President Comandante Daniel and Vice President Rosario
hand over buses from the People’s Republic of China
to transport cooperatives in Managua and Ciudad Sandino
October 13th 2023
Address by Daniel
Good evening, brothers and sisters of the transport cooperatives; good evening, Nicaraguan brothers and sisters, Nicaraguan Families.
Our greetings first of all to the President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, Compañero, Comrade, leader of that Great Nation and in a practically record time... because, historically, we had relations with the People's Republic of China ever since we were fighting against the tyranny of Somoza.
When we came to the Government, with the Triumph of the Revolution, those who were here as representatives of China were from a province of China. Taiwan is a province of China, Taiwan is not a Republic, it is not a State, it is simply a province of China, and that is recognized at the global level, approved at the United Nations. We opened relations with the People's Republic of China, logically, after the Triumph of the Revolution.
Then came the government of the rich, of the capitalists, of the sellouts, and they cut relations with the People's Republic of China and reestablished relations with the Province of Taiwan.
17 years have passed and they were years of struggle, it is true that we were not in government, that in 1990 we lost the Government, but we did not lose the Power of the People, the Power of the Workers, the Power of the Transport Cooperatives, the Power of the Peasants. And we gave battle.
And with the Peasants defending their Right to Land so that it would not be taken from them; with the Families who were being evicted from the homes that the Revolution had given them; with the Worker owned businesses, with the Transport cooperatives, because they wanted to take away from the Transport cooperatives their acquired Rights. And there were battles in the streets, I remember it very well, the way you knew how to defend the Rights of the People, the Rights of the Transport cooperatives.
Then we resumed the Government and naturally we have established formal relations with the People's Republic of China. I say formal relations, because from the political and ideological point of view we have always maintained relations with the Chinese Communist Party, with the People's Republic of China; in the periods that we were out of government, delegations of Sandinista brothers and sisters, including Comandante Borge, traveled to China to exchange, to learn from their experience, from the development of the People's Republic of China and to make known the struggles that we were waging here in this region.
Precisely since December 10th 2021 we formalized relations, reestablished relations, and these relations were signed in Tianjin, Laureano was there, our brother Ivan Acosta was there, Payo too. And there Ivan and Laureano signed the opening of relations, which have been progressing rapidly.
Exactly 22 months ago it was signed, Relations get signed and then usually a lot of time is spent before being able to start seeing projects for this and that. Instead here it has been a relationship that has gone with giant steps, crying “Onward!”
You have followed how constantly the trips of delegations from Nicaragua to the People's Republic of China, trips of delegations from the People's Republic of China to Nicaragua, and they do not come or go there for a stroll, but they come and go to work, to develop multiple Programs, multiple Projects that are already on the way, and in a record time we now have 250 buses from the People's Republic of China here already... In record time!
We tell the brothers and sisters who are with us from the People's Republic of China, Santi Zhou Qing, who is someone from the company and who will have a lot of work with you there. And I can tell you something else, that these are not the only buses from the People's Republic of China that will be entering Nicaragua, more will come, more will arrive and more will come, because that is the will of the government of the People's Republic of China, of the President, and of our People as well... There will be more to come!
There are also other Yutong Representatives: Li Yufang, After-sales Director; Jose Yang Zhan, After-Sales Manager; Miguel Lu Yuan, Commercial Manager; Li Jiahao, After-Sales Manager; Zhang Linjia, Training Teacher; Guo Zeng, Technician, and Ma Qiang, Technician. So there you have the Team that is going to be directly related to you, beloved brother and sister transport workers.
Joining us at this historic event are Compañero Zhou Yi, Chargé d'affaires of the People's Republic of China; Compañero Liu Enze, Third Secretary of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Nicaragua; Compañero Ariel Meng Delong, representative of the Yutong Company.
We have here a colleague representing the transport sector, Compañera Ileana del Socorro Pérez Jarquín... Women in Power! Our colleague Danilo Sánchez, President of URECOOTRACO. Well, and you who are the basis on which transport is based, its activities serving the population.
Without you there is no transport, without you there are no drivers, without you there is no service, and you are who you are, I don’t see there any capitalist faces among you, nor do I see there the names of any of those capitalists who used to monopolize transport under the Somoza tyranny. You are the People, because you come from the People. You are the People-President!
This is an emblematic date in the history of the Sandinista Popular Revolution... October 13th! October 13th marked a leap forward in the struggle that the Nicaraguan people had been waging against the tyranny imposed by Yankee imperialism here in Nicaragua.
How many battles! How many guerrilla movements! How many Heroes! How Many Martyrs! Thousands and thousands of Heroes and Martyrs, from those who resisted, faced and defeated the colonialists when they invaded Nicaragua, Diriangén, Nicarao, to those who defeated the Yankees who wanted to take over Nicaragua and Central America by appointing William Walker, President of Nicaragua. And there came the hand of the People, the hand of the Workers, the hand of the Humble, with a stone knocking down the Yankee invader, Andrés Castro! And the Yankees were defeated.
