Meeting with Universities of the People President and Private Universities
during the Consultation Process on the Constitutional Reforms
Wednesday, August 26th 2026
Presentation by Dr. Gustavo Porras:
Good afternoon, everyone.
It is a pleasure for us to be with you, to be here in this great lecture room, in this great auditorium, with these Compañeros and Compañeras of this very important community that we have here. Rectors of private universities, Rectors of the Universities of the People President, Executive Boards, Steering Committees of the different educational institutions and also representation of students, professors, the entire university community.
First of all, to introduce ourselves. The Special Constitutional Commission is here. We have with us Compañera Loyda Barreda, Director of INATEC, but she is also the Coordinator of the entire Education Area of the Government, which includes both primary, secondary, technical and university education. We have Compañero Bismarck Santana, Technical Secretary for Attention to Universities, here too is Bosco Castillo, Member of the Universities Coordination Commission.
I would also like to introduce you to the members of the Special Constitutional Commission. For each Constitutional Reform, the Constitution itself mandates the formation of a Special Constitutional Commission and, in this case, it was formed by the Members of the Executive Board, by the Heads of the Political Groupings and by two presidents of very important Commissions. So, I would like to introduce you here to Dr. Arling Patricia Alonso Gómez, First Vice President of the Assembly. To our Heroine Amada Pineda, Second Vice-President of the Assembly. To our friend María Haydee Osuna, Third Vice-President of the Assembly; to the First Secretary of the Assembly, our Compañera Loria Raquel Dixon Brautigam; to the Second Secretary, Dr. Wilfredo Navarro.
Here we have Dr. Edwin Castro, who is the Head of the Sandinista Front Political Grouping. Our friend Lester Flores, Head of the PLC Political Grouping and our friend Mario Asensio, the Head of the BID Political Grouping, which is the Democratic Independent Political Grouping that brings together several liberal parties, ALN, PLI and APRE.
We have Dr. María Auxiliadora Martínez, president of the Justice Committee, and Dr. Wálmaro Gutiérrez, president of the Production, Economy and Budget Committee. We all form this commission. In addition, we have Deputies here with us who make up the Committee on Education and the Women's Committee.
We have 322 connections on line, a large number of Compañeros and Compañeras, whom we greet.
The reform is very straightforward, there are seven points we could list and we even have an element of mnemonics to remember. But the most important thing here is to explain how we came to see the need for this Reform and what the context is, which will give us the arguments to say why we have to make this Reform.
We are likely to have discussions in which when they ask us: "Look, compañeros, compañeras, why do you wear that red and black bandana?”. Then we will say: "Because this bandana signifies the Dignity of the Nicaraguan People.” That's what we need, namely to speak from the heart.
So, when Comandante Ortega, on July 19th told us in the square that we had to put up a barrier, put up a wall so that the enemies of the People could not come again to take over the Government, to take over power and reverse all the progress we have made, and that he would to work with us in the National Assembly to put up that retaining wall, we set to work.
Comandante Daniel said: "There are not going to be elections again, there are not going to be elections here again." And, naturally, the hype came out, all those bots came out, those devices that are made to reproduce endlessly and say: "Democracy is over in Nicaragua, there will no longer be elections." But those of us who live here in Nicaragua are clear about what he said: “There are not going to be elections again allowing the enemies of the People to seize the government, seize power and roll back our conquests.” Moreover, he mentioned: "Why do they want to come to take part in elections?". And he said, "So as to turn education into a business."
And here, I don't have to come and fib to you. You live in this country and you can perfectly well see and remember, and the younger ones can look at photos and ask, what was this country like 20 years ago? and how is it now? How are we moving forward with a model that has been going through different stages, but now we have it as the Comandante and the Compañera have called it: The model of the People President, which means that every chance we have, we must act in accordance with the interests of the People.
When we started work, we identified three words necessary for this Reform: "Stability, Security and Peace". Those are three words that are totally interrelated, that cannot be separated. If we ask the Nicaraguans: what is your greatest aspiration?, they answer: it is to live in Peace. Peace has become the Nicaraguan people's greatest aspiration in all the polls.
But for there to be Peace you need Security. There can be no Peace without Security, just as there can be no Security without Peace. And in order for there to be Peace and Security you need Stability, and likewise there can be no Stability if you don't have Security and if you don't have Peace. In other words, they are absolutely indissoluble.
But why do these three words become a necessary platform? Because our main objective, that of all Nicaraguans, of those of us who are here, or elsewhere, everywhere, is to defeat Poverty, we have defined that. The main objective of Nicaraguans is to defeat Poverty. Comandante Daniel, last Monday, said it clearly: we have to defeat Extreme Poverty and defeat Poverty. That's our main goal.
So, to achieve that goal, we need to work to consolidate these concepts. That's where we started from: the fight against Poverty, the need for Peace, Security and Stability.
We began to look for the central elements in the history of our country that translate into the present, and indicate to us how, in addition to being constantly repeated over time, we must also defend them. That is where we begin to review in our history the points of reference we must remember of that history of Nicaragua, our country.
Here we have it: The Spaniards came first of all 1522 with Gil González. It was the first land arrival of the Spaniards. So, the first element that we will always agree on is that there was an incidence from abroad which could be identified as "Someone coming in a friendly way." And that's how they introduced themselves to us.
We were introduced to a Nicarao almost on his knees, attending and receiving the Spaniards. But it wasn't friendly because they were coming to overwhelm us, they were coming to bend us to their will. So much so that, the following year, in 1523, the first indigenous rebellion took place and there was unity among the Caciques of Nicaragua, because Nicaragua did not exist as a country, there was no country, there were some territories.
One of the Caciques who was in the southern territory, on the Isthmus of Rivas, was Nicaragua. And the other one up on the plateaus was Diriangén.
So, Nicarao got together with Diriangén and they gave the battle. Let's remember that here I am before the academic community who know about these things. But what interests me is to know that, in April 1523, they defeated Gil González, they defeated him in Diriamba at a place called La Quebrada del Perro, but when they defeated him, they expelled him.
This is the other element: every time there is a foreign incident, an aggression, every time someone comes to try and overwhelm us, Nicaragua reacts and produces Heroes. These are our Anti-Imperialist Indigenous Heroes: Diriangén and Nicarao.
Gil González left, but in 1524 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba returned. He is the founder of León and the founder of Granada. And here I am with a very knowledgeable audience, but perhaps we should still tell people: "Look, that word “córdoba” on the banknotes comes from the Spanish who overpowered us here," at least so that they know and that it's a reality.
Hernández de Córdoba came with a colonizing plan and any colonizing plan seeks to locate its population, impose its culture and begin to function not only in the physical domain, with weapons, but also in the ideological domination.
And how far did they get? In Granada, where there was an indigenous people: Xalteva. And in León there was an indigenous people: Imabite. And why are those peoples there? Because, for conquerors who do not know the territory, they have to assume, as surely they did, that those are the best places to live, because there must be water, there must be fishing, there must be food. And so there they settled and took possession: to the east, Granada, and to the west, Leon.
But that's a starting point for our history. I’m not here to try and teach a history class, what I seek is to try and help us see reference points, points in history that make us reflect or give us an idea of how that history came together. Because after these events came a permanent struggle by the inhabitants of these territories.
