Stephen Sefton, September 13, 2026
Nicaragua celebrates the anniversary this week of Central American independence reinforced by its permanent, tenacious defense of national sovereignty and by the great victories of the People President's human development made possible by the Sandinista Popular Revolution. Internally, Nicaragua has demonstrated that revolutionary democratization, focused on the human person and Nicaragua’s families, guarantees better quality economic growth and greater social stability than the mediocre dogma of neoliberalism prevalent in the governments of the rest of the region. In its foreign policy, respectful and sensitive attention to the interests of other countries has allowed Nicaragua to develop a healthy interdependence at a regional level and mutually beneficial relations with other countries around the world.
A new world order
This September, the summits of the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS+ took place. In both summits China, India, Iran and Russia took part along with the different member and associate countries. With almost all of them, Nicaragua maintains good relations, better at the current juncture than with many countries in Latin America itself. As our Comandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario observed at the end of 2023 “The world has already changed, and continues to change, towards ndispensable multipolarity, which is the only just, beneficial, auspicious, creator of more Light, Suns, and much deserved Well-being, via the unshakable conviction of real and liberating Independence.”
In that regard, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin said in an interview in March 2024 "...for 500 years these elites of the so-called “Golden Billion” countries... destroyed the peoples of Africa, exploited Latin America, exploited the countries of Asia. Of course, no one has forgotten. I have the feeling that it is not about the leaders of these countries, although they are very important, but the citizens of these countries feel with their hearts what is happening, they relate our struggle for Independence and true Sovereignty with their aspirations for their own sovereign and independent development."
Thus, President Putin confirms that, even for a country as powerful as Russia, the endless aggression against the majority world by Western countries represents a struggle for independence and true sovereignty. For the same reason, our Comandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario insist on the reality of the struggle for definitive independence, for example when Comandante Daniel observed in relation to Central America’s Independence in 1821 at the XIX ALBA-TCP Summit in June 2021, “That was our first independence, from then on we would have to fight, as we are fighting, for our second and definitive independence. That historic step was taken by Cuba, and then other peoples advanced on the same path, liberating themselves just like Cuba, with the strength of ideas, reason and arms.”
True independence
And a few days later, that same year, Compañera Rosario affirmed how Nicaraguan families are "on the road to our definitive independence, with great Pride and with much Love, Love for Nicaragua, seeing these roads that we are traveling, admired by everyone, because one admires oneself the capacity, the strength that God gives to our families. With that capacity and that strength we are blessed, and we prosper, and we are heading for more victories." Five years later, no one can deny the tremendous social and economic victories achieved by the People President of Nicaragua in all fields of national life.
Also in 2021, a few weeks before the national elections of that year, the president of our National Assembly, Dr. Gustavo Porras commented, “We are in a process that is going to lead us to our definitive independence; it is the second independence, the definitive independence: Cultural Independence, Economic Independence, Political Independence. No one has any reason to intercede or interfere in the internal affairs of Nicaraguans, and that is what we are demonstrating. But also, we are doing so with the great example of how our model serves everyone, a model fundamentally for the impoverished, but in the end a model for everyone.”
So it is evident that the reforms to the Constitution this year, strengthening national independence and sovereignty against constant foreign interference, are another stage of a profound national political process in development since the failed coup attempt of 2018. The new reforms raise the meaning of Law 1055 of 2020, the Law on the Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace, to constitutional rank. This year the Patriotic Holidays coincide with another stage of the deepening of the People President model with events in the country’s department’s as part of the exhaustive national consultations on the reforms.
Unity
This process assumes even greater importance in the current context of Latin America and the Caribbean, where regional unity has been categorically fractured through rigged elections, military aggression, tariff attacks, among other economic aggression, and the sadistic genocidal blockade against Cuba. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel recalled in 2018 at the XVI Alba-TCP Summit the words of Comandante Fidel Castro in Cartagena de Indias in October 1995, “We are not mere spectators. This world is also our world. No one can replace our united action, no one will take the floor to speak for us. Only we, and only united, can reject the unjust world political and economic order that is intended to be imposed on our peoples.”