Then, the Liberal Revolution led by General José Santos Zelaya, which removed all the bonds limiting Nicaragua’s People when they were dominated by Conservative governments, whereby if someone who was not a Catholic, apostolic and Christian they could not even be buried in a cemetery. A total aberration! Zelaya did away with that.
Christ never said that those who did not think like Him should not be buried; but then those who dominated the Catholic Church were those who had betrayed Christ and were determined to make alliances, agreements with Conservative governments, Conservative governments completely beholden to the Yankee Empire.
But Zelaya managed to make revolutionary changes and that caused his overthrow, the Yankees overthrew him. And with the overthrow of Zelaya came the Yankee troops, and in front of the Yankee troops a General and lawyer, a General of the Zelaya Government who had served in different spheres, rebelled and took up arms against the Yankee invaders: General Benjamin Zeledon.
General Benjamin Zeledon gave battle against thousands of Yankee soldiers accompanied by the traitorous sellouts. And in the month of October they surrounded Zeledón on Coyotepe Hill, and Yankee emissaries arrived there to tell Zeledón to surrender, that they were going to spare his life, that he should realize that the potential of weapons they had were a thousand times more powerful than those Zeledón had.
And Zeledón said: I have dignity, I have a nation and I prefer to give my life rather than surrender; and on October 4, 1912, the same day he was born, his birthday, he gave his life for Nicaragua in combat against the invaders.
But his blood was not shed in vain because there was a people here who were outraged by the Yankee invasion, and there was a boy there in Niquinohomo, Sandino, who saw how they dragged Zeledón all over the place so as to terrorize the Nicaraguans, and what that did was to inspire Sandino's courage, to inspire that courage we all bring from Diriangén.
That is the origin of the rebellion of our People in defense of Justice, Sovereignty, Peace, the Nation is, we are the children of those Heroes who faced the colonizers.
And Sandino started to give the battle and the Yankees thought that they would liquidate him or that they could make him surrender, but he did not surrender, nor did he sell out. And this is what he told them when they suggested that he capitulate: I am not selling out, nor am I giving up, ever! In the end then, the Yankees had no choice but to retire defeated.
Sandino, beloved brothers and sisters, defeated the Yankee troops here in our Nation. Then, as we know, came a Peace Process, Sandino participated, came to Managua, and then the cowardly murder, after Somoza embraced with him, after the President invited him to a dinner at the Presidency.
When Sandino comes out of the presidential dinner, they are captured and murdered. But Sandino lived on, as well as Diriangén, as well as Andrés Castro, as well as Zeledón, Sandino stayed in the heart and blood of the Nicaraguan people.
And a tyranny imposed by the Yankees was established, and the battle was prolonged, and the idea at that time, among those who preceded us in those battles, our brothers and sisters who gave their lives, was to fight the battle from the mountains, but there were no conditions to be able to give the battle from the mountains.
Then, when the Sandinista Front was already being formed, it was thought that the battle had to be fought from the mountain... Consider that carefully! Why? Because there were other revolutionary experiences in other regions of the World where an Army was being formed in the mountains, even the experience of Cuba was fresh where Fidel disembarked and they went to the mountains and in the mountains they organized the rebel army, formed columns, then those columns went on to take the cities, until the overthrow of the tyranny of Batista takes place.
Then, it was thought that was what had to be done here in Nicaragua too, and I would say, we were all involved in that logic, up until Pancasán was the period when we were involved in that logic, until 1967, when in Pancasán we were establishing a guerrilla base in the center of the country, a populated area, many peasants, there were many people willing to give the battle.
But the people were watching, observed, saw, thought, sympathized, and they even imagined that the guerrilla columns of the Sandinista Front were defeating the National Guard, but the Guard did not give time. In other words, Pancasan was the hardest blow the Frente suffered at that stage.
After that stage the internal debate then started, and in the internal debate there was a division. All with good intentions, some compañeros and compañeras thought it was necessary to go to form the People's Army to the mountains and then come down to liberate the cities. And they went there and were trapped in the mountains.
Other compañeros and compañeras thought that it was necessary first to form the Party, a Party, and that after forming the Party then to move on to another stage of struggle. Well, it was their concept, they believed that the Party had to come first, but they did not understand that the Party had already been born. It was born with Diriangén, it was born with Andrés Castro, it was born with Zeledón, it was born with Sandino. It was already born. The Sandinista Front was the Party that had already been born, that embodied all the battles, all the struggles and rebellions of our People.
Furthermore, with Carlos we talked about that we had to move to a type of struggle, where the People did not continue to see the Front as something out there, heroic, giving battle, fighting, imagining that the Front was winning battles that it did not win. In other words, the People were like an observer, collaborating in the cities, collaborating in the countryside too, but they were not subjects of the struggle.
And we said, we have to go to the Insurrection, by going to the Insurrection such that the People were going to become their own Liberator, they were not going to wait to be liberated, rather the People were going to be a Combatant who is going to fight. What did this mean?
It meant making the decision to leave the mountain, form combat units and launch ourselves to take the Somoza National Guard barracks, and taking the barracks so as to then have compañeros and compañeras trained in the handling of weapons, so that by taking the barracks they would also take the weapons of the National Guard and the People's Army would grow in that way, but by then a People's Army formed by the People, not an army there giving battle in difficult conditions.