In 1610, when Momotombo destroyed Leon de Imabite, the people there went further north and west to a place where there was another indigenous people: Sutiaba. And there they faced the resistance of the Cacique Adiact. Adiact resisted, because the Spanish came to impose themselves on the land, on their people, on the families, on their rivers, which they say were a beauty, all those rivers there in León.
In the end, they captured Adiact and hanged him. The history is that he was hung in Tamarindo. But the important takeaway is that every foreign action of domination has a Nicaraguan reaction of struggle, of Defense, of Dignity.
They settled in those two cities, the Spaniards, the colonizers, but they had to move outward because, after all, they didn't just set him for a walk, they set out looking for gold, looking for the riches of this country, looking to enslave us and looking for a way to cross from the Caribbean to the Pacific. So, they kept looking and went into Boaco, Chontales and the banks of the Olama River.
That area, Boaco, Chontales and the banks of the Olama River, bordered Matagalpa and that area was dominated by the Cacique Matias Yarrince. The Cacique Yarrince had great ancestry among his people and that's why the Spanish even decided to give him the rank of Captain.
When they arrive, they named him Captain because since he commanded his people, why not let him also command them in the name of the Spanish Crown. But Yarrince began to see their true intentions and how they treated the indigenous people, the original people, then he showed his mettle in the rebellion he led in 1777. The Spanish captured him, transferred him to Guatemala, imprisoned him and he died under torture in 1780, three years later. But the history continues.
So we reach 1813 and then another Indian appeared. Tomás Ruiz Romero, an indigenous person who we can call our Compañero of this family, this university community. He is the first indigenous lawyer and priest, but he also founded the college that became the National Autonomous University of León.
That was Tomás Ruiz, an indigenous man who becomes a lawyer and started fighting. Moreover, if you read, there is a passage in our history in which he figures, when there was an insurrection, an indigenous uprising in El Viejo that took place because the Spaniards had set up their model of domination which, moreover, destroyed the native economy and in imposing their economy the Spanish banned the sale of cususa, corn liquor.
The indigenous people reacted and Tomás Ruiz took the lead taking on leadership and becoming one of the Heroes of the Independence of Central America, but being a leader, led to him being captured by the Spaniards and being taken to San Cristóbal de las Casas, in Chiapas, where they tortured him to death.
Then we arrive at 1821, after the longest part of our history, because it is 300 years from 1523 to 1821, when the Independence of Central America is formally recognized. 300 years of struggle, 300 years of Indigenous Heroes, 300 years with many thousands killed, enslaved and everything that we know all too well.
So the independence of Central America had arrived. Miguel Larreynaga was one of those who drafted the act, although he did not necessarily sign it, so those are our two Heroes of Independence: Tomás Ruiz and Miguel Larreynaga.
Can you imagine, in 1821, what it meant to say, "I am independent." Who would replace the power of the Spanish empire? Because that’s the way things happen: They set Central America free, but someone has to take over. Guatemala was the capital, they were members of the Federated Union of Central America. But who was the ruling class? The Spanish who defended the empire, the children of the Creole Spaniards, who got together and raised the flag of Independence, mestizos, not the indigenous; at that point, the indigenous people had no rights. So, there was a permanent social struggle.
There were some there who were slated to continue after being the powers of the Crown. Who were they? The Spanish who stayed and the children of the Spanish who aligned with them. Now we call them: "Oligarchy". They inherited that power, the power that the monarchs no longer had formally, but they assumed it along with the model, which was the oligarchic model of conservative haciendas that was developing. And this oligarchic model was developed an ideological power determined by the Catholic Church, that was the reality of what happened.
So in that interim, between 1821 and 1838, we here were part of a Central American Union. We appeared here as Nicaragua, a Unitary Republic. The first Constitution appeared, but that interim was full of struggle. There is a Hero of ours that we have to rescue who is Cleto Ordóñez.
Cleto Ordóñez was from Granada and led the popular struggles but, in addition, began to take anti-oligarchic positions. That is, he identified that they were no longer up against the power of the monarchs, but that now the power was represented by the oligarchic families that had stayed on, and Cleto Ordóñez raised that banner and that's why we have rescued him for history.
In 1838, we were already Nicaragua, we had a Constitution. There was a territory whose Cacique had been named Nicaragua and who gave us the opportunity of his name.
This is a simple analogy: If in physics, matter is what occupies a place in space, and you remove that matter, that place is occupied by something else. I mean, it is always in motion. In sociology or in the social aspect: the strength, the might of what had been occupied by Spanish colonialism, which had been receding due to its own contradictions and which began failing to sustain the living standards of the metropolis, of the center, began to lose its colony. So that had to be occupied by someone else, which we, in each of our countries, should have taken over, developed and occupied as we have tried to do and as we are doing now.
Nicaragua is for Nicaraguans, it belongs to Nicaraguans and we are going to defend it. But in that historical moment the Spanish were retreating and an empire intervened that was expanding, that was taking its place, that was coming to substitute and replace the Spanish. That empire’s expression was the Yankee filibuster.
This is interesting. If we begin to study what was happening in the United States, you find that, at that time, there was a huge contradiction in that country which was divided into a North that striving to develop industrial capitalism, which meant that they needed raw materials, and a South that was developing agricultural production based on slavery, on cotton production and which sent all their production to their metropolis, not a new metropolis, but the former one, which was Great Britain,, that's was the conflict there.
In addition, the doctrine of Manifest Destiny was then being implemented in the West of the country and people set out for the gold rush in California in the West. But at that time it was necessary to pass through a very large territory full of native American Indians and in America there are only three transit points: Panama, Nicaragua and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. So then it occurred to them, just like the Spaniash, to transit through Nicaragua.
And that coincided with another recurrent theme in our history, since there was a conflict here at this time between the Timbucos and the Calandracas, and it occurred to one of them to ask for help to defeat the others. But those who responded came with their own agenda, with their own vision, with their own order of things. They had Manifest Destiny in their heads and they came looking for that transit point and, furthermore, they were financed by a transport entrepreneur, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and so William Walker came and entered Nicaragua.
He was protected by those engaged in the local conflict, but when he entered Nicaragua, what was the easiest way for him to dominate? He became President of Nicaragua and was recognized by the Yankees, by the US government, and he was recognized by the Catholic Church. There's Monsignor Vigil telling William Walker that, "You are the North Star coming to pacify this place." That is the truth and you may say: "But what does this have to do with the Reform of the Constitution?".
In fact, the Constitution is nothing except the final result of all these historical contradictions that we have had and it has a lot to do with it because the Constitution might have said: "Anyone who comes here with enough military might can become President." But the Constitution of the Republic does not say that.
And the rule is again comes into force: Any foreign aggression attracted to our country because of its geographical location is met with a response, for Nicaragua produces Heroes. Back then, Andrés Castro and José Dolores Estrada defeated the filibusters in San Jacinto, accompanied by the Indian Archers from Matagalpa, and so one of the historical norms that repeats itself over time is reactivated. They managed to unite all the Central Americans and finally manage to put an end to the evil that was William Walker, there in Honduras.
This is another part of the story, since we have started on the Yankee intervention, and here is a very important event for us: on January 18th 1867, Rubén Darío was born and what I have been relating is prior to his birth. That is why Rubén, besides being the greatest expression of Nicaragua’s intelligentsia before the whole world, capable of transforming the language, the Spanish language, Castilian, and being considered the Prince of Castilian Letters, is also an indisputable prophet in political terms.
