The Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega, arrived in Venezuela at dawn this Sunday to join the commemoration acts for the tenth anniversary of the death of the president Hugo Chavez (1999-2013)who was his main sponsor during the early years of his regime.
Upon his arrival at the Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, in the state of La Guaira, Ortega told VTV that Chávez continues to be present “in the battles we are waging.”
“The enemy is the same, historically it has tried to subdue our peoples, it continues to attack, it continues to cause harsh situations for our peoples, the blockades, the terrorist attacks, they are attacks of all kinds that violate human rights, that violate the letters of international organizations,” he added.
Ortega’s trip to Venezuela was handled with secrecy within the regime. Neither the government spokesperson and vice president, Rosario Murillo, nor the official propaganda media had announced their participation in the activities organized by the Nicolás Maduro regime.
The last time ortega traveled outside Nicaragua was on December 14, 2022, when he appeared in Havana, Cuba, participating in the XXII Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America (ALBA), which was then celebrating 18 years of being founded by Hugo Chávez. and Fidel Castro.
On that occasion, Ortega, who has held onto power in Nicaragua since 2007, assured that he hoped to obtain “strength and strength” from the deceased former rulers of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and of Cuba, Fidel Castro, who performed the “miracle” of creating dawn.
Since then, Ortega has not only continued the systematic violations of the human rights of Nicaraguans, but has also increased the level of repression. Only in the month of February 317 people were stripped of their Nicaraguan nationalityof which 222 —who were deprived of their liberty for political reasons— were exiled and sent to the United States.
Chávez died on March 5, 2013 at the age of 58, a victim of cancer, and is considered one of the most important and controversial figures of the beginning of the century in Latin America.
Leaders of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) started on Friday, with various activities in different states of the country, the acts to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of President Hugo Chávez.
Bolivian President Luis Arce, who arrived in Venezuela at the same time as Ortega, also delivered a speech full of admiration for Chávez.
“We come with the best spirit to transmit the feeling of the Bolivian people, that the presence of the commander is in Bolivia and we come to bring that greeting here to the brothers of Venezuela,” said President Luis Arce in statements to the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
The president affirmed that the “most important” legacy left by Chávez is that the construction “of a new society is possible, that revolutionaries and socialists are not an invention, but a reality and that we have to fight, fight, fight with a lot of love to build a homeland that serves all Latin Americans”.