The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo supported its ally Vladimir Putin on Monday, February 21, after Russia recognized the separatist regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, and ordered the deployment of troops in a series of decisions that the international community denounced as aggression to the sovereignty of Ukraine.
Ortega dedicated his speech on the 88th anniversary of the assassination of General Augusto C. Sandino, a national hero and symbol of anti-interventionism in Latin America, to justify the Russian aggression days after he anticipated his support in Managua for the Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisova Putin emissary who promised him increased military and trade cooperation.
“The step that President Putin took today to recognize those provinces, which are provinces that are populated by Russian citizens; I am sure that if they submit it to an election or a referendum there like the one they did in Crimea, I am sure that people there will even vote for annexation to Russia, which is what Crimea did: It returned to the situation in which it was was before the fall of the Soviet Union”, justified Ortega.
Ukraine has been an independent state since 1991, has a population of 44 million inhabitants, and experienced an uprising in 2014, which led to the departure of the then president —Viktor Yanukovych—an ally of Russia, who was replaced by a Western-oriented leader, according to a report in the American newspaper New York Times.
“What (Putin) has done is recognize some republics that, since the 2014 coup, when the coup d’état took place in 2014, these republics that border Russia did not recognize the coup governments and they created their government there They established their government, they have fought, they have given battle,” Ortega charged.
According to him, the Ukrainian troops are looking for ways to dominate the separatists, how to attack them and when Russia recognizes them “logically this brings military support so that these governments have security”, however, in recent weeks the international community has denounced that Putin ordered the transfer of thousands of soldiers to the border, an invasion threat that Ortega recently described as a “battle for peace.”
The Sandinista ruler accused the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of being an instrument of the United States in an alleged conspiracy against the pro-Russian government deposed in 2014. According to him, they resorted to terrorism and defamation until the “ blow”.
“Then the Government, the political forces subordinated to North American imperialism and European imperialism, who have thought that it is time for Europe and the United States to liquidate Russia, without taking into account that there are great changes in the world, that there are other powers in the world, which is the People’s Republic of China,” he said.
In an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, the United States denounced Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, but in Managua Ortega insisted on attacking imperialism and capitalism as well.
“Capitalism has no soul, it has no feelings, it has nothing but greed, greed and more greed to accumulate capital at the cost of hunger and the suffering of millions of human beings on our planet, at the cost of interventions, of destroying States” Ortega stated.
Ortega is silent on the death of Hugo Torres
In his public speech, the Sandinista leader spoke a large part of his speech about Russia, but kept a notable silence about the internal issues that keep Nicaragua in crisis.
Among the most notable is the serious human rights situation caused by the repression imposed by his regime, aggravated by the death of retired general Hugo Torres on February 11, a political prisoner of the dictatorship, which caused worldwide rejection and fueled the demand for the release of 177 prisoners of conscience.
The caudillo remained silent on the widely documented complaints about his family’s enrichment at the expense of the State, after the publication last weekend of an investigation by CONFIDENTIAL on network of 22 companies, controlled through figureheads that grew exponentially at the expense of the State and Venezuelan cooperation.
Until now, the regime has responded with intimidation to the consultation of the reporter Octavio Enríquez, currently in exile. Nor did the ruler mention anything about the nepotism of his familywhose monthly salaries were revealed after reviewing a database of the Nicaraguan Institute of Social Security.
During his speech, Ortega again referred to the opposition protests in Nicaragua in 2018 and insisted that they were victims of “terrorism practiced by the imperialists of the land and the traitors”, he again attacked the “Judas” and “Caines”, referring to to critics of his government, but did not mention anyone specifically by name.
According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, contrary to Ortega’s version, 355 people were killed in the context of these demonstrations, 2,000 were injured and 100,000 they went into exile. State violence has been denounced by member countries of the international community such as Colombia, the United States, the European Union and Canada.
The issue of drug trafficking once again became a renewed axis of Ortega’s attack against the United States and Colombia, calling the former the great consumer and the other the great producer of drugs in the world, while he accused the Canadian authorities of being repressive after experiencing recent protests. He never said anything about the accusations against him.
The Ortega regime is experiencing its worst crisis of legitimacy after the voting last November, in which it secured a fourth consecutive term after imprisoning more than 40 people including political, civic and business leaders, including seven opposition candidates with which eliminated electoral competition.
Rosario Murillo’s love speech
Vice President Murillo took the floor after her husband’s intervention ended and lamented that the “world is full of selfishness” and urged the people to lay down selfishness, vanities, to walk in a common sense of fraternity.
Murillo, accused of being the senior official who gave the order “let’s go with everything” against the opponents in 2018, this Monday spoke of dignity, love, faith and Christianity, and that national heroes “strengthen us from the other plane of lifetime”.
“They send us that infinite spiritual force that allows us to transcend… Recognize the land and transcend. Acknowledge the terrain of hate, for example, and transcend it with love. Acknowledge the terrain of evil, of perversion, of perversity, and move forward with love and leave behind those toxic moments, those toxic feelings that can demoralize, bring you down, ”she added.