We have all heard the "Ode to Roosevelt", we have also read the poem "Pax". But I think that perhaos not all of us have had the opportunity to read his essay in the Heraldo de Costa Rica, which is called "On the Side of the North", he is absolutely a prophet. Why am I bringing this up? In addition to all the honor we owe Rubén, by being born on January 18th, we must pay him a greater tribute, because it is unforgivable that we have always held the State inauguration in our country on January 10th when January 18th, just eight days later, is the anniversary of the birth of one of Nicaragua’s greatest figures, along with Sandino.
I think we are obliged to rethink this and in the Constitution we should say that the State inauguration in our country is going to be on January 18th in honor of Rubén Darío, there, I told you a little bit about the Reform.
Rubén Darío was part of a group of intellectuals, a group of people who were also receiving new ideas and who were developing Zelaya's Liberal Revolution at the end of the nineteenth century, and really, the Liberal Revolution is a real revolution. The Libérrima, as the Constitution of the Liberal Revolution was called, really set out and enunciated for things to change, because there were no civil rights here.
The economy was set up by the feudal, semi-feudal estate, the conservative hacienda. Education was neither secular nor public, education was private and imparted by the religious orders. Health was provided by the religious orders. In other words, there were no hospitals as we know them, not even those we knew in which we were born.
Really, the Libérrima made a revolution, because there was no civil marriage, marriage had to be enacted by the Church and marriage by the Church was not for everyone. Moreover, even in the time of many of us who are here today, some of us can remember that we did not identify ourselves with an identity card nor even identify ourselves with a birth certificate. They would say to you, "Bring us proof of baptism." That's not to say that was bad or good, it was just the way things were since that was the model that existed and you had to go and seek proof of baptism.
Quite simply if I wasn’t baptized,... outside the norm, then I didn't exist. That changed over time, even the Liberal Revolution was not enough to change it, the Sandinista Revolution definitively changed it. In other words, no one bothers whether any of us were baptized or not. That's an individual problem, but now everyone says, "At the age of 16 you have to have your identity card," that's the reality we have now.
So these were good things about Zelaya, despite the naivety of believing or not realizing that an expanding empire was coming, there you have it right there, that's the Yankees. And what did Zelaya do? He sought a deal with the Japanese for the construction of the Canal. With an empire that 75 years earlier had come to looking just for that. Seventy-five years later, now when they are in full expansion, at full strength, to start doing that was imprudent.
And what happened? They sent him the note named after the Secretary of the US State Department at that time, the Knox Note that we are all familiar with. But someone might say: "Well, it's just a note from a man named Philander Knox, why would Zelaya run away?". Not at all, in addition to the note, they sent gunboats to threaten him in Corint, gunboats to Bluefields and told him: "If you don't step down, we're going to take action." So he took the decision he considered best at that moment. He couldn't afford to go to war, so he stepped down and went to Mexico.
But he handed over the government, handing it over to a puppet who procrastinated for a year and who passed it on to one of the men whose name you’ll hear repeatedly in the history of betrayal, who was Adolfo Díaz.
In 1912, Adolfo Díaz was the President and that same year Adolfo Díaz called for the Yankee intervention and that constant feature of Nicaragua’s history returns, a Hero emerge, Nicaragua produces a Hero: Benjamin Zeledón and there is a very beautiful letter that Comandante Daniel referred to on Monday, August 17th.
Benjamín Zeledón resisted and it is clear that in La Barranca in Coyotepe, he was going to die. But he resisted and fought. And here’s why I'm telling you this: The Yankees caught him and along with the Conservatives killed him and the Conservative who was at the head of the troops that went along with the Yankees to assassinate Zeledón was called Emiliano Chamorro. I imagine he must be the great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather of one of those who in 2018 wanted to do the same to us. Because that has been the history of the oligarchy in Nicaragua.
So, Emiliano Chamorro, together with the Yankees, caught and killed Zeledón and the history that they imposed on us afterwards and which they have always imposed on us is repeated. What did they do with Adiact? They hung him in Tamarind. What did they do with so many Indigenous Heroes? they were burned alive. I mean, that's what they did and that's the practice that empires use.
What did they do with Zeledon? They tied his body to a cart and paraded him through Catarina, dead, so that the people could see him and be terrified. The same thing they did to us in 2018: They killed our Compañeros and Compañeras, burned them alive, recorded it all and uploaded the videos to the social networks. What for? For people to be terrified and that really is painful.
Or we saw how they stripped our Compañeras and Compañeros naked, tied them to lamp posts, flogged them, painted them blue and white and, naked, let them go while they fired their hand held mortars at them. That's and it's the same method of terror that they do now which is much faster, now that they can use social networks. They didn't have social networks before, but they did have the power and the mechanism to take a cart and use it to parade the body of our Hero.
But what caused these reactions in the Nicaraguan people? It may have caused fear at some point. But what did it provoke at that moment in the child who was walking near his dad's farm in Catarina and whowas watching? Indignation and that child was Sandino, and Sandino wrote about it and called Zeledón: the Apostle of Freedom. That crime outraged him and he swore to defend Nicaragua against the Yankees there in Catarina, with the same indignation provoked in us when they burned our Compañeras and Compañeros, filmed it and posted it on social networks. That is why I cannot accept that any of the people responsible for these crimes, who did not even have the courage to do it themselves, but financed it, directed it, planned it and ordered it to be done, should now come here to say: “I want to be a candidate.”
So, everything I'm telling you makes sense. People can be sure that everyone can participate here, everyone can be a candidate, everyone can participate in this democratic electoral game in Nicaragua. But those who committed those acts, we can't allow to. They are no longer Nicaraguans.
All this back then was a plan clearly drawn up from: the Knox Memo, Zelaya's resignation. Two years later they put Adolfo Díaz as President, and with the Yankee occupation force, Emiliano Chamorro oversaw the murder of Zeledón, and that same Emiliano Chamorro was told by the Yankees and by Adolfo Díaz, to sign the Chamorro-Bryan Treaty in 1914 and the objective of this Treaty was to grant the United States the rights to our interoceanic canal. So, they achieve that goal, but it was not complete, although they already had Nicaragua militarily occupied, they already had a President who answers to them, who was Adolfo Díaz. They already had a Treaty telling him: the channel is yours.
So then they needed to organize the political model ensuring that their domination would be eternal and peaceful, by their lights. And that political model was started in 1923, when they sent a Yankee named Harold Dodds. The State Department hired him, they sent him to Díaz to be his advisor, with the guidance and the clear order that he draft an electoral law guaranteeing a copy of the model they were developing in the United States, the bipartisan model. The Yankees have liberals who are the Democrats, and conservatives, who are the Republicans.
Here we had the Timbucos and the Calandracas, the liberals and the conservatives, the Democrats and the Legitimists. So, they say to this man: that’s model to be assembled. Go draft the electoral law to set up a model by law that serves us, so that only two compete, to make clear that only two candidates remain in order to guarantee bipartisanship in Nicaragua and this was what Dodds did.