In a 2024 article “Unity is the Path to True Independence,” compañero Juan Carlos Ortega observed that, “One can be an independent nation and still remain under the domination of an external power, whether in the political, ideological, economic, cultural fields... Although the use of force is common by imperialists and colonialists to impose themselves on the world’s peoples, most of the time subjugation is due to the sell out role the local political and economic class can play when they decide to submit to those foreign powers to serve foreign interests, in exchange for ensuring that they remain in power.”
The essential importance of national and regional unity is a central theme of Sandinista thought. Xavier Díaz-Lacayo Ugarte explained at the end of last year, how Sandino adressed this issue in his Plan for the Realization of Bolívar's Supreme Dream of 1929, that “The independence of a Latin American country is intrinsically linked to the independence of all; the Monroe Doctrine should be abolished; and sovereignty should be defended through the political, military and moral unity of Latin America. Sandino introduces an idea central to modern Latin American political thought: Self-determination is not limited to territorial independence, but includes economic, cultural and strategic sovereignty...".
The Central American paradox
It is precisely the successful commitment to true independence in all its aspects by our Co-Presidents Good Government which has overcome the limits the empire and its allies have tried to impose through their extraterritorial laws, their unilateral coercive measures, their relentless diplomatic offensive and their shameless psychological warfare. In Central America, Nicaragua enjoys regional pre-eminence in virtually all areas of human development. The Central American paradox is that it is precisely the commitment of the revolutionary government of the Sandinista Front to a new world order which contributes most to the stability of a region that in general submits to the outdated, sterile, corrupt, anti-democratic domination of the criminal North American elites.
Nicaragua has the best economic performance, the highest level of gender equality, the best public health system, the most innovative education system, the most extensive high-quality vocational technical education, the best roads, the best citizen security, the most advanced disaster prevention and mitigation system, the most extensive and modern sports infrastructure, the best agricultural health protection system and the most successful security policy against drug trafficking and organized crime. The country’s unquestionable pre-eminence at the regional level is due to the consolidation of social and economic democratization by the Sandinista Popular Revolution, the integrity and high performance of its civil administration, the strength of its institutions and the demonstrated subtlety of its international relations.
Nicaragua is the country in the region which most defends the high ideals of the United Nations Charter and international law which Western countries have systematically and cynically betrayed since the founding of the UN more than 80 years ago. Nicaragua is the Central American country most in tune with the new world order led by China, India and Russia, which aims to vindicate an international governance system based on the original principles of the UN: equality among nations, non-intervention, self-determination, non-aggression and solidarity based cooperation among peoples. For this reason, Nicaragua is the Central American country that has managed to develop the best relations with the main countries of the SCO and the BRICS+ group, especially China and Russia.
Popular feeling towards the future
For this very reason and with a vision for the future Nicaragua’s youth movement applauds the constitutional reforms in every one of the popular consultations currently highlighting the true meaning of the Patriotic Holidays. As President Putin explained when he said "The citizens of these countries feel with their hearts what is happening, they relate our struggle for our Independence and true Sovereignty with their aspirations for their own sovereignty and independent Development." The extraordinary convergence between the aspirations of the peoples and the struggle for independence is categorically true. Proof of this have been the recent consultation meetings with the People President's Youth on the Constitutional Reform.
In the recent consultation in Estelí, compañera Judith Huete explained“ "We support the Reform because we want to continue living in peace, enjoying the restitution of rights. Today, as young people from rural areas, we have programs such as the Rural University program, the Rural Art Schools program, the Technical School program in rural areas, the Productive Vocation program, things that we didn't have before, but in which today we are protagonists. Youth in rural areas support this Reform, because we want to continue to be protagonists.”
At the same meeting, another Sandinista Youth compañero, Gersán Vindell, declared that, "Today young people walk in the light of prosperity, with every one of our rights restored, from a full constitutional 6% for universities, from the cash bonus high school graduates receive, and schoolchildren too, free school meals; the right to sport recreation, the right to culture in its maximum expression.”
And compañera Katherin Salguera affirmed “These young people steadfastly reaffirm this process of electoral reform, a process which will guarantee us free, sovereign and independent elections, as our country’s Youth deserves... because this Youth who are on the sports fields, who are in the Technical Vocational Schools, who are in the Culture Centers, who are in the Universities, deserve to have their Rights protected. As our heroes and martyrs dreamed and as our Comandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario are making possible today, we are on the road to human development, because we are on the right side of the Revolution.”