extent it is able, has raised the idea of an international sale of solidarity bonds that would come due at a deferred period and with low interest. Through this bond issue the debt that falls due this year, which as we said totals $596 million, would be restructured on adequate terms. We support the proposal of President Didier Rasiratekat of Madagascar, regarding the creation of a Financial Fund of the Non-Aligned countries.
We believe it is our duty to present before the movement of the Non-Aligned both the advances and the problems of the revolution in Nicaragua.
We believe that by consolidating the Nicaraguan revolution we will be strengthening the struggle of the underdeveloped countries.
We know that imperialism is interested in seeing our process fail and that it is going to use all the resources at its disposal to achieve that.
The liberation struggle in our country is continuing. And today more than ever we need the disinterested support of the Non-Aligned. Nicaragua, which forty-one days after its triumph is showing you both the open wounds and the consolidation of our revolution, is a challenge for this movement.
The people of Sandino are not going to step back from the ground already gained. Our integration with the peoples of Africa and Asia raises our morale in this great battle. The future belongs to the peoples.
The march toward victory will not be stopped!
Footnotes
1. Augusto Cesar Sandino fought to free his country from occupation by the US military. Ultimately he was murdered.
2. A reference to the new Vietnamese-backed government of Cambodia which had overthrown the Pol Pot regime at the start of 1979.
3. Lumumba was the first premier of the Congo Republic (1960), whose government was overthrown (1960) in a CIA-backed coup. He was subsequently murdered (1961).
4. Van Troi was a fighter for Vietnamese independence.
5. Lolita Lebron was imprisoned, with others, from the early 1950s until 1979, for armed pro-independence actions.