Here is the example of that bipartisan model, this is a ballot paper from 1932. And these are the first two Articles of the Dodds Act of April 3rd 1923. There are the two articles and we are used to saying: every Nicaraguan has the right to choose and be elected, except those who...Not them, it's the other way around here: no Nicaraguan has the right to vote, except those who fulfill such and such conditions. I mean, the exception is the wrong way around. Why? Because there were so many ordinary people, the indigenous, the mestizos while there were many fewer oligarchs. Then, it was easier to say: no one can vote, except…. "General considerations: no citizen shall have the right to vote if he or she does not meet the conditions and qualifications required by the Constitution and the law."
Now let's look at Article 2, so that you have an idea of what the meaning of democracy is that they prescribed for us: "The right to vote belongs only to Nicaraguan men." Women don't vote, women didn't exist.
It's very simple: if out of 100 voters, we Nicaraguans are 48 men and 52 women, then they guaranteed that only 48 will vote, if they then put it in terms of electoral accounting, but also, if they added, so long as people were 21 or older. At that time, 100 years ago, the Nicaraguan population, at least 60%, I’d imagine were people under the age of 20, put another way, of those 48, who are men, only 22 will be able to vote. So far we are already clear that, out of every 100 Nicaraguans, only 22 would be able to vote, even if there were to have been a 100 percent vote.
But they wanted to give even more advantage to the ruling classes, so the law said: those aged 18 and over can vote, between 18 and 21, as long as they are married or can read and write. These are two conditions that at that time are absolutely limited to the ruling classes. Reading and writing: public education had barely started, everything was private. At that time, only the children of the landowners, the rich and the oligarchy could read and write. Marriage was only by the Church, because there was no civil marriage. It had to be in the Church and the Church was very strict about marriage.
This is a 1932 ballot paper, based on this 1923 Dodds Act. For the Conservative Party, its candidates were Adolfo Díaz for President and Emiliano Chamorro for Vice President. For the Nationalist Liberal Party they were Juan Bautista Sacasa for President and Rodolfo Espinosa for Vice President.
Who might be the winner there? I’d say the one who wins is the Yankee, whichever of the two candidates wins, the Yankee wins. Why? Adolfo Díaz was the one who had called for the intervention; Emiliano Chamorro was the one who accompanied them in killing Zeledón and Juan Bautista Sacasa is the one who, two years after this election, invited Sandino to his last supper. So who won? The Yankee. That's why I'm going over all this again, because we cannot let that history repeat itself here. That is, the Yankee had a sure bet. If the conservatives won, they were puppets of the Yankee; if the Liberals won, they too were puppets of the Yankee, as demonstrated since he invited Sandino to supper before he was murdered. That is the story we are seeking to ensure will not be repeated.
That's why I was recounting all this to you, which is the longest part because the part corresponding to the seven Reforms is very fast. And we already have the one in our heads, about Rubén Darío. And another idea is that here there can be no laws thought out or decreed elsewhere but which come to take effect in Nicaragua. Do correct me me if I am mistaken and that all this has not been a strategy of subjugation and American domination.
What happened after 1924? In 1925, Emiliano Chamorro, the same accomplice to the murder of Zeledón, the same one who later became a candidate for Vice President for the conservatives, the same one who in the previous year signed the Chamorro-Bryan Treaty, staged a coup d'état: the one known as the Lomazo. Do you think there could be a coup d'état without authorization from the Yankees? It was part of a plan, he staged the coup and he gives the government to one of the b ipartisan options the Nicaraguans were to have. He gives it to a "chachagua" government, as our People say, of a Conservative who was Solórzano with a Liberal, who was the self-same Juan Bautista Sacasa.
A year later, the note with the name of another US Secretary of State arrives, which followed the previous one, now the Kellogg Note which he tells Emiliano Chamorro: "We don't recognize you, step down." They passed the government to a Señor Uriza. Why? So as to deliver it again to Adolfo Diaz. I mean, that was their plan.
What happened next? Chamorro was let loose, and he went on to lead a force and Moncada set out with the Liberal group and the Constitutionalist War began. That is to say, the foreigner came and said why don’t you and him fight, activating another of the laws of the history of Nicaragua, which is the presence always of betrayal.
It was always the plan that on December 24th 1926, the Yankees would come. They landed 5,000 men, which is not a small force, under the command of Julian Latimer and put 16 warships off Puerto Cabezas. That was the plan, as was clear to everyone, all I'm doing is trying to highlight it.
The Yankees at this point, in December 1926, the beginning of 1927. They had a president at their service, Adolfo Díaz; they had a complete army of occupation, 5,000 Marines and ships off Puerto Cabezas, they had an Electoral Law to guarantee the bipartisan model which was their political model and they had the People divided with fighting between Liberals and Conservatives. With all that in their favor they chose the moment to move on to putting together their political model and they made the Espino Negro Pact, they invited the contender who was winning the war and who was apparently the least submissive, so as to negotiate with him and tell him that if he gave up they would buy his rifles and in return guarantee that next year, in 1928, he would be President, that the war was over and everyone laid down their arms, and the bipartisan model was imposed.
What happened next? This was the Espino Negro Pact, May 4th. Sandino would say: the Day of Ignominy. But Sandino was the General who said, "I'm not selling out and I'm not surrendering", and he is a key person in the history of Nicaragua. He broke with tradition and fulfilled his promise to Zeledón, and set out on that same May 4th itself, which rescues that day, so instead of being the day of ignominy, it is the Day of National Dignity, which is what we celebrate in Nicaragua.
Sandino launched his first Manifesto in San Albino later on July 1st 1927. Sandino set off on May 4th, in June he went to the San Albino mine and on July 1st he launched that manifesto, and his ideas are absolutely current.
But look at what I'm recounting to you: while the US had already advanced, they had already overcome Moncada and were preparing to elect him President. In Nicaragua they had Adolfo Díaz, they had their military advantage, what did they do? They dealt us another blow:
They come along after having divided Colombia, to conjure up the independence of Panamaout of a piece of Colombia. At that point, they already had the Panama Canal, they already had eliminated the chance of a canal through Nicaragua but then what they did, in order to calm things down in Colombia in the face of revolts taking place there, they stole from us by means of the Bárcenas-Meneses-Esguerra Treaty, they stole from us the islands of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina. In Nicaragua we were at war and the only one who raised the national flag and even paid attention to that was Sandino.
Thus we arrive at March 1928, and there appeared another law to impose the US political model. They make a law called the McCoy Act. That is why we say that there can be no foreign laws here with their little foreign names.
This is a law by decree appointing General Frank Ross McCoy as President of the National Electoral Council of Nicaragua. The Yankees had promised to Moncada they would make him President, they had to guarantee that and to do so they needed the entire electoral structure to answer to them, not to the President of Nicaragua, but to the Yankees.
So they needed to make General McCoy head of the Supreme Electoral Council, his Majors and Colonels heads of the Departmental Councils and the lower-ranking officers and marines as the pesidents of the electoral tables and districts.
This is the McCoy Law, I'm going to read you only the first paragraph:
“The President of the Republic of Nicaragua, in view of the fact that the Supreme Court of Justice, by agreement of the 17th of the current month, has appointed, in place of Señor Joaquín Gómez, who submitted his resignation, General Frank Ross McCoy as President of the National Council of Elections.”
And now here comes what’s really an abasement, this decree by law:
“And this high official, in that capacity and because he was appointed by the President of the United States, should direct the 1928 election of the supreme authorities as agreed so as to put an end to the civil war raging in Nicaragua.”