That explains the significance of this day, because for this day, October 13th 46 years ago today, we had already planned the takeover of various barracks, something that seemed crazy. And the compañeros and compañeras of the other Tendencies condemned us, they did not understand, they said it was madness, that it was adventurism, that the enemy would tear us apart; but we decided to go forward with the seizure of Barracks, to arm the People from there and then with the People move on to other cities.
And there, on October 13th we began the fighting near Ocotal in that Department, and we set the first ambushes for the Somoza Guard. The objective was to get to the barracks and take over the barracks, but for different reasons it was not possible, because the Guard managed to be warned and they began to advance along the highway.
What we did was to occupy the mountain range there and wait for them, to ambush them, and the fighting began there. There were more than 100 soldiers of the Somoza Guard, well armed, but by then we had armament far superior to what we had earlier.
We were with extraordinary combatants, such as Francisco Rivera "El Zorro", an extraordinary combatant who took over Esteli three times. The first two times Estelí was taken, he had to retreat, and he retreated with hundreds of people, families and they managed to circumvent the Guard's blockade and then he tried again, until the third time when Estelí was taken. And it was the People doing the fighting.
And there on the Northern “Carlos Fonseca” Front that was constituted in the mountains around Dipilto and Jalapa, there we began to fight and to hit and to strike and strike again
For the first time in the history of the Frente Sandinista, we were attacking military barracks, taking over barracks, recovering weapons and incorporating more compañeros and compañeras into combat with those weapons, managing to hit the command centers the National Guard had throughout that area, also taking the villages and holding meetings with the villagers to explain to them what the strategy was now: That now not to wait for the Frente to liberate you, you are the Frente, you are the Combatants and we are all going to liberate ourselves...
Then, the Northern Front became a great school forging the cadres, already with that new strategy and tactics of a war of insurrectionary struggle.
Then what did we do? Well, ”El Zorro", Francisco Rivera iwent to Estelí to organize what we could organize there. And “El Danto” who was there with us, a Comandante, that Heroic Comandante went to Jinotega where he fought and finally fell in combat, but Jinotega was set free.
And other compañeros and compañeras are going to Managua, and other compañeros and compañeras to Masaya. That is to say, the cadres who got ready there and saw that way of battle was effective and how the People wanted weapons and wanted to fight too, but we were short of weapons, so they went to all the Departments and there the insurrectional struggle was being organized more and more.
After this October Insurrection when the San Carlos Barracks fell, the first time the Frente Sandinista took a National Guard Barracks in an area that was very fortified because it was a border area; then, the forces multiplied and the People took part, and every time the Frente entered to hit a miltiary barracks, people came out into the streets to join, to support us in whatever way they could, providing water, food, to the fighters who were assaulting the barracks.
And it seemed that it was still madness, that it was suicide, but no, it was practice for insurrection practice where the People were taking part, and that's why this is the strength of this Revolution, because this Revolution had thousands and thousands and thousands of fighters who made it possible for all the Departments of our Country to be liberated. It was the People liberating the People, until the definitive Victory on July 19th 1979.
That is why this date is of great importance, of enormous significance, and on this day, paying tribute to the Heroes of October, paying tribute to those who died in combat and those who died then from diseases, other compañeros and compañeras who died from illness after being great combatants, after this journey that we made until reaching the October Insurrection, which was the definitive step...
Note that October was in 1977, and the Frente had been fighting according to the previous strategy since 1961, 71; that is, a good number of years already fighting and every time we were beaten, every guerrilla attempt in the mountains we were beaten, and with the strategy of insurrection we set out to fight on October 13th 1977, to October of 1978, one year, and to July of '79, a year and a few months, the Victory.
That is to say, the Frente was gaining strength and that explains the resistance of this People, the courage of this People, how we have managed to defeat conspiracies, coup attempts, there are no cowards here in Nicaragua, no one who surrenders, or sells out.
On behalf of all the Heroes who throughout history have given their lives in different ways, defending and fighting for the Freedom of Nicaragua, Extraordinary Heroes like Rigoberto López Pérez, on behalf of them, beloved Nicaraguan brothers and sisters, thanks to them we managed to achieve Victory and achieving Victory, despite the 17 years we had outside the Government, but we were never out of Power.
Because Power continued in the People, it was accumulated in the People, which now Honors all the Heroes, from Diriangén to Carlos Fonseca, Tomás, and all the brothers and sisters who have died later in different circumstances, with the miracle taking place that Nicaragua, a tiny country, with a tiny territory, with a tiny population, establishes relations with a gigantic Power such as the People's Republic of China, which treats us with respect, setting no conditions to us and they have not been invading the World, as the capitalist Powers have been invading it.
That is why, in Tribute to all the Heroes and on this historic date of October 13th we are handing over to the People of Nicaragua these buses that come from the Sister People's Republic of China.
Long live the Friendship and Brotherhood between China and Nicaragua!
Sandino Lives, the Struggle Continues!
A Free Nation or Death!
Remarks by Compañera Rosario, Vice President of Nicaragua