Peasant leaders Francisca Ramírez, Freddy Navas and Víctor Díaz affirm that the struggle of the Peasant Movement begins a new stage in the defense of rural communities and denounces violations of the rights of citizens who would be affected by the new route of the interoceanic canal. presented by the Ortega regime in recent days.
During the virtual forum “Sowing resistance: The future of the peasant struggle for democracy in Nicaragua”, held by the think tank Open File, The farmers stated that despite being in exile, the movement that was born in protest against the interoceanic canal in 2014 has evolved and has become an organization that defends the human and democratic rights of Nicaraguans.
The three peasant leaders promised to support “in every possible way” those affected by the new route, describing the project as “unviable” and “doomed to failure.”
According to the announcement that Ortega made during the XVII China-Latin America Business Summit, which took place in Managua on November 19, the new route of the interoceanic canal will be 445 kilometers long and will start in the port of Bluefields, pass through Boaco, Chontales; It will cross Lake Managua and then head towards La Paz Centro, crossing lands in the departments of León and Chinandega, until connecting with the Pacific Sea in the port of Corinto.
“Despite being exiled, that does not mean that we are not hand in hand with the affected peasants,” said the peasant leader of Río San Juan. Victor Diaz, who offered to work with the farmers in the areas affected by the new canal route “so that their demands can be successful.”
For Francisca Ramírez, the peasant leader who is exiled in Costa Rica, a new interoceanic canal that would split Nicaragua in half will not be a reality.
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“You really see that it is a fantasy, a distraction… the interoceanic canal has been a failure,” said Ramírez.
According to the social leader, the regime takes advantage of the excuse of the interoceanic canal to expropriate lands, and also states that no businessman would be interested in this unfeasible project and in a country where guarantees for private companies do not exist.
«No worthy businessman can invest in a country where Human Rights and freedom of expression are not respected, they (the Sandinista government) are capable of confiscating, expropriating and taking away, because that is what they have lived, it is a couple that has no “no desire for the well-being of the population but rather to harm,” said the peasant leader who cut her teeth in Nicaragua during the anti-canal mobilizations between 2013 and 2018.
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The three rural leaders agreed that Ortega and Murillo used the announcement of the new interoceanic canal as a smokescreen to divert the attention of Nicaraguans and the international community from the condemnation of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IDH-Court). .
The high inter-American court held Ortega responsible for violating the rights of the Rama and Kriol indigenous communities with the approval in 2014 of the Grand Interoceanic Canal project of Nicaragua or law 840, without consulting the indigenous authorities, for which it sentenced the Nicaraguan State to compensate to the community members.