That's our history, that's why all this I am recounting to you is to make sure you know why we have to take all these seven points of reform and give them constitutional force, because that's what will give us life and is what we should defend.
So here's the truth: Who was the real President of this country? The Yankee was the one who said who was going to head the Supreme Council; the other functionary was a merely governor, they were already treating us as if we were a US state. That is the truth of our country and that is the greatness of Sandino.
Here is a photo of the voting: Here is the head of the polling station, a Yankee marine. Here are the voters waiting. Here are the Electoral Police, which was the National Guard, which was starting then as a Constabulary. And you can see the head of the polling station, a Yankee.
In this photo there are the electoral police, with the difference that here they have bayonets. And this right here is a photo that gives you the real idea of domination: Here you have three US Marines, those three US marines were protecting this man named Major Joseph Pates, President of the Electoral Committee in Esteli, and the others there are the ones making up the Departmental Voting Board.
So, there it becomes clear: they had General McCoy, then they had Majors and Colonels in the departments, and then lower-ranking officers at the head of the polling stations. That was the structure the so-called McCoy Law decreed to be put in place. They still use the Dodds Law for the voting arrangements, but for what the structure of the National Election Council they used the McCoy Law.
It is important to emphasize: Sandino managed to expel the Yankees. There are two defeats that the Yankees officially recognize via their US State Department: the one that Sandino inflicted on them in 1933 and the one that the Vietnamese inflicted on them in 1975. They recognize that.
Sandino was left, but the Yankees didn't let things stay like that. They put in place a marine named Anastasio Somoza, educated by them; they left behind a conspiratorial ambassador and they left behind an army of occupation in the form of the National Guard, and they left the order: Sandino must be assassinated and that's what happened on February 21st 1934.
That's when the Somoza dictatorship begins, with the murder of Sandino, all the repression, all the persecution of Sandinistas just led to them making the same mistake again: they think that by killing someone, that's the end of that person’s ideas. But no, they multiply.
Rigoberto López appeared, to whom we pay tribute every September 21st. Rigoberto López ignites the spark of Dignity, teaching that the dictatorship is not invulnerable, and the Sandinistas, for example Santos López, who was one of the youngest officers of Sandino, from the Choir of Angels, continued striving, searching, and came to meet up with Carlos Fonseca, with the founders of the Front leading to the emergence of the Sandinista Front.
And I put this date here, because it is important, it was there that the triumph of the decision began and, by the way, the triumph of the Insurrectional thesis, of the Insurrectional proposal led by Comandante Daniel in San Fabián, which after less than two years, from October 1977 to July 1979, managed to put an end to the Somoza dictatorship.
As we already know: Reagan, signed the order to the CIA to activate, to finance the Contras, to use money from drug trafficking, to use Iran-Contra, we know all that history, although they want to hide it, but everyone knows it. There were 10 years of fighting, duridn which we received the judgment of the International Court of Justice which told us that we were in the right, that the US was murdering and destroying us.
In 1987 we approved our Constitution, this one that we are reforming, this one that we have been adapting. And then too we had Comandante Daniel’s efforts beginning in 1986 with the Esquipulas agreements and culminating in 1989 with the Tela Agreements. This was where in practice three things were signed, One: The disarmament of the Contras; two, bringing forward the elections, the Compañeras and Compañeros here who were in the Assembly at that time know that what was done was a Constitutional Reform so that the elections would not be in November 1990, but on February 25th, 1990. In essence, that was the search for peace.
This is a more recent history now: In 1990 we had clean, transparent, well-organized elections, but they were not for. Because we had: "You can count the votes as they are cast, and see that everything is in order, but if you vote for the Sandinistas, the war returns." That's putting a gun to people’s heads. So, these were not free elections.
Who goes freely to vote if they tell you: "Be careful you vote for the Sandinistas because the war will return"? The People are intelligent, it's not that they are afraid, it's that they are intelligent. We had ten years of war. Who is going to want to stay at war? The People were smart, the didn't vote for us because they had the US pointing a gun at their head, and we, Comandante Daniel, Compañera Rosario and the Sandinistas are also part of the People. We too have to be smart. How could we not listen to the people? So Comandante Daniel spoke clearly with the words: "We are going to hand over the Government."
Why? Because the people demanded it. If the votes were counted and that was the result, I have to accept. But Comandante Daniel said two more things that we should not forget. He said, "We were not born above. We come from below and we are going to govern from below," through struggle in the streets, through resistance struggle against neoliberalism. And he also said, "We're going to return to the government through the electoral route," and he started working towards that.
He started working, touring the country. You remember going from village to village as he began to assemble all the structure. That's when the division came, the same internal traitors carried out their betrayal. They called themselves MRS and other names, but they betrayed us while we continued with Daniel at our head and Rosario at our head.
But there is something more important than all that. We knew we had to win with the rules of the existing model. But then, how they criticized our agreement!, Which was nothing more than the search President Daniel engaged in to ensure we had magistrates in the Supreme Electoral Council, to have magistrates in the Supreme Court of Justice, magistrates of the Sandinista Front and also to have enough Deputies. If we hadn't had that representation, who knows what they could have done. Remember how many days we spent there in Las Palmas, waiting for a result of a municipal vote. I mean, we wouldn't have even been noticed.
Until we get to 2006, things didn't stay still. They were rebuilding Somocismo via the neoliberal reforms: privatization of health, privatization of education, privatization of basic services, students fighting for their 6%. All this was a reality and they too, just as we make the Constitutional Reforms to defend our model in favor of the Nicaraguan people, they too wanted to make constitutional reforms.
In 1995 they made reforms to defend the neoliberal model. And that's where we fought and that's where Daniel said, "We have to govern from below, we shouldn't allow it," because that's where they wanted to take away the 6% for the universities, although they didn't do so, they didn't manage to take it away. Remember that they wanted to put in place school autonomy, hospital autonomy. That is to say, so many things like the privatization of water, there were so many struggles that were a reality.
Well, then there were the ballots in the rain canals with Arnoldo. That was their democracy, the repeated electoral chaos. As Comandante Daniel has related perfectly many times, noting that Jimmy Carter and the other bandit from Costa Rica, Oscar Arias told him: "Look, these elections should be annulled even for lesser things, but here things being as they are, you will have to accept it.” These are realities.
The election of Bolaños, remember, a month after the Twin Towers attacks. Here we remember that they said that those who flew the planes out of the Twin Towers had come from here, to instil fear and that then, if the People voted for the Sandinistas rather than Bolaños, the war was going to return and there would be terror again.
Not only that, the Gringo ambassador who was distributing food together with Bolaños out in the electoral campaign: Oliver Garza. He was the one walking around in the Texan hat with a mustache, whose name means a wading bird "Heron". That was their clean democracy, the democracy of Yankee interference, which cannot be allowed now. No foreign interference has any place here, we must leave that clear absolutely and constitutionally.
There it is, remember the election issues that were not taken into account. The struggle for the universities 6%, the struggle of the transport operators. This graphic is important for you who are academics but for all the People of Nicaragua. We are used to learning about the economic evolution of the countries in these points like the points of the GDP and all those things.
Here is the percentage of GDP as it was evolving every year. And, as you can see here, we took office in 2007, in the first year, our GDP went up to 5.1% after we received it at 4.1%. Then, in 2008 we started to go down and then there was a huge drop in 2009. This was the product of the real estate crisis in the United States, the bubble and our GDP went down.
