Daniel Ortega began his fourth consecutive term amid the international snub

• The former guerrilla began a new five-year term with the regional support of Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia

• The EU and the United States redoubled their sanctions the same day that Ortega reaffirmed his ties with China

In the midst of the international snub, surrounded only by his historical allies, Daniel Ortega He began his fourth consecutive term and the second accompanied by his wife and, in fact, co-president, Rosario Murillo. The new period extends for five years. The former Sandinista guerrilla, 76, was reelected on November 7 in a contest without competitors, most of them imprisoned, and under a repressive scourge that particularly hit the media. The American president, Joe Biden, at the time he described those elections as pantomime. “You want courage to be present here,” said Ortega, alluding to the absence of regional colleagues, with the exception of Miguel Diaz-Canel, from Cuba, Nicolas Maduro, from Venezuela, and the Honduran Juan Orlando Hernández. Bolivia was represented by the Vice Minister of Foreign Relations, Erwin Mamani. Mexico sent a lower-ranking official.

Ortega headed the Sandinista Governing Board between 1979 and 1985. After the elections of that last year he ruled until 1990, once morest the background of a civil war funded from Washington. He lost his right to remain in power to Violeta Chamorro and since then began a slow but inexorable transfiguration that led to a caricature of the insurgent who had actively participated in the overthrow of Anastasio Somoza. He has been in power since 2007. In April 2018 he faced a social outbreak that caused numerous deaths, injuries, prisoners and exiles, in addition to the break with the Catholic Church and the business community, which had been its allies. During his speech this Monday, Ortega expressed his intentions to resume the path of the agreements that were shattered more than three years ago. “Clean slate, and we are going forward, dear Nicaraguan brothers. “When it was his turn, Murillo added:” Thanks be to God, the struggles are different from that terrible episode in April; that episode was the attempt to return to Somocismo “.

Applause and sanctions

“We come in the most generous spirit of solidarity and brotherhood“said Maduro upon landing in Managua. Ortega’s re-election, said Díaz-Canel, has had” enormous significance for the forces of the left, and for the progressive governments of Latin America and the Caribbean. ”

The courtesy words of those guests contrasted with the decision of the European Union and United States to redouble their economic and political sanctions once morest important officials of the regime, and even part of the leadership of the Army. Ortega did not ignore these measures and expressly asked Biden to compensate Nicaragua economically for financing the armed actions of the so-called “contra” during the eighties, under the administration of Ronald Reagan. “We are not asking for alms but justice, we demand that the blockade once morest Cuba and Venezuela end.”

Ortega has decided to strengthen his alliances beyond the region and amid the splendor of his inauguration, he signed an economic cooperation agreement with the representatives of the delegation of China. “We will continue to fight the fight for peace, once morest hegemonism, aggressions, so-called sanctions that are nothing more than aggressions and violations once morest human rights. And there we have coincided (with Beijing),” he said.

This inauguration will be a requiem for the soul of Nicaragua; it will plunge it even further into the disgrace of a country deprived, impoverished, humiliated, forced into submission and silence, a country that Nicaraguans themselves will want to leave because they no longer belong to them. @ReporteNi

– Gioconda Belli (@GiocondaBelliP) January 11, 2022

Related news

Degradation

The poet and narrator Gioconda Belli She was a companion of Ortega during the inaugural years of Sandinismo. She broke with that party structure following the defeat in the 1990s and became a ruthless prosecutor for the former commander and his wife. The marriage, he said, has ratified their status as “greats “ of a society that “has been cracked by them.” The couple will rule a country “where people aspire to emigrate; where there has been the largest brain drain in memory in recent years; where talented young people who were beginning to generate new ideas have left, or have been persecuted, where there is almost no family that is not injured by some death or by the mismanagement of the coronavirus “. Ortega and Murillo, he added, will govern “surrounded by security because they are afraid of the people, circumscribed to a very small group of cronies who are with them because they owe them favors, but those who know they cannot blindly trust.”

.