President Daniel Ortega: 'ALBA-TCP is the core of the defense of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples' - MPPRE

President Daniel Ortega: ‘ALBA-TCP is the core of the defense of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples’

“Unity will bury the Organization of American States (OAS). Only then we’ll be able to say: Now we are free and independent!” said Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega in his virtual statement at the 19th Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP)

From Managua, and on the commemoration of the Bicentennial of the Battle of Carabobo, the Nicaraguan president said that the OAS “organized the invasion against the Dominican Republic. We cannot forget that […] The empire is threatening to invade Cuba and Nicaragua. That won’t happen.”

Ortega highlighted that after 200 years, “we’re still fighting for a second and definitive independence, and despite our differences, the integration of the peoples is necessary to consolidate revolutionary processes. That’s where Fidel and Chávez stand out.”

In this context, Ortega recalled that the Battle of Carabobo was decisive as a strategic, lethal blow against the domination structure of the Spanish empire, “which practiced slavery, imported slaves and annihilated the indigenous population.”

The Nicaraguan president also underlined that Spain exerted its power “over the lives of indigenous families to try to erase their culture from history.”

President Ortega stressed that thanks to Bolívar’s liberating force, “the countrymen and women who accompanied him rose up and opened the path for independence, posing a new challenge in history.”

Ortega also highlighted that after Nicaragua joined ALBA-TCP, “a new path was opened and it paved the way for the creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). ALBA is the core to strengthen CELAC and defend our peoples from imperialist attacks.”

In that same vein, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro rejected the “brutal campaign against Nicaragua for doing justice. The transnational, right-wing media corporations attack Nicaragua because they can’t bear to be touched. Nicaragua and its truth are like a sword that cuts time and moves forward with democracy.”