Here we had achieved US$6,032 billion, that’s what 5.1% meant, that is to say, this is more for our GDP. Then, here, we went down here and lost US$4.2 billion. Then, in 2010, we went up again, in 2011, we went up again. In 2012, we went up a little bit more, and at this point we had achieved much better GDP than before. This 6.5% meant, in nominal values, another US$9,000 billion.
And so we went, so we progresses: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017. We maintained GDP growth which, when we average it out, gave us an average 5.1% GDP growth per year for 10 years. That was the result of the model of Dialogue, Alliance and Consensus. That is the result of dialogue between workers, employers and government.
That is to say, the businessmen made money, under that model the workers recovered an increased minimum wage, because it was reviewed every six months, and the country grew during these 10 years.
When the puppeteers realized that, they took hold of their puppets who were ready to sell out their nation and told them, "They can't be allowed to go on so successfully because they're going to take over. They're going to figure things out so their revolution will never fall."
And so in 2018 they made us their number one goal: they staged the coup, but they couldn't prevail. Their objective number two was to hit us economically: we lost US$34 billion dollars, among the lost income and losses from the destruction, US$34 billion dollars for a small country like ours.
That's the truth and in GDP alone we fell, losing US$6.26 billion. Equivalent to minus 3.4%, we started to recover, still losing, but by less, minus 2.9%.
In 2020, what happened? The pandemic hit us and that's where I want you to reflect on what an intelligent, brilliant decision, and what a thoughtful leader and what a disciplined collective we have that able to say, "We'll do what it takes here." Comandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario said, "We cannot lock ourselves down." And all the international organizations were telling us: "You have to lock yourselves down."
I remember how a person who is no longer here, who was the Panamerican Health Organization representative at that time, came to tell me to do health diplomacy. That I should sit down with the employers organization, to reach an agreement. But after the coup attempt those people made against us had given us, how was I going to sit down with them? For what? To please the representatives of these organizations who were telling us to lock ourselves down and that we had to lock ourselves down. I want to say that we get along very well with the current representatives, but those are the realities. And the Comandante said, "No," and we endured the worldwide avalanche, criticizing us for being were very irresponsible and all that.
After that, the Eta and Iota hurricanes fell on us, and this is the percentage of GDP that we grew in 2021: 10%. That 10% is equivalent to a growth of 17 billion cordobas in nominal values. That is to say, that is a reality of a correct political decision and its results.
Imagine if we had locked ourselves down here after all the structural damage we had suffered. The analysis was correct, put another way, I remember we said: "We are facing three pandemics: the coronavirus pandemic, the pandemic that caused the coup attempt, and the poverty pandemic, which is the worst."
And that was the decision: let's combat Poverty by working, not by closing ourselves off.
Let's overcome the pandemic of the coup plotters, which was what we started with, and then the one of the coronavirus. We have to get vaccinated and see what we get and what to do, and how we ensure coverage. Look, and after that we got even... But this graph, which has a percentage and has absolute profit values, has a brutal summary of the 18 years of government.
We started with a GDP of 136,950 million córdobas. In 2017, the GDP was 414.276 million córdobas and in 2025, last year, these are figures certified nationally and also by international organizations, we have a GDP of 814.420 million córdobas. That's the reality.
Now, someone may say: "We have always heard that, but what do they teach us all those dots and the graph." Do you know what the strength we have? The strength you and we have and when I say we, I mean those of us who are in all this together with us, Sandinista or not we are all patriots.
Here we have our Compañeros and Compañeras from the Executive Board. They have accompanied all these rules and all these laws. If you don’t know the strength we have, I’ll going to show you in the next picture. It’s not enough to just talk about all the billions that we deploy, people need to see it; that there are school lunches ensuring the nutritional balance for our children every year, monitoring their weight in all our schools.
You need to see that over the last eight years we now have the Vélez Paiz Hospital and that in addition, we have the Mauricio Abdalah hospital in Chinandega, the HEODRA in León, the remodeled Carlos Marx Hospital, the Sandino Hospital in Bilwi, the Heroes of Segovias Hospital in Ocotal, the Coro de Ángeles Pediatric Hospital in Estelí, the Jacinto Hernández Hospital in Nueva Guinea. We are building the Afro Hospital in Bluefields. We are also building the Lesbia Carrasquilla in the eastern Managua, which is going to be a copy of Leon’s HEODRA with 500 beds. That's the reality that people see and these real achievements for the President People. Here you have the Soberanía National Stadium, the Rigoberto López stadium in León, and the one in Masaya, there is the Stanley Cayasso stadium now being built. That's what we should be proud of, that's what we strive for.
Any economist can explain the rest to you, about where that money goes. Where is it? I want you all to see it here in the highway flyovers. I want you to see it in the new urban highways of the Heroes of the Insurrection. I want you to see it on the modern waterfronts. I want you to see it in the new highways to Bilwi, to Bluefields, in the big Wawa Boom Bridge, in The 5,000 kilometers of new roads in the country. These are realities, Compañeros and Compañeras.
Here you do not have to vacillate if someone comes along to you saying something contrary to what you know to be the case. That’s is the truth.
This is what we know and that is why we have to ensure that none of this is reversed. Because how can you go backwards now? Allowing them to start charging people for medical care in those hospitals that I mentioned to you and privatize them. How can we go back? That they stop giving food to our country’s children, that all those facilities no longer serve for the People’s recreation, that to be able to drive on our highways, people have to pay a toll.
Or that we now have 99.5% electric energy coverage. I mean, there are so many achievements here that we simply cannot back down.
Now let’s get started with the Reforms. As our Constitution’s Article 1 says, all those who attack Independence, Sovereignty, National Self-Determination, Security and Peace, which are our inalienable rights, if they attack that, they are considered traitors to the Nation. And if they say to us: "Oh, how barbaric you people are!". Not at all, it's like that everywhere in the world. That is Article 1 of the Constitution.
So, in the reforms, the first idea is “The defense of Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination”, and this means adding the following paragraph to Article 12, this article is the fundamental principle of international relations in the Constitution.
So, in its last paragraph this is what it is going to say. A last paragraph is added in Article 12 that will read:
The Political Constitution of the Republic of Nicaragua prohibits and therefore, does not allow the extraterritoriality of foreign laws. Only the application of treaties signed by the Nicaraguan State. No law, regulation or regulation issued by another State, group of States or international organization endangering the Independence, Sovereignty, National Self-Determination, Security and Peace of the Nicaraguan People and Nation shall have legal effect in the national territory.
The Constitution itself says such laws don't apply here. This is the first reform.
The second is: "They won't be able to." That's the Comandante's directive and the agreement I feel we all have here and will have later. Everyone can elect and be elected, everyone, except for those who will not be able to: the coup promoters, the traitors to the Nation, those who violate Article 1 of the Constitution and those who violate the Fundamental Principles of the Constitution.
So, that's where you come in, you who are students, professors, teachers, you live in a community. People are going to ask you: And is it true that there are no elections anymore? Yes, there will always be elections. And how are they going to be? Just as they have always been, they will be in your same school, with your same constituency, it will be with your same ID card, with your same 16 years of age.
All Nicaraguans, men, women, anyone over the age of 16 and with their ID card will be able to vote. And who will not be able to vote? The coup plotters, the traitors, those who violate Article 1, which is Independence, Autonomy and the Fundamental Principles of the Revolution.
People think it's abstract, no, it's concrete: violation of Article 1. Anyone who incites and promotes foreign interference. So you have your students, you must tell them: you cannot go around inciting foreign interference, you cannot go around calling for military intervention, you cannot go around applauding sanctions, you cannot go around applauding economic blockades.
Because sometimes there is a distressing interconnection between action, consciousness and a cell phone. And there are people who don't understand what they are posting, but they still post it. "Oh, I wish they'd come to set us free." They don't realize what they are doing. That's a reality.
"Stability". One of the little words in the beginning means a stable period of time. Seven years is a good time for medium-term and even long-term projects for them to be seen by the People, because it is they who vote. Elections mean that the People say whether they agree or disagree. So, in seven years you can see the development of a project. Many of the things I have been talking about were done in less than seven years.
So, the established period of the Constitution for elected office is going to be seven years. For the positions of appointment by the Presidency, seven years. Those who are ratified by the Assembly or elected by the Assembly, seven years.
This will be the fourth reform: "Cohesion and Security". Also the Army Leadership and the Police Leadership, seven years, currently the period is six. Then, by mere right, the law of each of these institutions is changed and the period increased to seven years. That gives cohesion and gives security.
Then "Guarantee of Electoral Democracy". The body that guarantees electoral Democracy is the Supreme Electoral Council. The Supreme Electoral Council of Nicaragua, composed of Nicaraguans, with Compañera Brenda Rocha at the head, as President of the Electoral Council. For whom? For Nicaraguans.
So, that Council has to have the powers it needs to fulfill what we are mandating. And so it has to have the powers to convene elections every seven years and the powers to enforce the points explained here of "They won't be able to," which we were talking about.
So, the Council has to be able to say: "Look, this political party is being financed from abroad. We can't inscribe it. We can’t give it legal personality." And this other party that is already formed, we will cancel its legal personality if they are receiving money from outside or if its candidates receive money from outside. We have to protect ourselves, we have already seen why, which is all that history that I have recounted to you.
We refer as "Pax" to one of the reforms to remind us of Rubén Darío's poem, so we don't forget Rubén and remember that the inauguration is going to be on January 18th, just so we're clear.
And the last reform is called "Coherence". That is to say, we approve the reforms that give seven years for elections, everything we have already seen. But that all has to be consistent, the reality has to adapt to these new rules.
And the reality says that right now people are elected for six years. So, you have to articulate a transitional reform into the law confirming that everyone elected in the last national, municipal and regional elections has their period extended from six to seven years so that it is all coherent, so that there is consistency. The same applies to the periods of appointments by the Presidency, which are quite a few, and are also extended to seven years. And in all national legislation, wherever it says six, wherever there is a stipulated time, it will read seven years for the civil service.
Well, Compañeras and Compañeros, I thank you for listening to me. Your participation is important, for however long it takes.
So we give you the floor, both here and via the online connections we have.
Compañera Dania Hernández,
Rector of Casimiro Sotelo National University:
Good afternoon, Compañeros and Compañeras of the Special Commission, to the entire university community of our country whom we are meeting both in person and virtually in different spaces.
We are as a university community: the Pueblo Presidente Universities, the private universities, our students, teachers and administrative staff.
From the Casimiro Sotelo Montenegro National University and on behalf of the university I represent, we strongly support these constitutional reforms, because we know that they are the way to strengthen the Peace and Security, the Free and Quality Education which we have today at all educational levels. And this is what Comandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario also guarantee us. They, at every moment, have told us: it is the People who are the President, and we, under that principle of Sovereignty, are making our way and we support these reforms.
Thank you very much.
Juan Carlos Benavides M.A.,
Rector Francisco Luis Espinosa National University (UNFLEP):
Good afternoon, beloved Doctor Porras, President of the Assembly, honorable Members of the Executive Board, beloved Members of the Special Committee of the Assembly, Compañeras and Compañeros of the Commission for Attention to Universities, honorable Deputies of the National Assembly, Compañeros and Compañeras of all the Pueblo Presidente universities and private universities of our country, receive a fraternal and revolutionary greeting from the UNFLEP of Estelí.
Many thanks to Dr. Porras for that excellent presentation which has made us more aware of our historical struggles for Freedom, as well better able to understand more clearly the scope and significance of this proposal to Reform our Constitution.
That is why then, from the UNFLEP university community, we express our firm and total support for this Reform which strengthens the Stability, Security, Peace, Sovereignty and Self-Determination of our country, creating conditions to continue developing policies, programs and strategies aimed at improving the well-being of Nicaraguan families.
And we especially appreciate that this process strengthens the right to that free and quality education allowing us to continue consolidating the educational model whereby we train professionals with identity, with patriotic pride, with love for Nicaragua and with commitment to its People.
As a Pueblo Presidente University, we reaffirm our support for this Reform and commitment to continue working from higher education for a Sovereign Nicaragua, in Peace and with more opportunities for our People.
Thank you very much.
Douglas Lara, President,
National Union of Students of Nicaragua (UNEN):
Good afternoon, beloved Compañeros, Compañeras, university community, Compañeros and Compañeras of the National Assembly. From our centenary Student Movement, the National Union of Students of Nicaragua, UNEN, we offer our total support with all certainty and forcefulness for these Reforms to the Political Constitution of Nicaragua, which come to reinforce the Self-determination, Peace, Security and Sovereignty of our beloved Nicaragua.
Which also allows us to continue advancing in our national project that is consolidated every day via accessible education for all our students, our Nicaraguan Youth.
Likewise, we reaffirm our commitment to continue defending Peace and Tranquility from the classroom, from each student leader who makes the daily visit to our classroom.
With Comandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario, the students too are President.
The future of our Patriotic Nation is in our hands.
Thank you very much, Compañeros and Compañeras.
Compañera Ana Cecilia Chévez,
Rector of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, UNAN-León:
Good afternoon, Dr. Gustavo Porras, to the Members of the National Assembly, to the Compañeras and Compañeros who are presiding over this activity, to the university community of the Pueblo Presidente Universities and of the private universities.
This afternoon, we, as a United Community, want to thank our Government of Reconciliation and National Unity for the opportunity they are giving us to participate in this broad, inclusive and participatory consultation on the Reform of the Constitution.
This allows us to consolidate our knowledge and, above all, to take ownership of the changes that are being proposed to be made. This allows us, as a university community, to be able to visualize the works of progress, the new history that our model of government is making for our People, particularly our new educational history, while also allowing us to guarantee Peace, Stability and Security.
In that sense, and for that reason, the entire university community of UNAN-León, gathered in this historic Ruiz Ayesta Auditorium and in four other points where we are connected, we give our total and firm support to these Proposals for Reforming the Constitution.
Thank you very much.
Compañera Hector Lacayo,
Rector of the UNICIT:
Good afternoon to all those present, authorities of the National Assembly, Deputies, Members of the Consultation Commission on the Partial Reform of the Political Constitution of Nicaragua.
On behalf of the higher education sector and the Ibero-American University of Science and Technology, UNICIT, we express our firm support for the process of Partial Reform to the Political Constitution of Nicaragua for the strengthening of the institutional framework, corresponding to the social, economic, educational and cultural development of our country.
From the higher education institutions we reaffirm our commitment to this process of Transformation, Sovereignty and Self-Determination, convinced that the Reform constitutes an opportunity to continue consolidating the ecosystem of research, innovation, entrepreneurship, networking and knowledge generation, according to the country's priorities for relevant and quality higher education.
We recognize the importance of these processes being developed through consultation with the participation of different sectors of society, allowing the incorporation of the experiences, contributions and perspectives of the institutions which, from their different fields, contribute to the development of Nicaragua.
Compañero Alex Vicente Ruiz,
Director of Quality for Anunciata University:
From the Anunciata University, of formation as an educational institution, as an institution of higher education, to ground the dream of the civic ethical principle and social responsibility, we offer our firm support for democratic processes to strengthen the institutional framework of our nation and, in this context, we positively value the initiative of Partial Reform Law to the Political Constitution of the Republic of Nicaragua, seen as a transcendental step for the consolidation of Sovereignty, National Security and Peace.
From our formative vision, we understand that constitutional law is a living tool that should provide Peace with the country's need for development. This reform proposal offers a fundamental opportunity to consolidate a political framework guaranteeing political stability and Democracy.
As we have said, Peace is conducive to investment, innovation and sustainable growth. Our university community has analyzed with academic rigor the legislative changes and their impact on society, we reaffirm our commitment to the training of integral professionals, with high social sensitivity and a deep Patriotic Love.
From our classrooms we will continue to promote constructive debate, scientific research and active environmental participation for the progress of education of all Nicaraguans.
Thank you very much.
Companion Seila Eleana Murillo Picado,
President UNEN- BICU Bluefields:
A very good afternoon, Doctor Porras, to your team working on the Partial Reform of the Constitution, we thank you and the Commission.
Good afternoon, Pueblo Presidente Universities, private universities and special guests who are joining us today.
Today, from the university Youth, we participate with responsibility in this historical moment of our Nicaragua. The Constitutional Reform represents a process of great importance for our nation and, as young people, we cannot be spectators, we must be informed, participate and contribute from our various spaces.
Our generation is committed to continuing to build a Nicaragua where the rights, opportunities and prominence of youth have a fundamental place.
From the student movement of the Caribbean Coast, City of Bluefields, Nicaragua, we reaffirm our will to continue participating with Responsibility, Commitment and Love for our Patriotic Nation, accompanying the processes that mark the present and the future of our Nicaragua.
As organized Youth, we recognize the great Processes of Transformation of our nation which require the Commitment, Unity and active Participation of the new generations.
From our People President Universities and from our Caribbean Coast, we take on the duty to contribute to a Sovereign, Dignified Nicaragua with greater opportunities for families and for our Youth.
Today we reaffirm that students are not on the margins of history, we are part of it and we have the responsibility to defend our rights, strengthen our spaces for participation and take advantage of the construction of the country we want for our future generations.
Because the University Youth has the voice, has the capacity and has the Responsibility to be the Protagonist of this History.
Thank you very much.
Compañero Marcela Galán,
Rector from the National University of Engineering:
Good afternoon, Compañeras and Compañeros,. Marcela Galán, on behalf of the university community of the National University of Engineering, of which we are more than 21,000 members, I have the privilege this afternoon to be able to transmit a message of support, but also a message of celebration of a historic process in which we are once again protagonists of this Process of Social Transformation.
As Compañero Porras already mentioned, it has been a historic struggle for a Sovereignty that has been necessary for us and of which we are privileged to inherit today. Today there are more than 200,000 of us who make up the university higher education community. A few days ago we were celebrating the 46th anniversary of the Great National Literacy Crusade that gave us the basic bread of knowledge.
Today, what a thrill it gives us and with what privilege and pride it fills our throats to say that we are more than 200,000 in higher education! And at the age of 46 we have been able to announce a 2027 educational offer in which more than 70,000 students will be protagonists of their own history, of their own construction. 70,000 that represents not only a statistic, but represents families, represents communities.
And how can we not, as higher education, commit ourselves to a political project, not just a legal document that will guarantee us Sovereignty, that will guarantee us stability, that will continue to guarantee us Peace.
How can we not support, how can we not celebrate this initiative that, secure as we are in higher education and as militants of the Sandinista Front, as the educators that we are, we know that there is no Sovereignty if there is no Peace, there is no Sovereignty if there is no education, there is no Sovereignty if there is no commitment.
And today we have the privilege with the Compañeras and Compañeros who are present and with the Compañeras and Compañeros who are accompanying us on line, to be able to transmit that message of support, that firm commitment to continue defending this political project from our classrooms, from our different spaces, from the different territories in which we are present.
So, on behalf of the entire team of the National University of Engineering, we reiterate as a People President University, daughter of the Revolution, that we are with this political project and not one step back.
Thank you very much.
Compañera Michell Rivas,
Rector of the UNICA:
My name is Michelle Rivas, Rector of the Cardenal Miguel Obando y Bravo University, a Hero of Peace and Reconciliation in Nicaragua.
We, at UNICA, give full support to the Reforms that are being made in the Constitution, because we, as higher education institutions, have to educate for Peace. And what better way than to do so than with these Reforms, whereby we are going to defend our Sovereignty and work for that Peace that we so need.
There is no development if there is no education. There is no education if there is no true Peace. So, on behalf of UNICA, our full support.
Thank you very much.
Maestro Noel Zelaya,
Rector of the UNIJAR:
Good afternoon. Beloved Executive Board members presiding over this great event.
From the educational community of UNIJAR, we firmly support these Consultation Processes and we are sure that we are walking towards that Peace which we long for so much to have Stability, economic development.
And we know that education is one of the fundamental pillars for the development of the whole country.
Thank you and may we all continue to work for authentic Nicaraguan processes.
Thank you very much.
Compañero Mario Valle Dávila,
Rector of the UDM:
A very good afternoon. As Dr. Porras mentioned, I would like to refer in particular to the education sector in this Reform.
This sector, unfortunately, was badly hurt in the neoliberal periods. We are all clear that education had been privatized in this country. INATEC was a business, it was not the INATEC we know today.
Comandante Ortega's first decree in 2007 was to restore the right to education, enshrined in the Constitution. The neoliberals were not going to forgive that, and they demonstrated this in their coup attempts. We all know, without needing to go too far, how this center was violated, how the UNAN was violated, how the UPOLI was destroyed, how the INATEC of León was destroyed.
Anyone who attacks the educational system has no right to be a Nicaraguan.
It's that simple.
I believe in self-determination and we are ready to support it all the way with the education system.
Thank you very much.
National Guild of University Teachers:
Well, we, as Nicaraguan university professors, fully support the Constitutional Reforms because they strengthen the Peace, Stability and Security of Nicaragua and ensure a future of prosperity with social justice.
Because it has been the Peace built in the last 19 years that has led us to all those achievements that Dr. Gustavo Porras presented to us. We have to continue consolidating the fight against Poverty so that we can also further strengthen the right to Education, which is growing every year.
Health care has been strengthened, all social and economic areas have been strengthened so as to continue consolidating this path of fighting Poverty and ensuring greater human development for all Nicaraguans of present and future generations.
We need to have a Constitution, institutions and laws that protect us, that shield us for that Peace, for the full Democracy of the People and for National Sovereignty.
Therefore, we support and will continue to strive so that there will always be Peace, Sovereignty and Stability in Nicaragua for the benefit of the Nicaraguan people.
Thank you very much.